DSNA22 AWARDS FALL 2019
For Connie Eble, recipient
of the 2019 Richard W. Bailey Award for Distinguished Service to Lexicography
and Lexicology, presented at the 22nd Biennial Meeting of the Dictionary
Society of North America, Indiana University, May 10, 2019
Ben Zimmer
The Wall Street Journal
Photo: Luanne von Schneidemesser
On Dec. 4, 2018, Connie Eble sent out an email to a select group of word-watchers, many of whom are in this room this evening. “Dear Friends,” she wrote. “I have just taught my last class at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, to complete fifty years of teaching at the university level. Attached is my final installment of campus slang from my undergraduate students. The 20,000 or so index cards submitted to me over the years will be deposited with University Archives as a permanent record of the slang and campus culture of Tar Heel undergraduates for forty years.”
I’m sure there must have been a collective sigh of despair
when that email was opened by its recipients. Could this really be...