Wordorigins.org

The demise of the print version of the Oxford English Dictionary has been greatly exaggerated, or at least the obituary is premature. Several news articles in recent days have run with the statement that the third edition of the OED will not be printed, remaining an online resource only. According to these sources, the size of the dictionary (the second edition consisted of twenty volumes) and the decline of the print dictionary market in favor of the online market necessitated this decision.

But actually no such decision has been made and will probably not be made for another decade. Here is the official statement from Oxford University Press, via Jesse Sheidlower’s personal blog.

If I had to speculate, I would predict that there will be a print edition, but aimed at presentation copies and for those who have money to burn and like the ego boost that impressive-looking books filling their shelves gives them. The print runs will be small, and perhaps printed on demand. Other than possibly “college” or “pocket” dictionaries for quick reference, I just don’t see a market for print dictionaries. I don’t believe that “print is dead” (print is and will remain a very useful technological form), but certain classes of printed material certainly are dying, and dictionaries and similar reference books are among them.

It is a few days old, but I just came across this New York Times article by Guy Deutscher. It is an excellent summation of how linguistic relativity (the Sapir-Whorf theory, which should really be called just the Whorf theory as Sapir really had nothing to do with it) is and is not valid.

I particularly like the quote from Roman Jakobson that, “Languages differ essentially in what they must convey and not in what they may convey.”

(Hat tip to Arts and Letters Daily)

Not much to say, other than seeing a young Hugh Laurie doing comedy is also fun. (Why is it that comedians so often turn out to be fine dramatic actors, but the reverse is usually not the case.) Enjoy.

(Hat tip to Pharyngula)

Peer review of academic articles is a flawed process, but it serves as a necessary function. Experiments like this one outlined in a New York Times article are healthy explorations into how the process can be improved by the new media.

[Actually, this is a year-old article—which explains why “there is little new” in it. I mentioned it a year ago. --DW, 8/27]

It’s been a while since I’ve posted or linked to a post about the problems with Google Books. But here’s an article on the topic by Geoffrey Nunberg. For those that are familiar with the topic, there is little new in this article, but the parade of errors in the metadata is humorous, if nothing else. And this conclusion of Nunberg’s is spot on:

In short, Google has taken a group of the world’s great research collections and returned them in the form of a suburban-mall bookstore.

While I share many of Nunberg’s complaints, I don’t share the sentiment in the title that Google Books is a “disaster.” On balance, Google Books is an invaluable resource. Yes, Google has gotten a lot of things wrong, and those errors severely limit the utility of the digital library, but the benefits of ready access to the truly vast number of books outweighs the problems with the system.

(Hat tip: Arts & Letters Daily)