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Over 500 open access books: shaped by experience, strengthened by learning

By Jenifer Payne
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In and out of the box

By Anatoly Liberman
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Spelling bee is back. So am I

By Anatoly Liberman
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Tarzan of the planet earth

Jason Haslam
October 2012 marked the 100th anniversary of the first publication, in the pulp-fiction magazine All-Story, of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ best known novel, Tarzan of the Apes. The complete novel published in the October 1912 issue, was given the cover image (where it was described as “A Romance of the Jungle”), and became an immediate hit among the All-Story’s readers. In the months following Tarzan’s appearance, dozens of readers’ letters were published, many of which asked for (or even demanded) a sequel, a request Burroughs would fulfill, eventually writing over two-dozen Tarzan novels.

Media reaction to ‘GIF’ as Word of the Year [GIFed]

By Alice Northover
Reaction has been mixed from people around the United States and the world to the USA Word of the Year, so I thought I’d bring together a few highlights. Don’t forget the GIF WOTY confusables!

Six WOTY confusables about GIF

There has also been some widespread confusion on a few things relating to GIF’s selection as Word of the Year [USA], so we thought it would be helpful to give a little roundup for clarification.
(1) Oxford Dictionaries USA and The New Oxford American Dictionary (and Oxford Dictionaries UK and Oxford Dictionary of English) are not the Oxford English Dictionary. OUP publishes many dictionaries and the OED is only one of them.

A lovable bully

By Anatoly Liberman
Bullying is a hot topic. Strict laws have been passed with the view of intimidating the intimidators or at least keeping them at bay. Regardless of the consequences such measures may have, linguists cannot ignore the problem and keep out of the public eye. So to arms, comrades! That a word like bully should vex etymologists needn’t surprise anybody.

Should fishing communities play a greater role in managing fisheries?

By Robert Deacon
Marine fisheries around the world are in a state of decline. Each decade the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization reports that a larger fraction of the world’s fisheries are overexploited or depleted. Historical trends in individual fisheries have led some scientists to predict all major fisheries will be collapsed by mid-century. The economic status of these resources is even more dismal.

To gif or not to gif

To gif, or not to gif–that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of crude animation
Or to take arms against a sea of static
And by opposing end them.

The era of partisan polling

By Elvin Lim
It is tempting now that the election returns are in for us to want to plow forward and forget the spectacular silliness we just traversed. But before we move on, it is critical that we call out those who had predicted a huge Romney victory, among them Dick Morris, Michael Barone, and Karl Rove. Ours is the era of partisan polling, and it is intellectually dishonest and bad for democracy.

The two-term era

By Andrew J. Polsky
When Barack Obama won reelection last week, he became the third consecutive president to win a second term. The last time that happened was at the beginning of the 19th century, when Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe benefited from Democratic-Republican dominance at the presidential level. Indeed, by the time Monroe ran for reelection in 1820, the opposition Federalist Party had collapsed.

Eight interesting facts about Fanny Hensel

By R. Larry Todd
Tomorrow marks the 207th anniversary of composer Fanny Hensel’s birth. Here’s a a few interesting facts about this overlooked composer.
(1) Fanny Hensel (1805-1847) was a granddaughter of the philosopher Moses Mendelssohn, a devoted sister of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, and the wife of the Prussian painter Wilhelm Hensel.

Ten variations of ‘omnishambles’

By Alice Northover
Part of the strength of new words is their flexibility — that they can grow, change, and adapt. This elasticity helps cement their place in our language, rather than a brief life in slang. So to present omnishambles’s impact more fully, I’ve rounded up five variations upon it and proposed five additions of my own.

Oxford Dictionaries UK Word of the Year 2012: ‘omnishambles’

By Fiona McPherson
A common misconception about the work of a lexicographer is that we sit around in the manner of a cabal each week and argue about what words to include or reject. The fantasy is that we each suggest a word or two and then, after a heated debate, vote, with the result that some words emerge victorious and begin the journey to the dictionary page, while those that are blackballed are consigned to lexical oblivion. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Oxford Dictionaries USA Word of the Year 2012: ‘to GIF’

By Katherine Martin
The GIF, a compressed file format for images that can be used to create simple, looping animations, turned 25 this year, but like so many other relics of the 80s, it has never been trendier. GIF celebrated a lexical milestone in 2012, gaining traction as a verb, not just a noun. The GIF has evolved from a medium for pop-cultural memes into a tool with serious applications including research and journalism, and its lexical identity is transforming to keep pace.

Announcing the Place of the Year 2012 Shortlist: Vote!

Happy Geography Awareness Week! At Oxford University Press, we’re celebrating by highlighting the interesting, inspiring and/or contentious places of 2012. The longlist, launched last month, took us from Iran to Cambridge, NY, the home of pie à la mode. We explored 29 places on Earth, but we couldn’t resist an extraterrestrial trip to Mars. Thanks to your votes in the most tightly watched election this year, we narrowed down the nominees to a shortlist.

Fredric Nachbaur on University Press Week

As I was preparing to write my post for University Press Week post-Hurricane Sandy, I reflected on how university presses have bonded together in the past during times of tragedy to help us all understand what is happening at and in the moment and how we can try to move forward. The Association for American University Presses (AAUP) created “Books for Understanding” soon after 9/11 to bring the latest and most valuable scholarship to readers in an easy-to-find and easy-to-use place. The AAUP instantly became a resource for people who wanted to know more and to find it from reliable sources — university presses, the pillars of knowledge.

Why day care should be subsidized

The Nordic countries and France heavily subsidize pre-school child care. In Sweden, parents pay only about ten percent of the actual costs. As a result, about 75 percent of all Swedish children aged one to five are in formal day care. In Germany, where the availability of subsidized day care spots is strictly limited, that number is less than 60 percent. What is the case for subsidizing day care?

Remembrance Sunday

Remembrance Sunday, falling on 11th November in 2012 and traditionally observed on the Sunday closest to this date, marks the anniversary of the cessation of hostilities in the First World War. It serves as a day to reflect upon those who have given their lives for the sake of peace and freedom. We have selected a number of memorable, meaningful and moving quotes to commemorate the fallen.