OUPblog

Quatremère de Quincy: the founding father of museophobia?

By David Gilks
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How I used the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography as a student

By Sarah Moorhouse
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Symbol swearing with the Grawlix

By Edwin L. Battistella
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Cinco de Mayo, sesquicentennial of the Battle of Puebla

By William H. Beezley
Mexicans are celebrating the sesquicentennial of the Cinco de Mayo (5th of May) 1862, when at the Battle of Puebla, their troops defeated a veteran French invasion force. The battle shocked western leaders and military observers in equal measure. The Mexicans were viewed as ragtag, poorly-armed bandits rather than soldiers, and the French were considered by many as the world’s best-equipped, most-experienced army. As astonishing as the victory was, it did not end the French invasion, but only postponed it for a year until a second Battle at Puebla.

Differentiating conflict and bullying within friendship

In Bully, Emmy award-winning director Lee Hirsch invites viewers to spend a year in the lives of students and parents who deal with public torment and humiliation on a daily basis. By following the young victims from the classroom to their living rooms, viewers are given an intimate look into the effects that bullying has on these targets and their families. While parents and administrators scramble to find a solution to the problem, they must ask themselves: how do we differentiate bullying from conflict within friendships?

In remembrance of things passed

By Philip Carter
On Saturday 5 May, Chelsea face Liverpool in this year’s FA Cup final, the culmination of what (despite its relative, recent decline) remains the world’s most famous domestic football, i.e. ‘soccer’, tournament. If you cut your Cup teeth before the 1990s — since then the competition has been partially eclipsed by Premiership football — you’ll remember Final day as a national, indeed international, occasion when millions tuned in to events on a 115 x 75 yard field in north-west London.

‘If you want anything said, ask Mrs Thatcher’

By Susan Ratcliffe
In May 1979 the United Kingdom elected its first female Prime Minister, in spite of her own comment ten years earlier: ‘No woman in my time will be Prime Minister or Chancellor or Foreign Secretary—not the top jobs. Anyway I wouldn’t want to be Prime Minister. You have to give yourself 100%’. A few years later, having become Prime Minister (although she didn’t want the job?) Margaret Thatcher went on to say ‘In politics if you want anything said, ask a man. If you want anything done, ask a woman’. In fact, the things she said were so memorable that she has become one of the most quoted politicians of modern times. Everyone recognizes ‘there is no real alternative’, ‘the lady’s not for turning’, ‘the Falklands Factor’, ‘Rejoice, rejoice!’, ‘Victorian values’, ‘We can do business together’, and ‘There is no such thing as Society’.

Why are Russians attracted to strong leaders?

By Geoffrey Hosking
After a decade of a chaotic but exhilarating democracy in the 1990s, Putin as president and prime minister has been restoring a strong state. At least, that is how we usually understand it. He has certainly restored an authoritarian state. On assuming office in 2000, he strengthened the ‘power vertical’ by ending the local election of provincial governors and sending in his own viceroys – mostly ex-military men – to supervise them. Citing the state’s need for ‘information security’, he closed down or took over media outlets which exposed inconvenient information or criticised his actions. Determined opponents were bankrupted, threatened, arrested, even murdered. He subdued the unruly Duma (parliament) by making it much more difficult for opposition parties to register or gain access to the media, and by encouraging violations of electoral procedure at the polls. Until recently, the Russian public seemed to accept this as part of the natural order.

Goya’s Third of May, 1808

By Kandice Rawlings
For anyone who’s taken (and remembers) a survey course in Western art, today’s date surely brings to mind a canonical work — Spanish painter Francisco de Goya’s Third of May, 1808. The picture’s fame can be traced both to Goya’s masterful portrayal of drama and political martyrdom, and to its position as one of the first modern depictions of war. Painted some six years after the events it commemorates, this picture, and the circumstances under which Goya painted it, speak to the political instabilities of 19th-century Europe and the resulting tensions these raised for many of its artists.

The bizarre history of the Oxford Latin Dictionary

By Chris Stray
When we are unsure of the meaning of a word, or want to know when it was first used, or what alternative spellings it has, we consult the dictionary. People often refer to “the dictionary,” in fact, as if there were only one, or as if it didn’t matter which one was consulted. But then most households probably only have one dictionary of any size, though consultation via computers, tablets, or smartphones is becoming increasingly common.

Why is tobacco control still a problem in Europe?

By Ann McNeill, Lorraine Craig, Marc C. Willemsen & Geoffrey T. Fong
In Europe, rates of smoking prevalence and premature death attributable to tobacco are still a cause for real concern. Governments in the region will point to progress such as the introduction of smokefree laws, increased taxation on cigarettes, pack warnings, and the fact they have become signatories to the World Health Organisation’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) — as has the European Union (EU) itself. But signing up to the FCTC marks another step along a journey, rather than being an end in itself. A significant gap remains between the recommended best practice and country or region-specific legislation.

Further Adventures of Scr-words, or, the Taming of ‘Shrew’

By Anatoly Liberman
Two weeks ago, I pondered the fortunes of the gregarious shrimp. The next ingredient of the scr- ~ shr- cocktail will be the much maligned but innocent shrew. As The Century Dictionary puts it, “there is no foundation in fact for the vulgar notion that shrews are poisonous, or for any other of the popular superstitions respecting these harmless little creatures.” The shrew is an insectivorous mammal. An old etymology traced shrew to a root meaning “cut” (as in shear) and glossed the word as “biter” on account of its allegedly venomous bite. Another version of this etymology refers to the shrew’s pointed snout. The Old High German cognate of shrew meant “dwarf” (a figure cut short?).

A look back on the 400th anniversary year of the King James Bible

By Gordon Campbell
The celebrations of the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible were in one respect a surprise. As the Archbishop of Canterbury commented at the end of the year, the KJB had not been treated “simply as a possession of religious believers”, much less as a “preserve of the Church”, but rather as part of a wider cultural legacy throughout the English-speaking world. This did not reflect, in the Archbishop’s tolerant view, a diminution of the Bible’s standing as a sacred text, but rather extended its significance beyond the spiritual to the cultural sphere.

A cause for celebration?

By Clark McCauley
A year ago President Obama announced that US Special Forces had shot and killed Osama bin Laden. Jubilant crowds gathered outside the White House in Washington and at Ground Zero in New York City. Pictures of the crowds show them smiling and cheering, raising US flags and flashing victory “V”s.

Osama bin Laden: When altruism becomes a sin

By Barbara Oakley, Ph.D. As we approach the anniversary of Osama bin Laden’s death, it’s time to step back and think on the sin of altruism. Sin, you say? How can wanting to help others be a sin? Or, at the very least, how could it possibly harm people by simply trying to help them? […]

Osama bin Laden killed

: This Day in World History
In the middle of the night, 2 May 2011, a brief message was radioed from Pakistan to CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia: “EKIA.” “EKIA” is military shorthand for “enemy killed in action.” The enemy was Osama bin Laden. After a manhunt of nearly ten years, the United States had found and killed the al Qaeda leader who had ordered the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, D.C.

Jane Austen, professional writer

By Kathryn Sutherland
As a novelist, Jane Austen dealt in the little things that loom momentous in the everyday routines of an ordinary life: preparations for an outing, the choice of partners at a dance, the chance for intrigue in a game of cards. What we know of her life is drawn to the same miniature scale: small facts and slender insights hoarded, vetted, and handed down by a protective family who memorialized and effaced their famous aunt in equal measure.

Remembering Joe Muranyi

Joe Muranyi, the American jazz clarinetist, saxophonist, and singer — perhaps best known as the last clarinetist to perform with Louis Armstrong and his All Stars — passed away on April 20th at the age of 84. Muranyi was a working musician for over 60 years, from his time as a teenager playing in an Air Force band to his recordings with the Orient Dixieland Jazz Band in the 1990s and for years afterward. He toured with the All Stars in the heart of his career, from 1967 until 1971, the year of the eponymous bandleader’s death.

Seven ways schools and parents can mishandle reports of bullying

By Maureen Duffy
(1) Ignore the bullying complaints, or deny or minimize them.
It’s very difficult for a child or young person to come forward with complaints of being bullied in the first place. The negative acts involved in bullying like name-calling, taunting, mocking, spreading rumors, social exclusion, or throwing things at the victim are humiliating. No child or young person wants to be disliked by peers and to have to disclose to an adult that they are targets of bullying can be a source of further shame.