8 May 2020
It looks different, but the changes are not simply cosmetic. I’ve made some significant changes “under the hood.” All the old content is still here, and the substantive changes are mainly in the discussion forums.
It’s now easier to join and post to the discussion forums. There’s a new Captcha system that will, hopefully, weed out the bots that attempt to spam the site. Additionally, I also must approve each new user’s first post.
While I’ve done the best I can at troubleshooting problems in advance, let me know if something doesn’t work or you encounter broken links.
I’m also engaged in updating and revising the older Big List entries, so you should start to see a steady stream of new and revised posts for various words and phrases. As part of this revision, I’m including much lengthier quotations, and not just the short snippets that you find in most dictionaries, including the Oxford English Dictionary. Since this site is online, I have the luxury of not being constrained by the space limitations that ordinary dictionaries have. Also, I now have access, through Princeton University Library, to a huge range of databases and materials that were previously unavailable to me.* So, I can provide expanded versions of the quotations found in other dictionaries. My thinking here is that not only will the longer quotations provide a clearer understanding of exactly how a word or phrase was used, but the longer quotations place the terms in historical and cultural context, and are often just plain fun to read.
* = I mean no disrespect the other university libraries where I have worked—they have been excellent—but Princeton is simply awash with cash, and they use it to purchase access to an ungodly amount of material.
