Author Archive
-
Posted by Michael Rundell on May 07, 2012
The Pennsylvania-based artist and illustrator, Victor Stabin has sent us a copy of his delightful book Daedal Doodle. It’s an ‘ABC’ for kids learning the alphabet – but with a difference. Books of this type usually employ familiar objects and animals (‘A is for Apple, B is for Bear’ and so on), but this one [...]
Read the full article
-
Posted by Michael Rundell on April 25, 2012
Every Wednesday here in the UK, we are treated to a piece of political theatre known as ‘Prime Minister’s questions’ or PMQs. For half an hour, the Prime Minster is obliged to answer questions from other MPs, and the traditional highlight of this event is a verbal skirmish between the PM and the Leader of [...]
Read the full article -
Posted by Michael Rundell on April 16, 2012
Stan’s recent post on poppycock, bunkum, and similar words includes a huge collection of synonyms. They’re not identical in every respect: there are differences in regional distribution (some are used very widely, others only locally), in register (some being more formal, others verging on the offensive), and in currency (with some fading from use, and [...]
Read the full article -
Posted by Michael Rundell on March 22, 2012
In his recent post on speech acts, Orin made the point that “many of these formulas … can be used to convey a meaning very different from the one they’re usually used for; sometimes just the opposite”. A good example is the expression Yeah, right, which people use to signal that they don’t believe what [...]
Read the full article -
Posted by Michael Rundell on March 07, 2012
Another conference report, this time from the first Asia-Pacific Corpus Linguistics Conference (APCLC), recently held in Auckland, New Zealand. Corpus linguistics involves using corpus data as the raw materials for studying language – so in a sense, dictionary-writers are the ultimate corpus linguists. But while the e-Lexicography conference we covered a few months ago focussed [...]
Read the full article -
Posted by Michael Rundell on March 05, 2012
In the sometimes surreal world of social networking, Angelina Jolie’s right leg now has its own Twitter account (@AngiesRightLeg), with almost 50,000 followers. And the English lexicon has a new word: legbombing. Posing on the red carpet at the 2012 Oscars ceremony, Ms Jolie thrust her right leg through a thigh-high slit in her Versace [...]
Read the full article -
Posted by Michael Rundell on February 16, 2012
There are certain situations in which English speakers switch to using French. We will say, admiringly, that something has ‘a certain je ne sais quoi’, or we might wish someone bon voyage when they set off on a journey. There is a variety of reasons for preferring a French way of saying things, and one [...]
Read the full article -
Posted by Michael Rundell on February 13, 2012
The lexicographer’s rule of thumb is that things always take longer than you expect. Samuel Johnson underestimated the time it would take him to complete his dictionary, and James Murray – the original Editor of the OED – fared even worse in the prediction business: what started as a 10-year project took over 40 years [...]
Read the full article -
Posted by Michael Rundell on February 08, 2012
In the previous post on this topic, we looked at the criteria traditionally applied by dictionary-makers when considering new words for inclusion. The question is as old as lexicography itself. When he wrote his Plan of an English Dictionary in 1747, Dr Johnson noted that it is ‘not easy to determine by what rule of [...]
Read the full article -
Posted by Michael Rundell on February 02, 2012
In Kate Atkinson’s recent novel, Started Early, Took My Dog (2010), there’s an exchange between two of the characters. When one of them mentions a large sum of money, we read that Kelly, the other character, ‘suddenly meerkatted to attention’. Does this mean we have a new verb on our hands, to meerkat? Should it be [...]
Read the full article
