Oomphy Wordsmithery of the Anglosphere: New Entries in the Shorter OED
Welcome to the world, sixth edition of the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary!
How the OED Got Shorter
Ben’s column this week looks at the fascinating history of the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary. He explains how the OED, quite possibly OUP’s most important book (well, series of books), got trimmed to a manageable two volumes and why this development was important.
Friday procrastination: link love – OED, BEA and NPR!
Lots of Friday link love!
OED updates
A closer look at the most recent OED update.
BEA Dispatch
Purdy, Director of Publicity, is in LA this weekend at Book Expo America. He will be reporting from the action for those of us left in NYC. Live from the convention floor of BEA in LA. For those not in the know BEA stands for Book Expo America, the largest convention of publishers, media, bookstore […]
Dillydallying etymology
I received a question about the origin of dildo. It so happens that long ago I already wrote a post devoted to this word (“Back and Forth on a Cold Spoor of an Obscenity”).
Bidding, forbidding, an enigmatic root, and two questions
Older dictionaries sometimes informed their readers that Modern English has two different verbs: bid “to ask for something” (also “to command”) and bid “to pray.”
A scramble for information, or dangerous shr-schr words
Words beginning with shr- ~ schr- ~scr- have bothered me for years, partly because of German Schreck “horror.”
Answering two questions from readers
What connects Ghent with John of Gaunt, and are lubber and loblolly related? Anatoly Liberman answers two readers’ questions about names, sounds, and word origins.
Gloves, gauntlets, and gaunt people
Last week, I finished my story with a brief reference to all kinds of gloves. A few days later, a query came about the word gauntlet.
Chemical periodicity: why does the chemistry of some elements resemble the chemistry of others?
Before attempting to answer the title question, we should be clear about what the term ‘periodicity’ actually means—and where better to turn for an explanation than the matchless OED. The entry under ‘chemistry’ is the most relevant, viz. ‘The complex periodic variation of the properties of the chemical elements with increasing atomic number’, the term’s […]
Unsavory etymologies: dung and its kin
Below, I’ll speak about the amazing history of the word dung “manure.” In broad outline, the story is known, but some details are seldom discussed in dictionaries.
Tarry or hurry?
It is surprising how similar the verbs in the title sound, though they are antonyms: tarry means “to linger, delay,” while hurry refers to haste.
Supper with an etymologist
It does not require much philological preparation to guess that supper is a word containing the root sup- and the suffix -er. Yet in the days of King Alfred and even much later, the inhabitants of Anglo-Saxon England had no such word.
A few etymological pebbles
The readers of this blog must have noticed how often I suggest solutions connected with sound imitation. Time and again I say that a certain noun or verb owes its origin to onomatopoeia.
The level of our expertise: the perplexing verb baffle
What does it mean when a dictionary says: “Origin unknown”? We will soon see that the concept of “unknown” has several levels.