On Sep 11, 2009, at 08:45, Sidney Landau wrote:
> Well, it's been 12 years since Volume 2 of Lighter's Historical
> Dictionary of American Slang appeared. One has to wonder if and when
> that will be completed. P to Z represents no small part of the
> coverage.


Sydney, the problem with completing HDAS wasn't a problem of the
electronic model disrupting the print model, which is what Lynch is
asking about.

I don't suppose any of this has been said plainly before, but for the
record, the problems that stopped the completion of HDAS were, in my
opinion, these.

Primarily, there was a lack of internal support at OUP for continued
funding of the project. Few people in OUP wanted to invest the money
required to do the work and they did not want wait years for the
returns on the investment. OUP's not alone in this; few publishers
have the stomach for funding long-term academic projects of this sort.

OUP minds might have been changed if further NEH funding had been
forthcoming after the first grant, but the project was treated
unkindly by later grant reviewers, some who reviewed the project
proposals from positions of ignorance and even malice. Some said OUP
was practically a commercial publisher and didn't need help. Some said
existing slang works were sufficient, so why did the world need more?
Some clearly just had a distaste for slang. And some reviewers
couldn't have read the proposals, or else they would not have asked
the questions they asked nor made the comments they made. (Some
comments about our proposals were received back-channel and not in the
official grant review papers; our world is rather small).

On top of that, several of our grant applications were made at the
same time DARE and Anatoly Liberman's etymological dictionary made
theirs. Tough competition from worthy, proven competitors cinched the
NEH refusals of HDAS.

Cementing the lack internal support at OUP was that work was behind
schedule. As the in-house editor of HDAS at OUP, I accept all blame
for that.

In my defense, however, the lack of internal OUP support meant there
were just three people working in a meaningful way on HDAS at OUP at
the peak of our efforts there, and during part of that period, I had
other responsibilities within OUP that made it impossible to give the
project more than a few hours of solid work every day. So it was kind
of a catch-22.

Given the work plan and deadlines, if we had had the same ratio of
editors-to-work as OED did at the time, we would have had about 7
people working on HDAS full-time.

If there's anything at all to the HDAS story about the rise of
electronic publishing, it may be in that the whole project, including
Jon Lighter and his assistant editor (and wife) Jane O'Connor, had to
quickly go from the index card model of lexicography to the XML model
of lexicography. It was an immense distance to travel in a very short
time and Jon and Jane did it like professionals. However, it was a
more efficient and faster way of working and not really disruptive
after the transition finished.

I do not know the current disposition of HDAS at OUP, other than that
no work is being done on it. Robert Faber at OUP UK is probably the
person to ask.

Grant Barrett
Project editor of HDAS at OUP 2003-2006
gbarrett@...

I do think that the fate of HDAS is in some ways related to the decline of
print-based reference works.

The work was commissioned back in the 1980s as a single-volume work. For
many reasons, much of which had to do with a lack of consistency in the
management of the reference division at Random House, it was allowed to
morph into a multi-volume project. That was the first mistake; a
single-volume work published before the advent of free reference information
on the Internet might have gone a long way toward funding the larger work.
As it was, by the time I arrived at Random House in January of 1998, the
project was stalling after the publication of the second volume because the
second volume's sales were disappointingly low compared with those of the
first; the slow pace of the editorial work was a factor in this. (I really
admire Grant for what he did to change this, and Jon for coping with an
alien environment; had OUP managed to obtain a new grant, I think we'd be
seeing the third volume by now.) My predecessors had used the potential for
a single-volume trade work as part of a justification for continued work on
the project, and The F-Word was also published from the data files and
applied to the revenues of the larger project. But the P&Ls were not working
because sales projections were too low.

Other factors that are not mine to share contributed as well, but the upshot
was that the project had dragged out so long that it was still moribund at
the time that Bertelsmann bought Random House, and from that point on there
was no hope for the project--as we all know, the company closed the whole
reference division just a couple of years later. Salespeople told me flat
out that they did not see a market for this kind of information when there
were slang "dictionaries" all over the Web. No, they had no clue about the
difference between HDAS and some teenager slapping his high-school lingo on
his Web page, nor did they care. The crucial point is that they didn't think
the public cared either, certainly not to the tune of paying a hefty price
for the book. Library sales alone, which is about all we could count on,
would not support the continuation of the project. In a different time, when
Bennett Cerf was still in charge and moaning about how much the Unabridged
was costing him but still approving the budgets every year anyway, this
project would have been finished. But the combination of a frontlist-,
blockbuster-oriented parent company and the perception that any reference
data should be free online is what killed HDAS at Random House. So in that
way, electronic "publishing"--of the type that allows anyone to post a
glossary on a Web page--did directly affect HDAS.

Wendi Nichols
Editorial director of RH Reference 1998 - 2001

On Fri, Sep 11, 2009 at 1:28 PM, Grant Barrett <gbarrett@...>wrote:

>
>
> On Sep 11, 2009, at 08:45, Sidney Landau wrote:
> > Well, it's been 12 years since Volume 2 of Lighter's Historical
> > Dictionary of American Slang appeared. One has to wonder if and when
> > that will be completed. P to Z represents no small part of the
> > coverage.
>
> Sydney, the problem with completing HDAS wasn't a problem of the
> electronic model disrupting the print model, which is what Lynch is
> asking about.
>
> I don't suppose any of this has been said plainly before, but for the
> record, the problems that stopped the completion of HDAS were, in my
> opinion, these.
>
> Primarily, there was a lack of internal support at OUP for continued
> funding of the project. Few people in OUP wanted to invest the money
> required to do the work and they did not want wait years for the
> returns on the investment. OUP's not alone in this; few publishers
> have the stomach for funding long-term academic projects of this sort.
>
> OUP minds might have been changed if further NEH funding had been
> forthcoming after the first grant, but the project was treated
> unkindly by later grant reviewers, some who reviewed the project
> proposals from positions of ignorance and even malice. Some said OUP
> was practically a commercial publisher and didn't need help. Some said
> existing slang works were sufficient, so why did the world need more?
> Some clearly just had a distaste for slang. And some reviewers
> couldn't have read the proposals, or else they would not have asked
> the questions they asked nor made the comments they made. (Some
> comments about our proposals were received back-channel and not in the
> official grant review papers; our world is rather small).
>
> On top of that, several of our grant applications were made at the
> same time DARE and Anatoly Liberman's etymological dictionary made
> theirs. Tough competition from worthy, proven competitors cinched the
> NEH refusals of HDAS.
>
> Cementing the lack internal support at OUP was that work was behind
> schedule. As the in-house editor of HDAS at OUP, I accept all blame
> for that.
>
> In my defense, however, the lack of internal OUP support meant there
> were just three people working in a meaningful way on HDAS at OUP at
> the peak of our efforts there, and during part of that period, I had
> other responsibilities within OUP that made it impossible to give the
> project more than a few hours of solid work every day. So it was kind
> of a catch-22.
>
> Given the work plan and deadlines, if we had had the same ratio of
> editors-to-work as OED did at the time, we would have had about 7
> people working on HDAS full-time.
>
> If there's anything at all to the HDAS story about the rise of
> electronic publishing, it may be in that the whole project, including
> Jon Lighter and his assistant editor (and wife) Jane O'Connor, had to
> quickly go from the index card model of lexicography to the XML model
> of lexicography. It was an immense distance to travel in a very short
> time and Jon and Jane did it like professionals. However, it was a
> more efficient and faster way of working and not really disruptive
> after the transition finished.
>
> I do not know the current disposition of HDAS at OUP, other than that
> no work is being done on it. Robert Faber at OUP UK is probably the
> person to ask.
>
> Grant Barrett
> Project editor of HDAS at OUP 2003-2006
> gbarrett@... <gbarrett%40worldnewyork.org>
>
>
>


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

On Sep 11, 2009, at 10:56, Wendalyn Nichols wrote:

> But the combination of a frontlist-, blockbuster-oriented parent
> company and the perception that any reference data should be free
> online is what killed HDAS at Random House. So in that way,
> electronic "publishing"--of the type that allows anyone to post a
> glossary on a Web page--did directly affect HDAS

Of course Wendi is right. Those are the larger industry changes that
affected OUP thinking, too. It was caught up in a print model and had
failed to really understand the online possibilities, despite some
efforts. I came to OUP in 2003 from the worlds of advertising and
commercial publishing and my impression at the time was that OUP was
about 10 years behind where it should have been. Had it been nimbler
than it was (or is), it would have had a more mature digital program
that could have easily put HDAS online one way or the other, perhaps
in different slices: free concise version, full paid version, as a
pair with OED, whatever, but more importantly it could have put what
was already finished online from the start and then we could have
released new sections as we completed them. Many proposals were made
along these lines.

But nobody ever applied the word "nimble" to anything that was non-
commercial, university-affiliated, and centuries old.

Grant Barrett
gbarrett@...

This sad news is being reported today:

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/home-news/internet-blamed-as-chambers-hit-by-\
death-of-the-dictionary-1.920190

Wendi Nichols

Indeed it is a sad day -- Chambers was one of the proudest and best-
run dictionary houses in the English-speaking world, with a venerable
history and its own idiosyncratic but quite wonderful style of
defining and presentation. Its many admirers loved it. I was one of
them.

Sidney Landau
On Sep 16, 2009, at 3:15 PM, wendalyn_nichols wrote:

> This sad news is being reported today:
>
> http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/home-news/internet-blamed-as-
> chambers-hit-by-death-of-the-dictionary-1.920190
>
> Wendi Nichols
>
>



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

14th EURALEX International Congress. Third Call for Papers. Extended
deadline!

We take great pleasure in inviting you to take part in the 14th EURALEX
International Congress that will be held in Leeuwarden, The Netherlands
from 6 July until 10 July 2010. The Congress will be  organized by the
Fryske Akademy (Frisian Academy). The EURALEX Congresses bring together
professional lexicographers, publishers, researchers, software
developers and others interested in dictionaries of all types. The
programme will include plenary lectures, parallel sessions, software
demonstrations, a special session for students and work-in-progress, a
book and software exhibition, and social events for participants and
their guests.

Call for Papers
Papers, posters and software demonstrations are invited on all topics of
lexicography, including, but not limited to, the following fields, which
are the main focus of the congress:

   Computational Lexicography and Lexicology
   The Dictionary-Making Process
   Reports on Lexicographical and Lexicological Projects
   Bilingual Lexicography
   Lexicography for Specialised Languages – Terminology and
Terminography
   Historical and Scholarly Lexicography and Etymology
   Dictionary Use
   Phraseology and Collocation
   Lexicological Issues of Lexicographical Relevance
   Lexicography of Lesser Used Non-State languages
   Colonial Lexicography
   Other topics

Papers, posters and demonstrations that are relevant to the congress,
but which do not fit into any of the above categories, will be reviewed
nonetheless and considered for presentation.

Submissions
Submissions may be one of the following types: Contributed full papers
(30 minutes), Contributed short papers & project notes (20 minutes),
Software demonstrations, Posters, Student papers. All submissions will
be evaluated anonymously by at least two reviewers. The Scientific
Committee will be aided in this task by a panel of external referees.
The programme will be selected by the programme committee.

Extended deadline
A number of people indicated that they find it hard to meet the deadline
of October 1 2009. Since we want to give everybody the opportunity to
submit a paper, we have extended the deadline for the submission of
papers until the first of November 2009.

Please go to the Call for Papers on www.euralex2010.eu
<http://www.euralex2010.eu>  for details about the submission process.
All submissions will be evaluated anonymously by at least two reviewers.
The Scientific Committee will be aided in this task by a panel of
external referees. The programme will be selected by the Programme
Committee.

The Euralex 2010 Team
info@... <mailto:info@...>
http://www.euralex2010.eu <http://www.euralex2010.eu>



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

You can find a summary of the discussions at the public consultation
on the proposals for Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru (Dictionary of the
Welsh Language) that was held on 4 July in Aberystwyth at:

http://www.cymru.ac.uk/geiriadur/gpc_news.html

All comments welcome.

sincerely
Andrew Hawke

--
Andrew Hawke | Managing Editor| University of Wales Dictionary of the
Welsh Language, University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh &
Celtic Studies, National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth, SY23 3HH, UK
ff./tel. +44 (0)1970 631012 | ffacs/fax: +44 (0)1970 631039 |
ach@... | gwe/web: http://www.cymru.ac.uk/geiriadur/
This message does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the
University of Wales

Query on bilingual lexicography:


At what date do bilingual dictionaries begin including American English  hooker
'prostitute'?
I'll be grateful for information.

j p maher


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

JP, for what it is worth, my En-Sp Oxford SuperLex 1994-96  (version1.1)
includes it



hooker / "hUk@r / n

1          (prostitute) prostituta f, puta f (vulg)

2          (in rugby) talonador, -dora m, f





Verónica Albin, CT
American Translators Association
English>Spanish>English

Research Associate, Amherst College

valbin@...

valbin@...
vero@...

713-666-9115 (h)

713-927-8901 (c)



   _____

From: DSNA@yahoogroups.com [mailto:DSNA@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of J P
Maher
Sent: Friday, October 02, 2009 3:03 PM
To: DSNA
Subject: [DSNA] bilingual dictionaries s.v. English hooker





Query on bilingual lexicography:

At what date do bilingual dictionaries begin including American English
hooker 'prostitute'?
I'll be grateful for information.

j p maher

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]





[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

F. Köhler, _Dictionary of the English and German Languages_ (31st ed.)
(1894), p. 232 (via Google Books):

<<hooker .... Matrosendirne f (Bewohnerin des Corlear Hook ... in New
York).>>

(taken, I suppose, from Bartlett's _Dictionary of Americanisms_ [1859]).

-- Doug Wilson

Dear Veronica Albin,

Thanks.
The late date is significant in the face of the claim that the sense
'prostitute' for hooker was common in America in the mid-1800s. Can anyone can
adduce citations (plural)  of such usage in English texts or in Spanish
translations?

j p maher

----------


                 JP, for what it is worth, my En-Sp Oxford SuperLex 1994-96 
(version1.1)
includes it

hooker / "hUk@r / n

1          (prostitute) prostituta f, puta f (vulg)

2          (in rugby) talonador, -dora m, f



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Riddles from Arkansas



Dear Doug
Wilson,

Thanks.

You'll agree that Matrosendirne isn't
generic 'prostitute', but 'sailors' tart'.

  Bartlett's entry would in any case have controverted the gloss 'one who hooks',
since he explained his hookers as an eponym,  'girls of [Manhattan district]
Corlear's Hook'. Nor has anyone  ever clarified how a local NY item would have
made it to North Carolina (Eliason 1956,Tarheel Talk) or become vernacular
American.

To boot, Bartlett discarded hooker after his third edition, after criticism from
Professor Felix Flügel,  (Die
Englische Philologie in Nordamerika. Gersdorffs Reportorium 40.185-204.)

j p maher


 

--- On Fri, 10/2/09, Douglas G. Wilson <douglas@...> wrote:

From: Douglas G. Wilson <douglas@...>
Subject: Re: [DSNA] bilingual dictionaries s.v. English hooker
To: DSNA@yahoogroups.com
Date: Friday, October 2, 2009, 10:42 PM

F. Köhler, _Dictionary of the English and German Languages_ (31st ed.)
(1894), p. 232 (via Google Books):

<<hooker .... Matrosendirne f (Bewohnerin des Corlear Hook ... in New
York).>>

(taken, I suppose, from Bartlett's _Dictionary of Americanisms_ [1859]).

-- Doug Wilson


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For more information:http://polyglot.lss.wisc.edu/dsna/index.html
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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Did Mencken ever use or discuss hooker  'prostitute'?

Not in The American Language or in In Defense of Women 1922, quite a wide open
work.
www.ibiblio.org/eldritch/hlm/defense.htm -

Is this lacuna an omission? Is there another reason for the missing item?

j p maher


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Riddles from Arkansas



 I request translators to cite translations of hooker that were published
between 1840 and  1950, as well as first publication of this use of the  lemma
hooker in bilingual dictionaries.

The 1960 Kosciuszko Foundation English-Polish Dictionary, which 
was the best and biggest bilingual Slavic dictionary of its era  does not
include hooker 'prostitute', but only 
  1) a type of ship or fishing boat
  2) hulk (of a ship)
3) (US slang) informers, a secret agent of employers to catch union members.
[JPM: as opposed to missionaries, agents whose work was persuading workers to
avoid unions).

Though dictionaries and netymologists after Eliason 1956 Tarheel Talk, claim
that hooker was word for prostitute as early as 1845, his evidence is at best a
hapax. In THE TIME Magazine Corpus it never refers to prostitutes through the
1800s and 1900s.
  Cf  texts  of "MoA. Making of America. A digital library of primary sources
in 19th-century American social history from the antebellum period through
Reconstruction."
Only in in post-World War I American novelists Tom Wolfe, John DosPassos and
John Steinbeck is there a sudden efflorescence of the usage in question.

  Otherwise, hooker is a synonym for catch, complicating factor, or refers  to
people named Hooker, to Mennonites, thieves, loggers who set the hook in moving
logs, golfers, shots of brandy and whiskey,  to rugby players, dangerous cows,
or a class of racing sailboats derived from craft for fishing, not with nets,
but hook and line. --The Galway Hooker is not an Irish tart.
 
Riddles from Arkansas



1925 2 golf, 1 nonce
-sandwich men

1930s  1x boat

1940s 1 brandy

1950s  complicating factor, a catch

1963   now called hookers

1968s  ho

1969 ho

1970s  Riddles from Arkansas



1925 2x golf, 1 nonce (London sandwich men who stick advertising in clothes of
passers-by)


1930s  1x boat

1940s  1x brandy

1950s  'complicating
factor, a catch'
An innovation:
In the1960s TIME has 3 occurrences meaning 'prostitute'.
1971/1972 (book) /1975 (film). Après Xaviera’s Happy
Hooker le
déluge...

  1971/August/21: "they were known as 'ladies of the night.'
Today
they are called hookers..."
.


Davies, Mark. (2007-) TIME Magazine Corpus (100
million words, 1920s-2000s). Available online at http://corpus.byu.edu/time.






[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Mencken, _The American Language_, Supp. II (1962), p. 682: just a brief
mention; here "hooker" is purportedly jargon for "old prostitute".

-- Doug Wilson

Thanks. This is probably Maurer, not Mencken himself.

jp maher

--- On Sat, 10/3/09, Douglas G. Wilson <douglas@...> wrote:

From: Douglas G. Wilson <douglas@...>
Subject: Re: [DSNA] H. L. Mencken American Language
To: DSNA@yahoogroups.com
Date: Saturday, October 3, 2009, 8:03 PM






 





                   Mencken, _The American Language_, Supp. II (1962), p. 682:
just a brief

mention; here "hooker" is purportedly jargon for "old prostitute".



-- Doug Wilson


























[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Again, not very useful, but I just dug out my Simon & Schuster 1973 En-Sp
edition and it, too, includes it:

2. (jer., E.U.) ramera, prostituta



Verónica Albin, CT
American Translators Association
English>Spanish>English

Research Associate, Amherst College

valbin@...

valbin@...
vero@...

713-666-9115 (h)

713-927-8901 (c)



   _____

From: DSNA@yahoogroups.com [mailto:DSNA@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of J P
Maher
Sent: Saturday, October 03, 2009 10:32 PM
To: DSNA@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [DSNA] H. L. Mencken American Language





Thanks. This is probably Maurer, not Mencken himself.

jp maher

--- On Sat, 10/3/09, Douglas G. Wilson <douglas@...
<mailto:douglas%40nb.net> > wrote:

From: Douglas G. Wilson <douglas@... <mailto:douglas%40nb.net> >
Subject: Re: [DSNA] H. L. Mencken American Language
To: DSNA@yahoogroups. <mailto:DSNA%40yahoogroups.com> com
Date: Saturday, October 3, 2009, 8:03 PM



Mencken, _The American Language_, Supp. II (1962), p. 682: just a brief

mention; here "hooker" is purportedly jargon for "old prostitute".

-- Doug Wilson











[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]





[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Dear Veronica Albin

Thanks. Oh, but it really IS helpful. All that needs to be added is to date the
last dicionaries NOT to have hooker/puta and  the first that DO. I'll bet it's
after Xaviera, 1970s

peter
jp maher

--- On Sat, 10/3/09, Veronica Albin <vero@...> wrote:

From: Veronica Albin <vero@...>
Subject: RE: [DSNA] H. L. Mencken American Language
To: DSNA@yahoogroups.com
Date: Saturday, October 3, 2009, 10:44 PM

Again, not very useful, but I just dug out my Simon & Schuster 1973 En-Sp
edition and it, too, includes it:

2. (jer., E.U.) ramera, prostituta



Verónica Albin, CT
American Translators Association
English>Spanish>English

Research Associate, Amherst College

valbin@...

valbin@...
vero@...

713-666-9115 (h)

713-927-8901 (c)



  _____ 

From: DSNA@yahoogroups.com [mailto:DSNA@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of J P
Maher
Sent: Saturday, October 03, 2009 10:32 PM
To: DSNA@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [DSNA] H. L. Mencken American Language



 

Thanks. This is probably Maurer, not Mencken himself.

jp maher

--- On Sat, 10/3/09, Douglas G. Wilson <douglas@...
<mailto:douglas%40nb.net> > wrote:

From: Douglas G. Wilson <douglas@... <mailto:douglas%40nb.net> >
Subject: Re: [DSNA] H. L. Mencken American Language
To: DSNA@yahoogroups. <mailto:DSNA%40yahoogroups.com> com
Date: Saturday, October 3, 2009, 8:03 PM



Mencken, _The American Language_, Supp. II (1962), p. 682: just a brief

mention; here "hooker" is purportedly jargon for "old prostitute".

-- Doug Wilson











[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]





[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]



------------------------------------

For more information:http://polyglot.lss.wisc.edu/dsna/index.html
Post message: DSNA@yahoogroups.com
Unsubscribe: DSNA-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
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******** REMEMBER: "REPLY" REPLIES TO THE ENTIRE LIST. ********Yahoo! Groups
Links





[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

-- What a mensch!
What a maven! Wild Bill Safire boosted WMD into the thesaurus of BS.
"On Language" by Pattering Poobah of Positive Pap was a
war on language scholarship no less execrable than than his Op-Ed braying for
Peace Through Bombing a blessing for the peoples of Bosnia and Iraq.  De
mortuis nisi nil ...  -- what's the word? -- God forbid that DSNA
should eulogize me when I "pass".

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Yes, and on an ote of accidental humor, under today's column it says that he is
"on hiatus"

From: DSNA@yahoogroups.com [mailto:DSNA@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of John Peter
Maher
Sent: Sunday, October 04, 2009 10:40 AM
To: DSNA
Subject: [DSNA] Obit Safire



-- What a mensch!
What a maven! Wild Bill Safire boosted WMD into the thesaurus of BS.
"On Language" by Pattering Poobah of Positive Pap was a
war on language scholarship no less execrable than than his Op-Ed braying for
Peace Through Bombing a blessing for the peoples of Bosnia and Iraq.  De
mortuis nisi nil ...  -- what's the word? -- God forbid that DSNA
should eulogize me when I "pass".

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

-- What a mensh!
What a maven! Wild Bill Safire boosted WMD into the thesaurus of BS.

"On Language" by Pattering Poobah of Positive Pap was a
war on language scholarship no less execrable than than his Op-Ed braying for
Peace Through Bombing a blessing for the peoples of Bosnia and Iraq.  De
mortuis nisi nil ...  -- what's the word? -- God forbid that DSNA
should eulogize me when I "pass".

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

I think, on the whole, you are being unkind about Safire. About his
politics, I will say nothing, as I cannot defend them and do not
understand them. About his language feature in the Times, I think he
was rather like a goldsmith, weighing the value of the benefit he
received in free advice from his informants against the publicity he
was willing to bestow on them from the prominence of his position,
and with nice discrimination gave as good as he got, but no more. In
his world of politics, this is ethics: he was fair, as he saw it, and
in his own terms I must agree with him. He had real power, and power
is not given freely.

Sidney Landau

On Oct 4, 2009, at 11:44 AM, Wachal, Robert S wrote:

> Yes, and on an ote of accidental humor, under today's column it
> says that he is "on hiatus"
>
> From: DSNA@yahoogroups.com [mailto:DSNA@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf
> Of John Peter Maher
> Sent: Sunday, October 04, 2009 10:40 AM
> To: DSNA
> Subject: [DSNA] Obit Safire
>
> -- What a mensch!
> What a maven! Wild Bill Safire boosted WMD into the thesaurus of BS.
> "On Language" by Pattering Poobah of Positive Pap was a
> war on language scholarship no less execrable than than his Op-Ed
> braying for
> Peace Through Bombing a blessing for the peoples of Bosnia and
> Iraq. De
> mortuis nisi nil ... -- what's the word? -- God forbid that DSNA
> should eulogize me when I "pass".
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

The Lingo of the Good-People



when hooker ‘prostitute’ broke
into public view.

It’s the day of Bonnie and Clyde.
David Maurer published it unobtrusively, page 13, in
The Lingo of the Good-People




 1935. The Lingo of the Good People. American
Speech, Vol. 10, No. 1 (Feb.),
pp. 10-23. Duke University Press. http://www.jstor.org/stable/452929



Bug ‘prostitute’ … modern hustler,
hooker.  






[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Many have  stepped through the White House revolving door to a plum  job in the
media (George Stephanopoulos and Bill Moyers e.g.)

Before  the NY Times' Laptop bombardiers began playng Shock & Awe the peoples of
Yugoslavia and Iraq  were a helluva lot better off. Unfair, even murderous, was
Safire's  use of his borrowed  mantle and bully pulpit to howl like a
  Goebbels to bomb and dismantle secular states that never attacked us.

The good that Safire did with his column "On Language" was to attract
intelligent non-specialists to a love  of language study. I apologize
to those readers  for bruising their feelings.
j p maher


--- On Sun, 10/4/09, Sidney Landau <slandau1755@...>
  wrote:

From: Sidney Landau <slandau1755@...>
Subject: Re: [DSNA] Obit Safire
To: DSNA@yahoogroups.com
Date: Sunday, October 4, 2009, 8:59 PM

I think, on the whole, you are being unkind about Safire. About his 
politics, I will say nothing, as I cannot defend them and do not 
understand them. About his language feature in the Times, I think he 
was rather like a goldsmith, weighing the value of the benefit he 
received in free advice from his informants against the publicity he 
was willing to bestow on them from the prominence of his position, 
and with nice discrimination gave as good as he got, but no more. In 
his world of politics, this is ethics: he was fair, as he saw it, and 
in his own terms I must agree with him. He
  had real power, and power 
is not given freely.

Sidney Landau

On Oct 4, 2009, at 11:44 AM, Wachal, Robert S wrote:

> Yes, and on a note of accidental humor, under today's column it 
> says that he is "on hiatus"
>
> From: DSNA@yahoogroups.com [mailto:DSNA@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf 
> Of John Peter Maher
> Sent: Sunday, October 04, 2009 10:40 AM
> To: DSNA
> Subject: [DSNA] Obit Safire
>
> -- What a mensch!
> What a maven! Wild Bill Safire boosted WMD into the thesaurus of BS.
> "On Language" by Pattering Poobah of Positive Pap was a
> war on language scholarship no less execrable than than his Op-Ed 
> braying for
> Peace Through Bombing a
  blessing for the peoples of Bosnia and 
> Iraq. De
> mortuis nisi nil ... -- what's the word? -- God forbid that DSNA
> should eulogize me when I "pass".
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]



------------------------------------

For more information:http://polyglot.lss.wisc.edu/dsna/index.html
Post message: DSNA@yahoogroups.com
Unsubscribe: DSNA-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
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  ********Yahoo! Groups Links





[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Confucius probably would have said something like, "He who analyzes
wordsmiths, need only analyze words smithed -- not particular political policy
positions." (alliteration in Chinese would probably not apply.) Salute to the
work of William Safire.

Scott N.

--- In DSNA@yahoogroups.com, J P Maher <jpmaher@...> wrote:
>
> Many have  stepped through the White House revolving door to a plum  job in
the media (George Stephanopoulos and Bill Moyers e.g.)
>
> Before  the NY Times' Laptop bombardiers began playng Shock & Awe the peoples
of  Yugoslavia and Iraq  were a helluva lot better off. Unfair, even murderous,
was Safire's  use of his borrowed  mantle and bully pulpit to howl like a
>  Goebbels to bomb and dismantle secular states that never attacked us.
>
> The good that Safire did with his column "On Language" was to attract
> intelligent non-specialists to a love  of language study. I apologize
> to those readers  for bruising their feelings.
> j p maher
>
>
> --- On Sun, 10/4/09, Sidney Landau <slandau1755@...>
>  wrote:
>
> From: Sidney Landau <slandau1755@...>
> Subject: Re: [DSNA] Obit Safire
> To: DSNA@yahoogroups.com
> Date: Sunday, October 4, 2009, 8:59 PM
>
> I think, on the whole, you are being unkind about Safire. About his 
> politics, I will say nothing, as I cannot defend them and do not 
> understand them. About his language feature in the Times, I think he 
> was rather like a goldsmith, weighing the value of the benefit he 
> received in free advice from his informants against the publicity he 
> was willing to bestow on them from the prominence of his position, 
> and with nice discrimination gave as good as he got, but no more. In 
> his world of politics, this is ethics: he was fair, as he saw it, and 
> in his own terms I must agree with him. He
>  had real power, and power 
> is not given freely.
>
> Sidney Landau
>
> On Oct 4, 2009, at 11:44 AM, Wachal, Robert S wrote:
>
> > Yes, and on a note of accidental humor, under today's column it 
> > says that he is "on hiatus"
> >
> > From: DSNA@yahoogroups.com [mailto:DSNA@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf 
> > Of John Peter Maher
> > Sent: Sunday, October 04, 2009 10:40 AM
> > To: DSNA
> > Subject: [DSNA] Obit Safire
> >
> > -- What a mensch!
> > What a maven! Wild Bill Safire boosted WMD into the thesaurus of BS.
> > "On Language" by Pattering Poobah of Positive Pap was a
> > war on language scholarship no less execrable than than his Op-Ed 
> > braying for
> > Peace Through Bombing a
>  blessing for the peoples of Bosnia and 
> > Iraq. De
> > mortuis nisi nil ... -- what's the word? -- God forbid that DSNA
> > should eulogize me when I "pass".
> >
> > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
> >
> > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
> >
> >
>
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> For more information:http://polyglot.lss.wisc.edu/dsna/index.html
> Post message: DSNA@yahoogroups.com
> Unsubscribe: DSNA-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
> Visit the 2007 Conference blog: http://www.dsna-chicago.blogspot.com
> ******** REMEMBER: "REPLY" REPLIES TO THE ENTIRE LIST.
>  ********Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>

Dear Mr. Maher,

I happen to respect William Safire's point of view and agree with it,
particularly as regards the former Yugoslavia. I would prefer not to read
attacks on his politics on a list devoted to the discussion of lexicography.

Please, if you wish to comment on politics, consider joining another list.

Very truly yours,
Andrea R. Nagy



________________________________
From: J P Maher <jpmaher@...>
To: DSNA@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Monday, October 5, 2009 1:27:29 AM
Subject: Re: [DSNA] Obit Safire

 
Many have stepped through the White House revolving door to a plum job in the
media (George Stephanopoulos and Bill Moyers e.g.)

Before the NY Times' Laptop bombardiers began playng Shock & Awe the peoples of
Yugoslavia and Iraq were a helluva lot better off. Unfair, even murderous, was
Safire's use of his borrowed  mantle and bully pulpit to howl like a
Goebbels to bomb and dismantle secular states that never attacked us.

The good that Safire did with his column "On Language" was to attract
intelligent non-specialists to a love  of language study. I apologize
to those readers for bruising their feelings.
j p maher

--- On Sun, 10/4/09, Sidney Landau <slandau1755@ verizon.net>
wrote:

From: Sidney Landau <slandau1755@ verizon.net>
Subject: Re: [DSNA] Obit Safire
To: DSNA@yahoogroups. com
Date: Sunday, October 4, 2009, 8:59 PM

I think, on the whole, you are being unkind about Safire. About his 
politics, I will say nothing, as I cannot defend them and do not 
understand them. About his language feature in the Times, I think he 
was rather like a goldsmith, weighing the value of the benefit he 
received in free advice from his informants against the publicity he 
was willing to bestow on them from the prominence of his position, 
and with nice discrimination gave as good as he got, but no more. In 
his world of politics, this is ethics: he was fair, as he saw it, and 
in his own terms I must agree with him. He
had real power, and power 
is not given freely.

Sidney Landau

On Oct 4, 2009, at 11:44 AM, Wachal, Robert S wrote:

> Yes, and on a note of accidental humor, under today's column it 
> says that he is "on hiatus"
>
> From: DSNA@yahoogroups. com [mailto:DSNA@yahoogroups. com] On Behalf 
> Of John Peter Maher
> Sent: Sunday, October 04, 2009 10:40 AM
> To: DSNA
> Subject: [DSNA] Obit Safire
>
> -- What a mensch!
> What a maven! Wild Bill Safire boosted WMD into the thesaurus of BS.
> "On Language" by Pattering Poobah of Positive Pap was a
> war on language scholarship no less execrable than than his Op-Ed 
> braying for
> Peace Through Bombing a
blessing for the peoples of Bosnia and 
> Iraq. De
> mortuis nisi nil ... -- what's the word? -- God forbid that DSNA
> should eulogize me when I "pass".
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

------------ --------- --------- ------

For more information:http://polyglot. lss.wisc. edu/dsna/ index.html
Post message: DSNA@yahoogroups. com
Unsubscribe: DSNA-unsubscribe@ yahoogroups. com
Visit the 2007 Conference blog: http://www.dsna-chicago.blogspot.com
******** REMEMBER: "REPLY" REPLIES TO THE ENTIRE LIST.
********Yahoo! Groups Links

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]







[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

God statement, and I agree totally.

Bob

From: DSNA@yahoogroups.com [mailto:DSNA@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Sidney
Landau
Sent: Sunday, October 04, 2009 8:59 PM
To: DSNA@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [DSNA] Obit Safire



I think, on the whole, you are being unkind about Safire. About his
politics, I will say nothing, as I cannot defend them and do not
understand them. About his language feature in the Times, I think he
was rather like a goldsmith, weighing the value of the benefit he
received in free advice from his informants against the publicity he
was willing to bestow on them from the prominence of his position,
and with nice discrimination gave as good as he got, but no more. In
his world of politics, this is ethics: he was fair, as he saw it, and
in his own terms I must agree with him. He had real power, and power
is not given freely.

Sidney Landau

On Oct 4, 2009, at 11:44 AM, Wachal, Robert S wrote:

> Yes, and on an ote of accidental humor, under today's column it
> says that he is "on hiatus"
>
> From: DSNA@yahoogroups.com<mailto:DSNA%40yahoogroups.com>
[mailto:DSNA@yahoogroups.com<mailto:DSNA%40yahoogroups.com>] On Behalf
> Of John Peter Maher
> Sent: Sunday, October 04, 2009 10:40 AM
> To: DSNA
> Subject: [DSNA] Obit Safire
>
> -- What a mensch!
> What a maven! Wild Bill Safire boosted WMD into the thesaurus of BS.
> "On Language" by Pattering Poobah of Positive Pap was a
> war on language scholarship no less execrable than than his Op-Ed
> braying for
> Peace Through Bombing a blessing for the peoples of Bosnia and
> Iraq. De
> mortuis nisi nil ... -- what's the word? -- God forbid that DSNA
> should eulogize me when I "pass".
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Kedves A. N. -- NYT  mendaciously reported e.g.  Dubrovnik as totally destroyed
in December 1991. I went there and filmed it on 25 March 1992, three months
after the total destruction. The Old City was totally re-built. There are a
couple other liinguists around who politicize, one at MIT. -- Hungarian
Yugoslavs fared well in Serbia. One, an
officer in the Serbian air force - Dani Zoltan -- shot down the
invisible Stealth fighter (F-117),
on the first night of Clinton's Blitzkrieg. Would you like me to
introduce you to him?  Knowledge is a whole and cannot be comparmentalized. You
are free to applaud jingoism. I can't stop
you.

--- On Mon, 10/5/09, Andrea R. Nagy <andrearnagy@...> wrote:

From: Andrea R. Nagy <andrearnagy@...>
Subject: Re: [DSNA] Obit Safire
To: DSNA@yahoogroups.com
Date: Monday, October 5, 2009, 10:29 AM

Dear Mr. Maher,

I happen to respect William Safire's point of view and agree with it,
particularly as regards the former Yugoslavia. I would prefer not to read
attacks on his politics on a list devoted to the discussion of lexicography.

Please, if you wish to comment on politics, consider joining another list.

Very truly yours,
Andrea R. Nagy



________________________________
From: J P Maher <jpmaher@...>
To: DSNA@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Monday, October 5, 2009 1:27:29 AM
Subject: Re: [DSNA] Obit Safire

 
Many have stepped through the White House revolving door to a plum job in the
media (George Stephanopoulos and Bill Moyers e.g.)

Before the NY Times' Laptop bombardiers began playng Shock & Awe the peoples of
Yugoslavia and Iraq were a helluva lot better off. Unfair, even murderous, was
Safire's use of his borrowed  mantle and bully pulpit to howl like a
Goebbels to bomb and dismantle secular states that never attacked us.

The good that Safire did with his column "On Language" was to attract
intelligent non-specialists to a love  of language study. I apologize
to those readers for bruising their feelings.
j p maher

--- On Sun, 10/4/09, Sidney Landau <slandau1755@ verizon.net>
wrote:

From:
  Sidney Landau <slandau1755@ verizon.net>
Subject: Re: [DSNA] Obit Safire
To: DSNA@yahoogroups. com
Date: Sunday, October 4, 2009, 8:59 PM

I think, on the whole, you are being unkind about Safire. About his 
politics, I will say nothing, as I cannot defend them and do not 
understand them. About his language feature in the Times, I think he 
was rather like a goldsmith, weighing the value of the benefit he 
received in free advice from his informants against the publicity he 
was willing to bestow on them from the prominence of his position, 
and with nice discrimination gave as good as he got, but no more. In 
his world of politics, this is ethics: he was fair, as he saw it, and 
in his own terms I must agree with him. He
had real power, and power 
is not given freely.

Sidney Landau

On Oct 4, 2009, at 11:44 AM, Wachal, Robert S
  wrote:

> Yes, and on a note of accidental humor, under today's column it 
> says that he is "on hiatus"
>
> From: DSNA@yahoogroups. com [mailto:DSNA@yahoogroups. com] On Behalf 
> Of John Peter Maher
> Sent: Sunday, October 04, 2009 10:40 AM
> To: DSNA
> Subject: [DSNA] Obit Safire
>
> -- What a mensch!
> What a maven! Wild Bill Safire boosted WMD into the thesaurus of BS.
> "On Language" by Pattering Poobah of Positive Pap was a
> war on language scholarship no less execrable than than his Op-Ed 
> braying for
> Peace Through Bombing a
blessing for the peoples of Bosnia and 
> Iraq. De
> mortuis nisi nil ... -- what's the word? -- God forbid that DSNA
> should eulogize me when I "pass".
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been
  removed]
>
>

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

------------ --------- --------- ------

For more information:http://polyglot. lss.wisc. edu/dsna/ index.html
Post message: DSNA@yahoogroups. com
Unsubscribe: DSNA-unsubscribe@ yahoogroups. com
Visit the 2007 Conference blog: http://www.dsna-chicago.blogspot.com
******** REMEMBER: "REPLY" REPLIES TO THE ENTIRE LIST.
********Yahoo! Groups Links

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]





     

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]



------------------------------------

For more information about the DSNA: http://www.dictionarysociety.com
Post message: DSNA@yahoogroups.com
Unsubscribe: DSNA-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
******** REMEMBER: "REPLY" REPLIES TO THE ENTIRE LIST. ********Yahoo! Groups
Links





[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Simply put, Safire pontificated on subjects in which he was not competent.

jpm


--- On Mon, 10/5/09, Wachal, Robert S <robert-wachal@...> wrote:

From: Wachal, Robert S <robert-wachal@...>
Subject: RE: [DSNA] Obit Safire
To: "DSNA@yahoogroups.com" <DSNA@yahoogroups.com>
Date: Monday, October 5, 2009, 10:35 AM

God statement, and I agree totally.

Bob

From: DSNA@yahoogroups.com [mailto:DSNA@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Sidney
Landau
Sent: Sunday, October 04, 2009 8:59 PM
To: DSNA@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [DSNA] Obit Safire



I think, on the whole, you are being unkind about Safire. About his
politics, I will say nothing, as I cannot defend them and do not
understand them. About his language feature in the Times, I think he
was rather like a goldsmith, weighing the value of the benefit he
received in free advice from his informants against the publicity he
was willing to bestow on them from the prominence of his position,
and with nice discrimination gave as good as he got, but no more. In
his world of politics, this is ethics: he was fair, as he saw it, and
in his own terms I must agree with him. He had real power, and power
is not given freely.

Sidney Landau

On Oct 4, 2009, at 11:44 AM, Wachal, Robert S wrote:

> Yes, and on an ote of accidental humor, under today's column it
> says that he is "on hiatus"
>
> From: DSNA@yahoogroups.com<mailto:DSNA%40yahoogroups.com>
[mailto:DSNA@yahoogroups.com<mailto:DSNA%40yahoogroups.com>] On Behalf
> Of John Peter Maher
> Sent: Sunday, October 04, 2009 10:40 AM
> To: DSNA
> Subject: [DSNA] Obit Safire
>
> -- What a mensch!
> What a maven! Wild Bill Safire boosted WMD into the thesaurus of BS.
> "On Language" by Pattering Poobah of Positive Pap was a
> war on language scholarship no less execrable than than his Op-Ed
> braying for
> Peace Through Bombing a blessing for the peoples of Bosnia and
> Iraq. De
> mortuis nisi nil ... -- what's the word? -- God forbid that DSNA
> should eulogize me when I "pass".
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]



------------------------------------

For more information about the DSNA: http://www.dictionarysociety.com
Post message: DSNA@yahoogroups.com
Unsubscribe: DSNA-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
******** REMEMBER: "REPLY" REPLIES TO THE ENTIRE LIST. ********Yahoo! Groups
Links





[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Since my polemics on the politics as well as the linguistics of Wm Safire proved
an  irritation to many,  I've decided after posting a URL on my Unhappy Hookers
paper, to discontinue my membership. I have too many  etymological irons in the
fire that need attention.  Watch this space.

Let me inform the society that a re-issue, with corrections and enlargements of
data, is under consideration of Wallace Reyburn's book Flushed With Pride -- The
Story of Thomas Crapper. It's a farce, not a hoax. Piltdown was a hoax. -- The
current views on TC & Co etc. are as lacking in scholarship as the prevailing
views on hooker.  Intelligent non-specialists have a place in DSNA  but 
bean-counting should be done off campus.

My apologies to all and highest respects to all the excellent scholars I met at
the Bloomington meeting.




[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]