Yo Comments Are Whack

29 July 2009

First we had the politically conservative rappers, now the grammarians. It’s mildly amusing, but not particularly compelling rapping. But some of you might get a kick out of it…



Astronomy in Anglo-Saxon England

22 July 2009

I’ve done a podcast for the 365 Days of Astronomy project (part of the International Year of Astronomy) on astronomy in Anglo-Saxon England. You can download it or read the script here.

The 365 Days of Astronomy is a great podcast. If you’re interested in astronomy at all, you’ll find the wide assortment of topics covered by the daily ten-minute podcast to be fascinating. (Although it has little to do with word origins or language.)

I’ve also done a podcast on Chaucer’s Treatise on the Astrolabe. That’s slated as a backup podcast, so I’m not sure when it will hit the net.

Webster’s Third: A Look Back

16 July 2009

Published almost fifty years ago, few remember the furor that Merriam Webster’s Third New International Dictionary made when it hit the scene in 1961. Unabashedly descriptivist, it was openly mocked and considered too permissive. The editors were even referred to as saboteurs. People can get very protective of their language.

David Skinner has an excellent article in the current issue of Humanities magazine that outlines the history of Webster’s Third and the controversy that followed its publication.

What did editor Philip Gove and his colleagues do to generate such controversy? The included non-standard words like ain’t. They included profanity. They gave multiple pronunciations and spellings for words. They avoided making pronouncements on “proper” usage. They reduced the plethora of usage labels, such as improper, jocular, and poetic, to just five: slang, nonstandard, substandard, obsolete, and archaic. They removed entries for obsolete words and proper names that had appeared in the second edition to make room for more general words (some 250,000 entries were deleted). Their usage citations came from the likes of Art Linkletter, and not just from the Bible and Shakespeare.

Skinner’s article and the controversy over Webster’s Third is worth reviewing. It illustrates how the intentions of lexicographers and the uses the public put to dictionaries can be in conflict. And it gives insight into how lexicographers make their editorial choices.

Book Review: Off to a Flying Start

15 July 2009

I don’t see that many etymological books geared for children, at least not good ones. One that has recently crossed my desk is Off to a Flying Start: Horsing Around the Language, by Bill Tiveman and Cassandra Cook. The book provides origins for words and phrases associated with horses and horseracing, like inside track, on the nose, and, of course as the title suggests, off to a flying start.

The book is short with some sixty-odd terms explained, and each entry is wonderfully illustrated by Ana Mirela Tache. Best of all, the book is well-researched, with the OED as the primary reference for the origins. It is not a scholarly book; there are no footnotes as is appropriate for a children’s book, but the authors have taken to heart the philosophy that even a fun book should be accurate. Too many books of etymologies of terms from a specific field, such as nautical terms or various sports, rely on myth rather than fact. This is not one of them.

One error I did note, however, is chomping at the bit, which is more properly champing at the bit. Given the popularity of that form, Tiveman and Cook can be forgiven for including it, but they should have at least mentioned the champing form. But that’s a minor point.

Off to a Flying Start is an excellent choice for the child (or adult) who likes both horses and language and is an excellent introduction to the subject of word and phrase origins without being heavy handed or overly academic. It’s an excellent choice for the classroom or school library.

Off to a Flying Start
by Bill Tiveman & Cassandra Cook
Aardvark Global Publishing (May 2009)
$12.95