Sheidlower on Obscene Words & Dictionaries

9 October 2009

This must be video Friday. Here we have a short clip of Jesse Sheidlower talking about the inclusion of obscene words in dictionaries. There is a single use of fuck, so it may be NSFW depending on your environment.

Hat tip to the OUP Blog.

Better Living Through Verner’s Law

"You see, Frankie, the more you know about the rules of early Germanic prosody, the more rewarding life can be.”

I never realized there was so much potential for humor in Verner’s Law, but fortunately Ari Hoptman did.

The next two parts after the jump.

This last video gets pretty dry, so unless you are really interested in the mechanisms of consonant shifts in early Germanic languages, you may want to skip ahead to the last two minutes.

Hat tip to Mr. Verb.

United States is v. are

8 October 2009

7 October:

Mark Liberman over at Language Log has an extensive article on 19th century subject-verb agreement with the subject “the United States.” The issue is more complex than most commentators give it credit for. Liberman also has some insightful comments on the utility and nature of online databases.

Update: 8 October

Liberman adds another post on the topic.

Samuel Johnson & The Art of Lexicography

8 October 2009

Michael Adams has a superb article on Samuel Johnson’s contributions to lexicography in Humanities.

E-book Economics and Libraries

7 October 2009

An interesting post over at Librarything.com on how the economics of electronic publishing might affect libraries.

(If you haven’t checked out LibraryThing, you really should. It’s a really neat concept. You can browse my library here.)