Tag Archives: Oxford English Dictionary

Vector Space and Poetic Logic

I’ve been spending the weekend experimenting with vector space modelling and poetic language. Vector space word embedding models use learning algorithms on very large corpora in order map a unique location in n-dimensional space to each token (=word) in the corpus. “N-dimensional space” is just a mathy-sounding way of saying that multiple (or n) features […]

14.03.2016 – 10:40 | By D-AW | Posted in Digital Humanities, Poetry | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments (3)

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)

The Colour of Greyhounds

Do you know the old joke, “What colour was Napoleon’s white horse?” Well I have another one for you: “What colour was Napoleon’s greyhound?”. Not sure? You may consult the Official Greyhound Colour Chart: Here’s how OED sums up the situation: Apparently < a first element cognate with Old Icelandic grey bitch (further etymology uncertain: […]

26.11.2015 – 11:06 | By D-AW | Posted in Etymology, Lexicography | 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)

Two Notes on T. S. Eliot and the OED

I have two upcoming notes in the journal Notes & Queries concerning T. S. Eliot and the Oxford English Dictionary. Though they won’t be published until later next year, the self-archiving policy at Oxford Journals allows me to make an unrevised pre-print version available here. The two articles are: “The ‘Oxford Dictionary’ in T. S. […]

28.09.2015 – 20:18 | By D-AW | Posted in Digital Humanities, Lexicography, Poetry | Tagged , , , | Comments (1)

Interview with Paul Muldoon

Here are some excerpts from an interview I did with Paul Muldoon a couple of years ago, which focused on dictionaries and etymology. A full .pdf version of the interview can be downloaded here: [Interview with Paul Muldoon]. PM: I’ve never really been into the OED Online. Maybe I should. I think I might even […]

09.09.2015 – 14:26 | By D-AW | Posted in Criticism, Etymology, Lexicography, Poetry | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments (0)

Introducing the LOW Team

The recent Ontario Early Researcher Award [See “Big Boost for The Life of Words“] turned what had been largely a one-man show into a multi-person operation involving a number of research assistants and associates. To give them their due, I’ve created a team profiles page where they introduce themselves and their interests. I’ll keep this […]

07.08.2015 – 12:51 | By D-AW | Posted in Digital Humanities | Tagged , , , , , | Comments (0)

Big boost for The Life of Words

This news just released: The Life of Words is getting a major boost, in the form of a $150,00 grant from the Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation, UWaterloo, and St Jerome’s University, to fund my research on poetry and the Oxford English Dictionary. The Early Researcher Award provides $100,000 in funding from the Ministry […]

09.06.2015 – 16:01 | By D-AW | Posted in Digital Humanities, Lexicography, Poetry | Tagged , , , | Comments (0)

Thermo Pairs, a kind of poem

Latest in the “kind of poem” series [see here and here], this one based on false positives that turned up in my list of invented lexical combinations in James Joyce [“Compounding Joyce“].

19.05.2015 – 17:54 | By D-AW | Posted in Lexicography, Poetry | Tagged , , , , | Comments (0)

Compounding Joyce

LOW on demand! This afternoon the Twitter threw up this query, following on from my last post on cutthroat compounds [Catchall for Cutthroats]: Well, here at The Life of Words, we aim to please. Since I’ve been mucking around with Python scripts to get at OED’s combinational formations (those bits typically at the end of […]

18.05.2015 – 18:44 | By D-AW | Posted in Digital Humanities, Lexicography, Poetry | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments (7)