Oxford University Press's
Academic Insights for the Thinking World

Mustang – Podictionary Word of the Day

Around 500 years ago the Spanish brought horses to the Americas and in the ensuing mêlée enough of those horses escaped captivity that they reestablished themselves as wild animals in the new world. Evidently more than 50 million years ago they evolved here but had become extinct. Although the name for wild horses in North America only emerged into English as mustang in 1808 this name was actually in the works by those same Spanish speakers before they ever shipped the horses across from Europe.

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Urban Renewal from NYC to Amsterdam: A Podcast

The forces of real estate development and rebranding campaigns are transforming urban landscapes around the world─and Sharon Zukin has seen much of it first hand. In the following podcast she explains what happens to the people when a city gains financial capital or decides to change its image. Zukin teaches sociology at Brooklyn College and the City University Graduate Center, and is author of this year’s Naked City: The Death and Life of Authentic Urban Places.

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Here’s Looking at You, New York

This month Oxford celebrated the publication of the newest edition of the landmark AIA Guide to New York City with a launch party in the largest architectural exhibit in the world─The Panorama of the City of New York at the Queens Museum of Art. Where can you find an apartment for $50 in New York City? The ego of Robert Moses?

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Kick-Ass Podcast: Day 2

Thanks to early screenings and leaked footage, the much-anticipated movie Kick-Ass gained massive buzz among fanboys, bloggers (and pretty much everyone else under the age of 30) months before it hit movie theaters, poising itself to possibly be the best superhero move ever made. But when the feature finally released last month–replete with glorified violence and a young girl with the dirtiest mouth since Bob Saget–it was met with formidable resistance from parents and critics alike.

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Kick-Ass Podcast: Day 1

Thanks to early screenings and leaked footage, the much-anticipated movie Kick-Ass gained massive buzz among fanboys, bloggers (and pretty much everyone else under the age of 30) months before it hit movie theaters, poising itself to possibly be the best superhero move ever made. But when the feature finally released last month–replete with glorified violence and a young girl with the dirtiest mouth since Bob Saget–it was met with formidable resistance from parents and critics alike.

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Varnish – Podictionary Word of the Day

As much as 700 years ago English got the word varnish from French. The French word had come from a Latin source which in turn seems to have come from a Greek word that is said to have arisen because there was a city on the Mediterranean famed for its varnishes; or perhaps the first place that varnishes were sourced.

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Volcano – Podictionary Word of the Day

The volcano that spewed ash into the Icelandic skies and disrupted world air travel has a name that’s pretty difficult to pronounce and pretty difficult to spell; it’s Eyjafjallajökull. This evidently means “island mountain glacier.” Nothing about volcanoes, fire or ash in that word.

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