Tag Archives: graphs

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 […]

Little Miss Bossy Pants

In the comments to a Facebook share of my previous post on gendered language on Ratemyprofessors.com [“Vivid Unconscious Biases“], JB, a friend of a friend, writes: “bossy” is an inherently gendered term and is always used as an insult. I can’t remember ever hearing it applied to a man. Indeed, it strikes me that calling […]

Vivid unconscious biases

Claire Caine Miller has a post on the New York Times’s “Upshot” blog on Ben Schmidt‘s visualization tool for word frequencies in 14M ratemyprofessors.com reviews, called “Is the Professor Bossy or Brilliant? Much Depends on Gender” [9.2.15]. While in general I find Schmidt’s stuff informative, fun, and provocative [for instance, his “Lets You” finding, which […]