I suggest Lexicographic Defense Initiative. Might inadvertently get DoD funding.

emckean@... wrote:

> We need either a really great logo/slogan or a completely inoffensive
> vanilla one. (I'd hate to fall between those two stools.)

Or, both at once: "You could look it up."

Advantages: short, simple, familiar, catchy, casual.

But what's the early history of  this maxim?

--
Michael Hancher
Professor of English
College of Liberal Arts
University of Minnesota
207 Lind Hall
207 Church Street SE
Minneapolis  MN 55455
     612-625-5075, 612-625-3363; fax 612-624-8228
     http://mh.cla.umn.edu

First off, I want to make it clear I am *not* volunteering for anything.

I do, however, want to say that I think this is a worthwhile initiative,
although it will be very difficult to get Cambridge to fork over money for it,
given our relatively small output of dictionaries. We shall see about that when
the time comes.

The mention of slogans brought to mind yesterday's NY Times Magazine article on
organic food. In it, an organic foods company's slogan is discussed. The slogan
they used - "Taste You Can Believe In" - is described as being a work of
"genius": "meaningless in and of itself, the slogan 'allows the consumer to
bring his or her personal beliefs to it'... While the true natural hears social
values in the phrase 'Believe In,' the health seeker hears a promise of health
and flavor." Clearly, this is a lesson we could and should apply to the DCA. (Or
should it be the Dictionary Council of North America, to include our brothers
and sisters to the north and south?)

Paul
***************************************
Paul Heacock
Commissioning Editor, ESL/EFL Reference
Cambridge University Press
phone (1 212) 924 3900, ext 375
fax (1 212) 691 3239
****************************************
The Cambridge Dictionary of American English is now available!
See http://www.cup.org/esl/cdae/ for more details.
****************************************
Try Cambridge Dictionaries Online at
http://dictionary.cambridge.org


On 5/14/01, DSNA wrote:
>Many thanks to those who took the time to ask me >questions both during >and
after my presentation at DSNA.
>
>Several people asked me to post to the list with >these questions:
>
>* what should the name of a dictionary association >be? >
> (I like the one in the Subject: line)
>
>* who should be on the board? >
> Ideally, we would have a representative from >each major publisher,
>academics, freelancers, and educators.
>
>* when should this/will this start up? >
> I think that we can get a name, set up as a >non-profit, and get a
>post-office box and start soliciting publishers for >donations by the >end of
the year, with some help. Any volunteers? We >need either a >really great
logo/slogan or a completely inoffensive >vanilla one. (I'd >hate to fall between
those two stools.)
>
>It was also asked why DSNA wouldn't do this >(lobbying/marketing) on its >own,
perhaps as a task force or special group. DSNA >has a lot on its >plate right
now just getting the conferences >together, and  it makes >sense (to me, at
least) to keep the >academic/scholarly group and the >business/lobbying group
more or less separate. >
>I'd like to see a lot of discussion of this >cooperative marketing idea, >both
pro and con. Perhaps someday we can rival the >mezzanine and >ensilage
industries in market penetration and >consumer awareness!
>
>Thanks again to all who commented and who asked to >sign on to this >discussion
list.
>
>--Erin
>
>
>
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>
>
>
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Many thanks to those who took the time to ask me questions both during
and after my presentation at DSNA.

Several people asked me to post to the list with these questions:

* what should the name of a dictionary association be?

	 (I like the one in the Subject: line)

* who should be on the board?

	 Ideally, we would have a representative from each major publisher,
academics, freelancers, and educators.

* when should this/will this start up?

	 I think that we can get a name, set up as a non-profit, and get a
post-office box and start soliciting publishers for donations by the
end of the year, with some help. Any volunteers? We need either a
really great logo/slogan or a completely inoffensive vanilla one. (I'd
hate to fall between those two stools.)

It was also asked why DSNA wouldn't do this (lobbying/marketing) on its
own, perhaps as a task force or special group. DSNA has a lot on its
plate right now just getting the conferences together, and  it makes
sense (to me, at least) to keep the academic/scholarly group and the
business/lobbying group more or less separate.

I'd like to see a lot of discussion of this cooperative marketing idea,
both pro and con. Perhaps someday we can rival the mezzanine and
ensilage industries in market penetration and consumer awareness!

Thanks again to all who commented and who asked to sign on to this
discussion list.

--Erin

This hadn't impinged on my notice until you mentioned it, but now
that I've been sensitized I heard it twice yesterday. Both were by
older women (50+); one was a retired elementary school teacher and
one had had some college but no degree.

Needless to say, I was pretty surprised to hear it. I was going to
try to make an unobtrusive note so that I could remember the exact
constructions but then my son decided to smush squash in his hair and
I was distracted. . .

The two uses happened very close together; perhaps the second one was
a mirroring of the first so as not to seem to be "correcting" the
first person's use.

Erin McKean

>I have noticed for some time that in conversation it is now pretty much
>invariable that in a compound object when the first person pronoun is the
>second element, the preferred form is "I" not "me," and this occurs with
>increasing frequency in writing as well. (I have collected citations of it.)
>For example, "the coach told Jim and I that we had to do better," or "he
>saved tickets to the play for Alan and I" or "a lot of people worked on it,
>by most of it was done by George and I." This is not only in very informal
>sports talk--far from it. I have citations in formal press statements using
>it from the New York chief of police; I have heard college professors use
>it; TV anchor people of reputation; editors; etc.  I believe it is now
>well-nigh universal in all classes of people at all educational levels
>except for a few older humanities professors. It is as commonly used as
>"lay" for "lie," maybe more so. It is so common that I believe most people
>would regard the use of "me" in that frame as an error. Why else would I
>hear Lily Bart say it in Edith Wharton's movie, "The House of Mirth"? Surely
>Wharton would not have used it herself. She may, arguably, have used it to
>suggest that Lily was really not well educated--but this seems implausible
>in the context of the story. (I haven't read the book, but if anyone has and
>remembers this use, let me know.) The only explanation, I think, is that the
>screenwriters, who surely knew what was technically correct, felt that they
>had to use the idiom of the audience they were addressing, and further, that
>had they not, the audience would have felt that the use was incorrect. The
>use is now so widespread that I feel lexicographers had better start
>recognizing it at least as an alternative standard form. In speech I believe
>it is now preferred, especially among those younger than 50--but it is also
>heard among older people. I'd welcome anyone's comments on this to see if
>you've made the same observation or disagree.
>
>Sidney Landau
>

After I wrote the message, I encountered this passage from Sterling
Leonard's The Doctrine of Correctness in English Usage 1700-1800: "In a
letter written in 1774, Horace Walpole says, 'You will be diverted to hear
that a man who thought of nothig so much as the purity of his language, I
mean Lord Chesterfield, says, "you and me shall not be well together," and
this not once, but on every such occasion. A friend of mine says, it was
certainly to avoid the female inaccuracy of  "they don't mind you and I",
and yet the latter is the least bad of the two."

So obviously this locution is hardly new. The stigmatization of its being
female is interesting, as it links hypercorrection with gender; "him and me
went to a ballgame" is considered aggressive in-your-face man talk by
comparison. It's yin and yang all over again.

Sidney

There is a school of grammatical thought that considers phrases of the type
"John and I" as an indeclinable noun phrases, and therefore correct in
either subject or object position. I suppose once you've gone that far, you
can throw the same credentials at "John and me" and "me and John". Is this
all the legacy of the permissive society?

Orin

At 06:14 PM 1/19/01 -0500, you wrote:
>I have noticed for some time that in conversation it is now pretty much
>invariable that in a compound object when the first person pronoun is the
>second element, the preferred form is "I" not "me," and this occurs with
>increasing frequency in writing as well. (I have collected citations of it.)
>For example, "the coach told Jim and I that we had to do better," or "he
>saved tickets to the play for Alan and I" or "a lot of people worked on it,
>by most of it was done by George and I." This is not only in very informal
>sports talk--far from it. I have citations in formal press statements using
>it from the New York chief of police; I have heard college professors use
>it; TV anchor people of reputation; editors; etc.  I believe it is now
>well-nigh universal in all classes of people at all educational levels
>except for a few older humanities professors. It is as commonly used as
>"lay" for "lie," maybe more so. It is so common that I believe most people
>would regard the use of "me" in that frame as an error. Why else would I
>hear Lily Bart say it in Edith Wharton's movie, "The House of Mirth"? Surely
>Wharton would not have used it herself. She may, arguably, have used it to
>suggest that Lily was really not well educated--but this seems implausible
>in the context of the story. (I haven't read the book, but if anyone has and
>remembers this use, let me know.) The only explanation, I think, is that the
>screenwriters, who surely knew what was technically correct, felt that they
>had to use the idiom of the audience they were addressing, and further, that
>had they not, the audience would have felt that the use was incorrect. The
>use is now so widespread that I feel lexicographers had better start
>recognizing it at least as an alternative standard form. In speech I believe
>it is now preferred, especially among those younger than 50--but it is also
>heard among older people. I'd welcome anyone's comments on this to see if
>you've made the same observation or disagree.
>
>Sidney Landau
>
Yes, I have friends and colleagues who do this, especially in prepositional
phrases.  I thought it was simply hypercorrection, perhaps against the use
of objective forms being incorrect or not educated usage in subject
position, e.g. "him and me were there last night."  It "sounds better" or
"sounds right" I've been told when I asked about it.

Countering this, my children and their friends consistently use the object
pronoun in a compound subject, and in initial position;  I have heard it
from adults as well, although not as frequently:  "Me and Laura are going
to Sarah's."

Luanne

I have noticed for some time that in conversation it is now pretty much
invariable that in a compound object when the first person pronoun is the
second element, the preferred form is "I" not "me," and this occurs with
increasing frequency in writing as well. (I have collected citations of it.)
For example, "the coach told Jim and I that we had to do better," or "he
saved tickets to the play for Alan and I" or "a lot of people worked on it,
by most of it was done by George and I." This is not only in very informal
sports talk--far from it. I have citations in formal press statements using
it from the New York chief of police; I have heard college professors use
it; TV anchor people of reputation; editors; etc.  I believe it is now
well-nigh universal in all classes of people at all educational levels
except for a few older humanities professors. It is as commonly used as
"lay" for "lie," maybe more so. It is so common that I believe most people
would regard the use of "me" in that frame as an error. Why else would I
hear Lily Bart say it in Edith Wharton's movie, "The House of Mirth"? Surely
Wharton would not have used it herself. She may, arguably, have used it to
suggest that Lily was really not well educated--but this seems implausible
in the context of the story. (I haven't read the book, but if anyone has and
remembers this use, let me know.) The only explanation, I think, is that the
screenwriters, who surely knew what was technically correct, felt that they
had to use the idiom of the audience they were addressing, and further, that
had they not, the audience would have felt that the use was incorrect. The
use is now so widespread that I feel lexicographers had better start
recognizing it at least as an alternative standard form. In speech I believe
it is now preferred, especially among those younger than 50--but it is also
heard among older people. I'd welcome anyone's comments on this to see if
you've made the same observation or disagree.

Sidney Landau

CL Research has been designated an agent for Oxford University Press to
license the New Oxford Dictionary of English (NODE) to the academic and
commercial research communities.  This dictionary has been praised as a
"major achievement" in lexicography; in its machine-readable form,
considerable additional information is available.  CL Research has also
created a machine-tractable version of NODE in its dictionary creation
and maintenance software (DIMAP) and then parsed the definitions to add
semantic links between entries (particularly hypernyms, but also
including "typical subject" for verbs). Details, including the license
agreement, are available at http://www.clres.com/oup-clr.html.

The licensing fees for a two-year period are:

		 Academic Commercial
		 -------- ----------
NODE  $1,500  $7,500
NODE+DIMAP $2,000  $10,000

Other Oxford products (thesaurus, bilingual dictionaries, inflection
lists) are also available.  Commercial exploitation agreements will be
developed separately.

--
Ken Litkowski                     TEL.: 301-482-0237
CL Research                       EMAIL: ken@...
9208 Gue Road
Damascus, MD 20872-1025 USA       Home Page: http://www.clres.com

Well, at least someone recognizes us. . .I picked up a copy of Ngaio
Marsh's mystery "Died in the Wool" this past weekend and was
flummoxed to see that the dedication was "For the Lexicographers." I
read it carefully but dictionaries did not figure in the plot. (I
learned a lot about New Zealand sheep-shearing during WWII, however.)

I guess it was just a random shout-out.

Erin McKean
editor@...

At 05:45 PM 10/28/00 +0000, you wrote:
>I asked members for reviews of AHDIV;
>Well, I've checked it out for myself:
>Don't bother to send me any reviews.
>I think AHDIV stinks.
>...And I used to think that the edition with an entry
>*including* picture of Johnny Carson was bad...
>AHDIV is nice if you want to find out
>a city's population or a lake's location,
>but...jeez...what a compilation, what a mess!
>AHD must be in *competition* with that goofy ENCARTA...
>
>milwaukee: kritter
>


There is a reference to a review in the NYT today from ADS-L:

http://partners.nytimes.com/2000/11/25/arts/25SHEL.html

Can anyone point me to an eytmology or early citations of "seed" in the
sports sense (i.e., the second-ranked seed, seed a player)? I don't find it
treated specifically in any of my more or less current dictionaries.

Thanks,

Orin Hargraves

I asked members for reviews of AHDIV;
Well, I've checked it out for myself:
Don't bother to send me any reviews.
I think AHDIV stinks.
...And I used to think that the edition with an entry
*including* picture of Johnny Carson was bad...
AHDIV is nice if you want to find out
a city's population or a lake's location,
but...jeez...what a compilation, what a mess!
AHD must be in *competition* with that goofy ENCARTA...

milwaukee: kritter

I'll tell you one thing-
Ole Doc Minor would NOT collect citations
for this dog...

On very short notice NEH posted a document suggesting policy changes for
long-term projects (=basically cutting them off, or supporting them for a
limited time).  Since dictionaries are notoriously long-term in their creation
(and yes, since DARE is funded, long-term, in large part by NEH), I drafted a
quick response and sent it to your DSNA executive board for comments,
suggestions, etc.  Below is the final report sent last week to NEH:

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

John Roberts
Deputy Chairman
National Endowment for the Humanities
Washington D.C. 20506

Dear Mr. Roberts:

We are responding to your invitation to consider the policy on support for
long-term projects at the National Endowment for the Humanities.  As members of
the Executive Board of the Dictionary Society of North America we are only too
aware of the length of time required to create reference materials, especially
dictionaries, encyclopedias, and linguistic atlases.  We feel that it is
crucial that the NEH continue to support such long-term projects.  We are also
aware that such projects, when completed, are national or indeed international
treasures, resources which will endure and be used by generations to come.
(Even before completion, every volume, every fascicle produced by long-term
projects is an important contribution to scholarship, something of enduring
value not just this year, when it appears, but for decades and generations to
come.)  The underwriting of these projects is generally far beyond the scope of
a single scholar or university.  NEH should not lightly abdicate its mission of
supporting national projects, projects such as the Dictionary of American
Regional English, which serve not just scholars but the American public as a
whole.

James A. H. Murray took over the editorship of the Oxford English Dictionary in
1879; the last volume appeared in 1928, almost 50 years later.  The Grimm
brothers’ Deutsches Wörterbuch, started in 1854, was finished 100 years later.
Ladislav Zgusta, in his 1971 Manual of Lexicography, cites statistics on the
Dutch, Swedish, and Danish national dictionaries: they actually took 65, 65,
and 49 years, respectively, to complete (349).  As Sidney Landau has stated,
“[D]ictionaries are not easy to write, and they are very long.  The average
college dictionary has close to three million words – about the equivalent of
30 good-sized novels.  It is written simultaneously by a great many people who
must be trained and supervised and persuaded to follow a set of consistent
rules.”  (Landau, “The Making of a Dictionary: Craft versus Commerce,” Booklist
77:6 (Nov. 15, 1980), 481-2).  And his reference is to a college dictionary
published commercially, one much shorter and more limited than most of the
projects seeking support from NEH.

Landau also says in his highly regarded book Dictionaries: The Art and Craft of
Lexicography, that “Most books cost comparatively little to prepare . . . but a
great deal to produce. . . .  The opposite is true of dictionaries, where the
cost of production, though hardly negligible, is small compared to the huge
development costs. . . .  Dictionaries take so long to do not because they are
done by perfectionists but because there is so much to be done” (230-31).  None
of the above-mentioned national dictionaries could have been completed without
federal funding.  If public funding agencies like NEH do not fund such
long-term projects, serious work on such projects will gradually come to an
end, and the nations will be culturally poorer for it.

You raise several policy questions in your paper which we would like to
address.  You ask if NEH should limit its support for long-term projects to a
specific number of years or grants or cumulative funding amount; if the
Endowment should limit support for long-term projects to NEH matching funds or
to the NEH Challenge Grants Program after a certain point.  We emphatically
oppose an of these limitations.  If a project has shown that it is making good
progress and that it is a valuable addition to our national life, it should not
be arbitrarily cut off.  Most of the long-term projects NEH is supporting also
receive funding from other sources: foundations, other government agencies,
private individuals.  But such funding has already become increasingly
difficult to find.  Should NEH cut its support many large projects currently
underway could simply wither.  It would become foolhardy for a visionary
scholar even to dream of undertaking a project on a national scale.  The job of
the head of the project should be to carry out the project, not to spend all of
his or her time raising funds.  The financial security of such projects is
already precarious, causing them to lose good staff members to more financially
secure positions elsewhere and to be unable to attract top personnel.

You ask if the panel review system within each NEH division where long-term
projects are funded should be structured in such a way that applications from
these projects compete against one another for funding.  No, it should not.
One single review panel cannot know all disciplines.  Projects from various
disciplines should not be competing against one another for funds granted by a
single review panel.  Please maintain the traditional discipline-based panels
which can better judge the merits of the applications.

Your final question is if the Endowment should maintain the status quo by
continuing to support long-term projects the way it currently does.  Our
question to you is this:  If you don’t, who will?  Precisely because they are
long-term projects, it is difficult for them to get and maintain funding.  Do
we want to see this country in a situation where scholars are not willing to
take on large projects because they know that funding is very difficult if not
impossible to find?  Many agencies on local, state, federal, and private levels
are willing to fund small one-time projects requiring a few thousand dollars,
projects which are worthy now but will be forgotten a week, a month, a year
after they have been completed.  How many agencies are capable of long-term,
sustained financial help for lasting projects?  Please don’t remove such
possibilities.

NEH has been admired for its ability and willingness to fund large scholarly
undertakings.  It has received high praise for enabling the creation of  this
legacy, its gift to the nation. This should continue, not be discarded.  We
realize that the Endowment has been facing serious financial restraints and we
appreciate the review of its policies.  We strongly encourage its continuance
of support for large, long-term visionary scholarly projects, including
dictionaries.

Sincerely,

The Executive Board, representing its members, of the Dictionary Society of
North America
Luanne von Schneidemesser, Secretary-Treasurer (DARE, University of
Wisconsin-Madison)
Joan Houston Hall, President  (DARE, University of Wisconsin-Madison)
Richard W. Bailey, Vice-President, President-Elect (University of Michigan)
Edward Gates, Past President and Fellow (Emeritus, Indiana State University)
David Jost, Board Member (Vice President and Director, Electronic Publishing,
Houghton Mifflin Company)
Terry Pratt, Board Member (University of Prince Edward Island)
Anatoly Liberman, Board Member (University of Minnesota)
Erin McKean, Board Member (Oxford University Press)
John Algeo, Past President and Fellow (Emeritus, University of Georgia)
Sidney Landau, Past President and Fellow (former Editorial Director, North
American Branch, Cambridge University Press)

Is the word 'firefight'now
synonymous with the word 'battle'?

Ron Kritter/ Milwaukee

You write:
>The only thing I've heard about it is that it is
>supposed to have hundreds of color photos and drawings.

Also, all entries are in a lovely shade of blue.<s>
Every AHD IV for sale at Barnes & Noble was
hermetically sealed in cellophane so I actually carried
one into the Shakespeare section of the store (deserted)
and slit open the wrap and peeked inside.
The pages certainly were beautiful, but if you can't
judge books by their covers, I guess you can't judge
dictionaries by their colors...

Ronald

Thank you for your reply;
at $60.00 -- though it does include CD ROM --
I think I can wait out the year...<s>
Ronald
****************
> If you can wait a whole year, there is a review scheduled for the 2001
> issue of _Dictionaries_.
>
> This year's issue, by the way, should be mailed Sept. 21, I've been told.
>
> Luanne

The only thing I've heard about it is that it is supposed to have hundreds
of color photos and drawings.

At 03:13 PM 9/17/00 -0500, you wrote:

>Are any list members familiar with the new
>American Heritage Dictionary, fourth edition?
>I'm curious to see if it is significantly different from the third edition,
>and, also, how it compares to Merriam-Webster 10 and New World 4.
>(I'm a general reader.)
>
>Ronald Kritter
>Milwaukee Wisconsin
>
If you can wait a whole year, there is a review scheduled for the 2001
issue of _Dictionaries_.

This year's issue, by the way, should be mailed Sept. 21, I've been told.

Luanne


Luanne von Schneidemesser
Secretary-Treasurer
Dictionary Society of North America
University of Wisconsin-Madison
6131 Helen C. White Hall, 600 N. Park St.
Madison WI 53706

phone 608 263-2748
fax 608 263-3817
http://polyglot.lss.wisc.edu/dsna/index.html

The following comment is in response to Mr Landau's message.
An English teacher colleague who was raised in Texas defended
'drug' use because of its acceptance by all segments of society
in the Southwest;he predicted it would become generally accepted
as it spread North. I suspect that the reporter and editor included
the statement because 'drug' would stick out like a sore thumb
and reflect on the judge -- and rightly so.

Ronald Kritter
Milwaukee/ Wisconsin


>The New York Times (Sept. 14, 2000, A25) printed a transcript of the formal
>statement by Judge James A. Parker in the case of the Taiwanese-Americans
>scientist accused of downloading national secrets and denied bail while kept
>in solitary confinement for 8 months. The statement included, "I am sad
>because the resolution of this case drug on unnecessarily long." When I read
>this, my jaw dropped. I had only heard the pt of "drag" in old western
>movies with John Wayne. Here was a formal statement by a judge. DARE has a
>superb entry at "drag" v., def. 1, which shows that this form has been in
>widespread regional use for over a century and is common in many areas
>except N. England. Isn't the judge from Texas? But what is unusual, I think,
>is to find this in a written, clearly formal statement. Has anyone else seen
>this in such a formal context? One is reminded of the increasing acceptance
>of "snuck" in all contexts, and I am wondering if the same thing might be
>happening to other pt/pp verbs with this vowel sound.
>
>

Are any list members familiar with the new
American Heritage Dictionary, fourth edition?
I'm curious to see if it is significantly different from the third edition,
and, also, how it compares to Merriam-Webster 10 and New World 4.
(I'm a general reader.)

Ronald Kritter
Milwaukee Wisconsin

The New York Times (Sept. 14, 2000, A25) printed a transcript of the formal
statement by Judge James A. Parker in the case of the Taiwanese-American
scientist accused of downloading national secrets and denied bail while kept
in solitary confinement for 8 months. The statement included, "I am sad
because the resolution of this case drug on unnecessarily long." When I read
this, my jaw dropped. I had only heard the pt of "drag" in old western
movies with John Wayne. Here was a formal statement by a judge. DARE has a
superb entry at "drag" v., def. 1, which shows that this form has been in
widespread regional use for over a century and is common in many areas
except N. England. Isn't the judge from Texas? But what is unusual, I think,
is to find this in a written, clearly formal statement. Has anyone else seen
this in such a formal context? One is reminded of the increasing acceptance
of "snuck" in all contexts, and I am wondering if the same thing might be
happening to other pt/pp verbs with this vowel sound.

Anne,

Could you send information on the publication to Victoria Neufeldt for
inclusion in the DSNA newsletter?  Thanks.  She's moved back to Canada and
just got a new e-mail.  v.neufeldt@...

Could we include your e-mail in the DSNA records?

Thanks.

Luanne




At 04:47 PM 8/25/00 +0200, you wrote:
>Hi,
>
>In July 2000 the Fryske Akademy (Frisian Academy) published
>
>Dykstra, Anne Frysk-Ingelsk wurdboek/Frisian-English  dictionary with a
>corresponding  English-Frisian word list.  Afûk/Fryske Akademy  Leeuwarden.
>ISBN 906273 579 7. Price  59.50 Dutch guilders
>
>The Frisian-English part of the dictionary consists of some 850 pages. It
>includes Frisian words and phrases translated into British and  American
>English, phonetic transcriptions of root words and a      concise grammar of
>Frisian in English. The English-Frisian word list has been extracted from
>the      Frisian-English dictionary. Its main purpose is to provide easy
>access to the Frisian-English part for the non-native speaker of Frisian.
>------
>
>From Tiersma, P.M., Frisian Reference Grammar. Fryske Akademy 1999. ISBN
>90-6171-886-4:
>
>Although the hypothesis that Old Frisian and Old English are derived from a
>common mother tongue known as Anglo-Frisian is an oversimplification, it
>remains true that Frisian is genetically the closest related language to
>English.  The tremendous influence of French on English and of Dutch on
>Frisian, along with natural changes over time, has obscured this, but even
>today certain features common to Frisian and English (as opposed to Dutch
>and German) document this relationship. One common development in English
>and Frisian is that eg became an ei or ai sound in certain positions, as the
>following words attest:
>
>  Frisian English Dutch German
>  dei day dag Tag
>  rein rain regen Regen
>  wei way weg Weg
>  neil nail nagel Nagel
>
>A related similarity is that g was converted to j (the sound of English y)
>in both languages under specific conditions:
>
>  Frisian English Dutch German
>  jilde yield gelden gelten
>  jern yarn garen Garn
>  juster yester(day)gister gestern
>
>In much the same way, k became ch in English and tsj (which sometimes
>becomes ts) in Frisian:
>
>  Frisian English Dutch German
>  tsjerke church kerk Kirche
>  tsjerne churn karne
>  tsiis cheese kaas Käse
>  tsjef chaff kaf Kaff
>
>In a further development, the n before a voiceless fricative ( f, th, or s)
>was largely lost in Old English and Old Frisian:
>
>  Frisian English Dutch German
>  ús us ons uns
>  goes goose gans Gans
>  oar other ander ander
>
>One final feature common to English and Frisian is that an earlier e in the
>two languages (now pronounced [i ] in Frisian and [i] in English)
>corresponds to long a in the other West Germanic languages:
>
>  Frisian English Dutch German
>  sliepe sleep slapen schlafen
>  died deed daad Tat
>  skiep sheep schaap Schaf
>
>Best wishes,
>Anne Dykstra
>http://www.fa.knaw
>

Luanne von Schneidemesser
Secretary-Treasurer
Dictionary Society of North America
University of Wisconsin-Madison
6131 Helen C. White Hall, 600 N. Park St.
Madison WI 53706

phone 608 263-2748
fax 608 263-3817
http://polyglot.lss.wisc.edu/dsna/index.html

I'm not familiar with the editor named in the review and I don't think he's
in general circulation among Brit. lexies. Also I want to correct my
misimpression, based on hasty reading, that this is a slang dictionary, it
appears to be a general one.

Orin

Very interesting! Does anyone know who the lexicographers were who
did the grunt work on this book? Is it based on the previous Penguin
Dicty, which was a Longmans book (IIRC)?

Now I have to go scurry around and get a review copy for VERBATIM.

Thanks, Orin!

Erin McKean
editor@...

>
>
>Here's an article from today's Daily Telegraph (London), that may be of
>interest to list subscribers:
>
>LANGUAGE purists may fume but any "dipstick" can tell them to "chill out"
>with the approval of Penguin, the publisher, when its new dictionary is
>published on Thursday.
>Hundreds of words, classified as slang when the last edition was published
>14 years ago, are now classified as "informal English". They include
>"freebie" and "dosh" and phrases such as "on the take" and "brewer's droop".
>
>Nigel Wilcockson, editor of The New Penguin English Dictionary, said: "When
>Penguin last published a dictionary, all these words were listed as slang.
>This warned people not to use them when they wanted to be taken seriously in
>mainstream society. These words are now classified as informal, which shows
>a major shift in our attitudes. You might still be unwise to use these words
>in a business report or a lawyer's brief, but essentially they're now part
>of general English."
>
>Television, cinema, newspapers and magazines have helped popularise slang
>vocabulary, especially among the young. The frequency with which each word
>appeared in print or on screen determined its status, compilers said. Other
>promotions to the dictionary's hallowed pages include "blubber" to describe
>a fat person and "crumpet" in its Carry On sense.
>
>John Lister, of the Plain English Campaign, said: "A lot of the time you do
>find that dictionaries can be a little hasty in adding new words, especially
>when you consider language changes so quickly now that words risk becoming
>passé before the end of the print run."
>
>Perhaps Penguin would say that was "fad-surfing", meaning "the persistent
>and often meaningless following of the latest trends".
>
>The New Penguin English Dictionary is published on Thursday at £15.99.
>
>

Here's an article from today's Daily Telegraph (London), that may be of
interest to list subscribers:

LANGUAGE purists may fume but any "dipstick" can tell them to "chill out"
with the approval of Penguin, the publisher, when its new dictionary is
published on Thursday.
Hundreds of words, classified as slang when the last edition was published
14 years ago, are now classified as "informal English". They include
"freebie" and "dosh" and phrases such as "on the take" and "brewer's droop".

Nigel Wilcockson, editor of The New Penguin English Dictionary, said: "When
Penguin last published a dictionary, all these words were listed as slang.
This warned people not to use them when they wanted to be taken seriously in
mainstream society. These words are now classified as informal, which shows
a major shift in our attitudes. You might still be unwise to use these words
in a business report or a lawyer's brief, but essentially they're now part
of general English."

Television, cinema, newspapers and magazines have helped popularise slang
vocabulary, especially among the young. The frequency with which each word
appeared in print or on screen determined its status, compilers said. Other
promotions to the dictionary's hallowed pages include "blubber" to describe
a fat person and "crumpet" in its Carry On sense.

John Lister, of the Plain English Campaign, said: "A lot of the time you do
find that dictionaries can be a little hasty in adding new words, especially
when you consider language changes so quickly now that words risk becoming
passé before the end of the print run."

Perhaps Penguin would say that was "fad-surfing", meaning "the persistent
and often meaningless following of the latest trends".

The New Penguin English Dictionary is published on Thursday at £15.99.

Sorry!

The correct URL is http://www.fa.knaw.nl/

Anne Dykstra

Hi,

In July 2000 the Fryske Akademy (Frisian Academy) published

Dykstra, Anne Frysk-Ingelsk wurdboek/Frisian-English  dictionary with a
corresponding  English-Frisian word list.  Afûk/Fryske Akademy  Leeuwarden. ISBN
906273 579 7. Price  59.50 Dutch guilders

The Frisian-English part of the dictionary consists of some 850 pages. It
includes Frisian words and phrases translated into British and  American
English, phonetic transcriptions of root words and a      concise grammar of
Frisian in English. The English-Frisian word list has been extracted from the
Frisian-English dictionary. Its main purpose is to provide easy access to the
Frisian-English part for the non-native speaker of Frisian.
------

From Tiersma, P.M., Frisian Reference Grammar. Fryske Akademy 1999. ISBN
90-6171-886-4:

Although the hypothesis that Old Frisian and Old English are derived from a
common mother tongue known as Anglo-Frisian is an oversimplification, it remains
true that Frisian is genetically the closest related language to English.  The
tremendous influence of French on English and of Dutch on Frisian, along with
natural changes over time, has obscured this, but even today certain features
common to Frisian and English (as opposed to Dutch and German) document this
relationship. One common development in English and Frisian is that eg became an
ei or ai sound in certain positions, as the following words attest:

		 Frisian English Dutch German
		 dei day dag Tag
		 rein rain regen Regen
		 wei way weg Weg
		 neil nail nagel Nagel

A related similarity is that g was converted to j (the sound of English y) in
both languages under specific conditions:

		 Frisian English Dutch German
		 jilde yield gelden gelten
		 jern yarn garen Garn
		 juster yester(day)gister gestern

In much the same way, k became ch in English and tsj (which sometimes becomes
ts) in Frisian:

		 Frisian English Dutch German
		 tsjerke church kerk Kirche
		 tsjerne churn karne
		 tsiis cheese kaas Käse
		 tsjef chaff kaf Kaff

In a further development, the n before a voiceless fricative ( f, th, or s) was
largely lost in Old English and Old Frisian:

		 Frisian English Dutch German
		 ús us ons uns
		 goes goose gans Gans
		 oar other ander ander

One final feature common to English and Frisian is that an earlier e in the two
languages (now pronounced [i ] in Frisian and [i] in English) corresponds to
long a in the other West Germanic languages:

		 Frisian English Dutch German
		 sliepe sleep slapen schlafen
		 died deed daad Tat
		 skiep sheep schaap Schaf

Best wishes,
Anne Dykstra
http://www.fa.knaw

I'm surprised that the new Webster's New World
Fourth Edition did not have 'lurk' or 'lurker'
in the sense of one who reads but doesn't post
to a mail-list...

Kritter/ Milwaukee