Category Archives: Language and Literature in Society

Last Day to Submit a Poem for the 2016 Poetry Contest

Today is the last day for Ontario secondary school students to submit a poem to The Life of Words Poetry Competition 2016. Keep your eye on the contest page for upcoming news, and for eventual publication of The Life of Words Anthology 2016, which will print the winning entry and all honourable mentions. We’re received […]

15.04.2016 – 06:36 | By D-AW | Posted in Language and Literature in Society, Lexicography, Poetry | Comments (0)

How did OED Supplements Supplement?

There has always been an interest in the changing editorial practice within and between various editions of the Oxford English Dictionary. Recently some scholars have complained that changing electronic interfaces are making it impossible to distinguish what edition a particular definition or quotation is coming from. See, e.g., Charlotte Brewer, “OED Online Re-launched: Distinguishing old […]

04.04.2016 – 09:58 | By D-AW | Posted in Digital Humanities, Language and Literature in Society, Lexicography | Tagged , , , | Comments (0)

Life of Words Poetry Competition

Good news for Ontario secondary school students who like words: The Life of Words is announcing the first in what will be an annual poetry competition, in which we invite submissions of poems about words and reward excellence with some pretty great prizes. Here is the competition web page, where we’ll post links, news, and […]

22.03.2016 – 15:49 | By D-AW | Posted in Etymology, Language and Literature in Society, Lexicography, Poetry | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)

The Best Words

The Life of Words is a bit late to this one, but: NEWSFLASH! Best Words, Best Word of Best Words, Located: Presented here without further comment, stupid. Enjoy Super Tuesday, y’all.

29.02.2016 – 20:49 | By D-AW | Posted in Language and Literature in Society | Tagged | Comments (1)

Babies say the darndest things

Everyone knows you have to start watching your language once Baby gets good at words. Even then there are moments: for a time my daughter’s impression of a snake ended with a “snap” that sounded just like… the French for “seal.” And then there’s the French for “seal,” favourite of every schoolboy, which HRW likes […]

08.02.2016 – 15:24 | By D-AW | Posted in Language and Literature in Society | Comments (0)

Bowie on OED

It’s a day for sharing David Bowie quotations on the social medias. One in particular just crossed my path: I presume the person who wrote out, photographed, and posted this little tidbit (making sure to draw attention to their book store’s own social media outposts) found it among the collected Bowie quotations on some “famous […]

11.01.2016 – 14:48 | By D-AW | Posted in Language and Literature in Society, Lexicography, Poetry | Tagged , , , | Comments (1)

Pullum doesn’t understand their own example

On the venerable Language Log earlier today, a post by Geoff Pullum [Annals of singular ‘they’: another case with known sex” 30.11.15] quotes Transparent writer/director Jill Soloway’s interesting use of singular they [recently named a WOTY for 2016]: People will recognise that just because somebody is masculine, it doesn’t mean they have a penis. Just […]

30.11.2015 – 21:41 | By D-AW | Posted in Language and Literature in Society | Tagged , , | Comments (0)

Bad Boundary

Did a federal MP from Saskatchewan call a female NDP candidate a whore? [story at CNCNews.com 19.11.15]. Tom Lukiwski is alleged to have said: We got to get Greg back elected.” He’s too important of an MLA to let go down to an NDP whore just because of a bad boundary. The explanation given by Lukiwski, […]

19.11.2015 – 15:56 | By D-AW | Posted in Language and Literature in Society | Tagged | Comments (1)

Ted Cruz is no Scyld Scefing

I’ve read Beowulf. Beowulf was a friend of mine. And Senator… You know, when things sound stupid, they very usually are. And this headline sounds stupid: Ted Cruz as Beowulf: Matching Candidates With the Books They Sound Like [- The Upshot (New York Times Data Blog – click to view article)] No one who has […]

29.10.2015 – 11:44 | By D-AW | Posted in Digital Humanities, Language and Literature in Society, Poetry, Uncategorized | Tagged , | Comments (0)

Untrustable Assertions

Listening to the NPR today, I hear this from E. J. Dionne, commenting on GOP Congressman Kevin McCarthy’s astounding statements about the civic accomplishments of the Republican House: [Dionne] We’re going to have a lot of fun with him in terms of the English language. In that recent statement he invented the word “untrustable”. He […]

03.10.2015 – 01:35 | By D-AW | Posted in Language and Literature in Society, Lexicography | Tagged , , , | Comments (0)