Monthly Gleanings: November, 2006
Anatoly Liberman answers some questions readers have submitted.
James A. H. Murray At First Hand
Anatoly Liberman’s weekly column.
Many Happy Returns of the Day
Or, Study Etymology and Live Long
Anatoly Liberman ponders longevity.
Unsung Heroes of Etymology
By Anatoly Liberman
Those who look up the origin of a word in a dictionary are rarely interested in the sources of the information they find there. Nor do they realize how debatable most of this information is. Yet serious research stands behind even the controversial statements in a modern etymological dictionary.
The shortest history of hatred: Part 1
It would be unwise to leave the topic of emotions (see the posts on anger, dread, and fear), without saying something about hate and hatred. Although hate refers to intense dislike, it is curious to observe how diluted the word has become: today we can hate orange juice, a noisy neighbor, even our own close relative, and of course we hate not finding the objects we have mislaid. For some reason, to dislike, have little regard for, and resent are not enough for expressing our dissatisfaction.
Nikolai Trubetzkoy’s road to history
A century ago, the Russian Revolution broke out in November of 1917, followed by a bloody civil war lasting until the early 1920s. Millions of families were displaced, fleeing to Europe and Asia. One of the many emigrant stories was that of Prince Nikolai Trubetzkoy. Trubetzkoy was from a well-known aristocratic family in tsarist Russia, […]
So long and thanks for all the tweets
Today is my last day editing the OUPblog. Back in January 2012, I took over as blog editor without so much as a handover (an early maternity leave prevented one). I promptly screwed up multiple things in the first few weeks, causing great annoyance to my colleagues. Then I gradually began steering the blog on a different course.
Top OUPblog posts of 2015: Editor’s Picks
The publishing volume of the OUPblog has finally led to the inevitable — I can no longer read every article we publish. Fortunately, I have an amazing team of deputy editors who review articles, catch (most) errors, and discover the best of our publishing over the course of the year.
“I should’ve picked a better hashtag”: Lauren Appelwick on the OUPblog
I was late turning in this reflection. Do you know how embarrassing that is? The former Editor missing a deadline to the current Editor? Apparently blogging muscles atrophy after you adapt to writing mostly in 140-character sprints.
Top 10 OUPblog posts of 2013 by the numbers
By Alice Northover
What have you, the OUPblog reader, been looking for this year? Let’s find out with our top ten posts published this year, according the pageviews, in descending order.
Top OUPblog posts of 2013: Editor’s picks
By Alice Northover
As editor of the OUPblog, I’m probably one of only a handful who read everything we publish over the course of the year. Even those posts which are coded and edited by our Deputy Editors I carefully read through in the hopes of catching any errors (some always make it through). So it’s wonderful to reflect on the amazing work that our authors, editors, and staff have created in 2013. Without further ado, here are a few of my favorites from the past year…
Top ten OUPblog posts of 2012 by the numbers
By Alice Northover
While I already gave my opinion of the best OUPblog posts of the year, it’s only fair to see what you the reader decided. Here’s our top ten posts according to the number of pageviews they received.
Alice’s top 10 OUPblog posts of 2012
By Alice Northover
One of the great advantages of being OUPblog editor is that I read practically everything that was published on the blog in 2012: the 1,088 articles, Q&As, quizzes, slideshows, podcasts, videos, and more from the smartest minds in the scholarly world. When I first attempted the list, I had 30 articles bookmarked and I’d only made it six months back. I’m sure I’ll hate myself for missing a piece tomorrow.
Monthly Gleanings: January 2012
In the post on the C-word, I made two mistakes, for both of which I am sorry, though neither was due to chance. In Middle High German, the word klotze “vagina” existed, and I was going to write that, given such a noun, the verb klotzen “copulate” can also be reconstructed.
An Etymological Headache
To an etymologist ache is one of the most enigmatic words. Although it has been attested in Old English, its unquestionable cognates in other languages are few.
1850: David Copperfield and Pendennis
By Anatoly Liberman As the year draws to a close, we’ve been reflecting on all the wonderful books we’ve read in 2011, and in doing so, we’ve also realized there are some classics worth revisiting. The authors and friends of Oxford University Press are proud to present this series of essays, which will appear regularly […]