Beth Young

We are deeply saddened by the passing of Dr. Dickson Despommier.

A brilliant scientist, storyteller, and friend, he shared his vast knowledge and infectious enthusiasm with all who listened.

We will miss him dearly. Our heartfelt condolences go out to all who knew and loved him.
#🧪

Soldier inside Trojan Horse says he was just trying to highlight a need for stronger defenses inside the city of Troy

If only the world's software designers would memorize that little ditty in Johnson's definition. That would clear everything up. newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/happy-leap...

Antedating the Oxford English DictionaryThis talk by Peter Gilliver – Executive Editor (Lexicography): Finalisation – was originally delivered to Prof Beth R... Antedating the Oxford English Dictionary

Did you know the OED's earliest instance of ‘Vulcan’ (in the StarTrek sense) comes from a transcription of the TV program?

To learn more, watch this fascinating talk on OED Antedatings, originally delivered to one of my classes: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5Xx...

Grants 2024 LingComm Grants - Small Grants for Communicating Linguistics to Wider Audiences We want to see more linguistics in the world!  The 2024 LingComm Grants are $500 (USD) to support linguistics comm...

The 2024 LingComm Grants are here!

Please help us share this with people who may have a linguistics communication project that needs a boost!

@superlinguo.bsky.social and I make these happen with the support of @lingthusiasm.bsky.social patrons and other generous people

Virtual Classroom Visits Instructors: Dot Porter and Nicholas Herman Are you a medievalist or early modernist? Are you a K-12 teacher with a unit on medieval or renaissance history? Are you a library science instructor who te...

Would you like to bring medieval manuscripts into your classroom? How about a VIRTUAL CLASSROOM VISIT? We'll work with you to come up with the perfect book list for your K-12, undergrad or grad class, featuring manuscripts from Penn's collections.

schoenberginstitute.org/virtual-clas...

The older I get, the more I feel sorry for Ferris's principal.

Florida district pulls many Jewish and Holocaust books from classroom libraries Removed works include Saul Bellow’s ‘Herzog’ and ‘Black, White and Jewish’; no individual reasoning given for books' removal

"The Orange County case is unusual for the sheer volume of books removed — 699 including some duplicates, according to documents the district provided — and for the unusually large number of books about the Holocaust and Jewish identity included among them."
www.timesofisrael.com/florida-dist...

"Read it yourself: All 673 books removed from Orange classrooms" in the print edition of the Orlando Sentinel, Dec. 21, 2023.

The banned books spread in the Orlando Sentinel is particularly shocking to see in print--so many titles! (I posted a share link to the e-edition yesterday(

Read it yourself: All 673 books removed from Orange classrooms Here is a list of the 673 books removed from teachers’ classroom shelves in Orange County for fear they might violate state law and rules on “sexual conduct:”

The Orlando Sentinel has now published the list of 673 books newly banned in Orange County public schools. John Milton's Paradise Lost is banned (I guess because of what Adam and Eve did). But many many more contemporary titles are also now banned.

www.orlandosentinel.com/2023/12/20/r...

BC/AD or BCE/CE? Neil deGrasse Tyson argues for the former, persuasively imo. However, I don't have a good sense of the scholarly status quo (partly because my recent reading isn't restricted to this century or even the last one).

What do others think?

www.tiktok.com/@dlogamez/vi...

Restrictions on tenure and academic freedom have college professors eyeing the exits Republican-led efforts to dismantle free-speech protections on college campuses could reshape the geography of higher education.

“It was not unusual for people to start crying in the middle of our interviews, and that is not typical.” The AAUP investigators were shocked--but I bet they were not surprised. www.usatoday.com/story/news/e...

Glad I'm not a lexicographer in China.

"Some netizens believe that the term ["playing with women"] is insulting to women, while others believe that the reference book simply explains the usage of the phrase."

www.breakinglatest.news/news/xinhua-...

I've been missing the English Short Title Catalog quite a bit, but I see in the link there's a temporary way in. Look forward to trying it!

Cyber incident update – last updated 8 December 2023 We’re continuing to experience a major technology outage following a cyber-attack affecting our website, online systems and services, and some onsite services. However our buildings are still open a...

I truly am gobsmacked at how damaging that British Library cyberattack continues to be. Several months without being able to function! Many of us who research books are heavily dependent on that place physically and virtually. It's devastating even if you didn't have your personal info stolen.

Just makes me feel old 👵

"Our first guest tonight has credits that are far too impressive for any guest on this program."

Letterman interviewed Grace Hopper back in 1986 and it is a *delight*.

www.dailymotion.com/video/x35dsz7

Awwwww

Thank you!

A very short history of the F-word The first use of the F-word comes from a monk in 1528. It's just one part of the weird, mysterious history of this infamous four-letter word.

"Rather, in 1528, an anonymous monk scrawled this parenthetical into the margins of a De Officiis manuscript: “O d fuckin’ Abbot.”" Any chance an image of this marginalia is online where students can see it? @jessesword.com

bigthink.com/the-past/his...

I guess the complainers don't know to check the OED? Or even Merriam-Webster? 🤨

I was thrilled to see that something I work on every day was useful to Judge Chutkan in her work. Citations to Johnson's Dictionary aren't unusual, but those citations don't always link back to johnsonsdictionaryonline.com. And they aren't always part of such consequential opinions.

In Florida’s Hot Political Climate, Some Faculty Have Had Enough Liberal-leaning professors are leaving coveted jobs with tenure. And there are signs that recruiting scholars has become harder.

The Times interviewed a dozen academics — in fields ranging from law to psychology to agronomy — who have left Florida public universities or given their notice, many headed to blue states. . . . www.nytimes.com/2023/12/03/u...

Yes. Many reporters are still posting to ONLY that site. I wish more news outlets would encourage them to go elsewhere.

Johnson's 1755 entry for benefactress

Benefactress. n.s. [from benefactor.] A woman who confers a benefit.

buff.ly/3uqCxQg

#lexicography #dictionary #samueljohnson #18thcentury #18C

Then there was the time I typed "Food!" on a whole series of assignments. (meant to type "Good!")

I was working in the ESTC on 28 Oct when the site went down. Some of that info is available in other dbases but not all. All good wishes for the BL people who are stuck dealing with the fallout.

Me at a conference exhibit booth

Four years ago today, I hosted an “ask me anything about sharks” booth at the Sigma Xi conference.

At one point, I got up to go to the bathroom, and when I came back, a ten year old kid was sitting in that seat, answering people’s questions about sharks. 😂

🧪🦑

163 Jewish leaders have written a followup statement in response to Elon Musk's antisemitism. Here it is in full.

You can read it and our previous statements here: xouthate.org

Please help us spread the word.

The Low Down on the Greatest Dictionary Collection in the World From "unabridged" to "slanguage," Madeline Kripke's library is a logophile's heaven (or hell).

Atlas Obscura on Madeline Kripke's dictionary collection:

www.atlasobscura.com/articles/big...