Melville House Books

Dictionaries

• Droppin science on the dictionary

  It’s not usually my first port of call for music news, but there was a great tribute to Adam Yauch on the OED blog last week. It’s cheering to know… 1 / Read more »

• Fifty Shades of Gray?

  A copyeditor, or proofreader, reading the headline above, would need to pause — if he or she has even an average awareness of the flotsam of American culture, the one… Read more »

• I’ve been Kerouacking through life — but I should have been a Faulkner

  Alexander Nazaryan at the Daily News (New York — not L.A. or Galveston) has compiled a list of neologisms, taken from the online Urban Dictionary, all derived from the names of famous… Read more »

• How worried should we be about text speak?

  Here’s an argument that always ruffles some feathers: do the users of a language create or follow its rules? Since the codification of languages began—the 16th century, if we’re talking… 2 / Read more »

• Untranslatable words

  The Big Think recently published this great list of untranslatable words related to relationships. Our favourites: Ilunga (Bantu): A person who is willing to forgive abuse the first time; tolerate it… Read more »

• The Chicago Assyrian Dictionary is finished!

  Well, no one can accuse this publisher of going to press too hastily. Last week the University of Chicago’s Oriental Institute brought to fruition a 90-year-long project started by the… Read more »

• You could look it up

    On this date in 1828 Noah Webster copyrighted one of the most influential books in American history, some descendant of which most of us consult every day: An American… Read more »

• Tony Judt fighting till the end

  The current issue of the New York Review of Books carries this exchange between Sam Abrams and Tony Judt, who passed away August 6, 2010. In a letter to the… Read more »

• You could look it up . . .

  It’s the 250th anniversary of Samuel Johnson Dictionary of the English Language , one of the very first great dictionaries, and, as such, reason enough to celebrate in itself. But… Read more »

• Dictionary as storage room . . .

  A first-ever dictionary of the Chinese-Manchu language, meant to “preserve the official language of the Qing Dynasty, China’s last imperial dynasty that lasted from 1644 to 1911,” has been published.… Read more »