Newsletter Fall 2026

by Communications Officer Comment Closed
Newsletter Fall 2026 Table of Contents Member News In Memoriam: Victoria Neufeldt and Steven Wood DSNA Small Project Grant 2025 Report (Martina Guzzetti) DSNA26 Updates (Lewis Lawyer and Wendalyn Nichols) Journal News A Notice from the DSNA Communications Officer (Rachel Fletcher) Upcoming Conferences Publication Information Member News Stefan Dollinger reports: After a decade of research on the conceptualization of “German” and the considerable role of dictionaries in that process (besides fairy tales and “ethnographic” musings), Stefan Dollinger released a trade book in Standard Austrian German on Standard Austrian German: Österreichisches Deutsch: eine 300-jährige Liebesgeschichte, co-authored with Anneliese Rieger-Roschitz and Simon Schwaighofer, explains for people 14 and up how the originally two standards in German were “funnelled” into one by decree of Empress Maria Theresia in the 1770s and how the pan-German movement and notions of German “purity” hijacked the concept of German language. Nazi philologists (Eberhard Kranzmayer, Otto Höfler, among others) were rehired on false testimony after WWII, the former influencing the Wörterbuch der bairischen Mundarten in Österreich (WBÖ) for almost six decades and educating an...
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Newsletter Spring 2026

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Newsletter Spring 2026 Table of Contents Member News In Memoriam: Ian Lancashire (Carol Percy) Ken Litkowski (Orin Hargraves) Frances McSparran Javier Ruano-García (Giovanni Iamartino) DSNA26 to be held at UC Davis Symposium Report: The Whole World in a Book (Beth Rapp Young) Upcoming Conferences Publication Information Member News Lynne Murphy has been awarded a British Academy/Leverhulme Small Grant to study “Defining the Undefinable: The Lexicography of Functional Vocabulary.” She’ll be undertaking that study from August 2026 for two years. Kory Stamper's long-awaited book on color defining in Webster's New International Dictionary, Second Edition, and Webster's Third New International Dictionary, was released on March 31, 2026. True Color: The Strange and Spectacular Quest to Define Color–from Azure to Zinc Pink is available from booksellers in the US and UK now. Jeremy Withers is pleased to announce the publication in June of his book Birding English: The History of a Language in 50 Birds (University of Iowa Press). DSNA members might recall that Jeremy presented at our most recent conference in Buffalo on the birds in Samuel Johnson's A Dictionary of the English Language....
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Newsletter Fall 2025

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Newsletter Fall 2025 Table of Contents Member & Dictionary News In Memoriam: Christine Ammer, Ian Lancashire, and Robert O'Neill 2025 DSNA Project Grant Winners: Blaine T. Billings and Martina Guzzetti DSNA25 Report (Walter Hakala and Lisa Berglund) The Whole World in a Book: An Exhibition and Symposium (Michael Adams) Grant Opportunity from the American Council of Learned Societies (Lisa Berglund) Society News (Lindsay Rose Russell) Upcoming Conferences Publication Information Member & Dictionary News Shawn Anthony Robinson’s article on dictionaries has been published by the Mensa Foundation: https://www.mensafoundation.org/decoding-dyslexia-dictionary-symbols/  David Gold shares news of a recently published article. Gold, David L. 2025. “Sample entries of Slavic interest in a discursive etymological dictionary of Yidish in preparation.” Зборник Матице српске за славистику / Matica Srpska: Journal of Slavic Studies [= MIRACULUM VITAE: For Michael Borisovich Meylakh on His Eightieth Birthday]. Vol. 107. Pp. 409-420. https://www.maticasrpska.org.rs/category/katalog-izdanja/naucni-casopisi/zbornik-matice-srpske-za-slavistiku/  This article, which continues the author’s earlier research into Slavic influence on Yidish (chiefly Gold 1985, 2009b, and 2009c), consists of ten entries chosen to illustrate the diverse kinds of knowledge needed...
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Newsletter Spring 2025

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Newsletter Spring 2025 Table of Contents Member & Dictionary News Message from the President (Kory Stamper) DSNA25 Update (Lisa Berglund) Journal Update (M. Lynne Murphy) 2025 American Council of Learned Societies Report (Lisa Berglund) Upcoming Conferences Publication Information Member & Dictionary News What have you been up to? The DSNA loves to share news of member projects, publications, programs, and more! Please send your news to dsnaadmin@gmail.com for inclusion; deadline for submissions for the Fall 2025 issue is Monday 25 August. You can also see and share what’s happening on DSNA’s Member Forum, Facebook, and X/Twitter. Steven van Leeuwen announces that half (1.2 of 2.3 million text-blocks) of the full-text of the New English Dictionary (Murray et al. 1893) is available at his website, WEHD.com. Cristiano Furiassi reports on the tenth Richard Allsopp Memorial Lecture: Date: March 14th, 2025Place: University of the West Indies, Cave Hill, BarbadosOrganizer: Jason F. Siegel (Richard and Jeannette Allsopp Centre for Caribbean Lexicography)Guest lecturer: Cristiano Furiassi The Richard and Jeannette Allsopp Centre for Caribbean Lexicography in conjunction with the...
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Opportunity: Reviews Editor, Dictionaries

by DSNA Office Comment Closed
Opportunity: Reviews Editor, Dictionaries The Dictionary Society of North America (DSNA) seeks a Book Reviews Editor for its scholarly journal, Dictionaries: Journal of the Dictionary Society of North America. The opportunity Dictionaries is published twice a year in hard-copy and online through Project Muse. We strive to include reviews of recent books related to lexicography in each issue. The Reviews Editor position is an important role for the journal and the DSNA.  The role The Reviews Editor will work with the Editor to: identify new works on (or of) lexicography of interest to our readership engage with publishers to acquire review copies identify and invite suitable reviewers receive and evaluate review manuscripts collaborate with reviewers in editing the manuscripts to an excellent publishable standard  The workload might be variable (depending on publishing trends and special issues of the journal), but we would expect it to amount to around four published reviews per year.  The applicant The ideal applicant will have:  membership in the DSNA published research in lexicography excellent communication and time-management skills an excellent command of...
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Opportunity: Associate Editor, Dictionaries

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Opportunity: Associate Editor, Dictionaries The Dictionary Society of North America (DSNA) seeks Associate Editors for its scholarly journal, Dictionaries: Journal of the Dictionary Society of North America. The opportunity Dictionaries is published twice a year in hard-copy and online through Project Muse. As part of Project Muse’s Subscribe to Open program, we hope to become fully open-access in the coming year, and we expect that this will result in greater numbers of submissions to the journal. We are looking for two Associate Editors whose expertise will complement our existing editorial strengths. In particular, we welcome applications from individuals working in: lexicography of indigenous American languages computational approaches to lexicography We are also open to expressions of interest from individuals with other specialisms. The role Associate Editors will work with the Editor to: encourage suitable submissions in their area of expertise handle the review process for submissions in that area of expertise determining whether new submissions are ready for review identifying and inviting suitable reviewers receiving reviews and communicating results to authors participate in the...
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Newsletter Fall 2024

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Newsletter Fall 2024 Table of Contents Member & Dictionary News Conference Update (Lisa Berglund) CFP: 2025 DSNA Project Grants In Memoriam: Reinhard R. K. Hartmann Upcoming Conferences Publication Information Member & Dictionary News What have you been up to? The DSNA loves to share news of member projects, publications, programs, and more! Please send your news to dsnaadmin@gmail.com for inclusion; deadline for submissions for the Spring 2025 issue is Monday 24 March 2025. You can also see and share what’s happening on DSNA’s Member Forum, Facebook, and X/Twitter.  A flock of DSNA members have contributed to Edward Finegan and Michael Adams' forthcoming Cambridge Handbook of the Dictionary: "Bringing together cutting-edge research from a team of experts, this Handbook provides an all-encompassing account of dictionaries in context. It considers the cultural, social, intellectual and book history of dictionaries, as well as why they are made, and how they are edited, designed and published." (Preorder and discount information available here.) Alexander K. Bocast would like to announce one recent publication and one...
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2025 Project Grants

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We are pleased to announce that the Dictionary Society of North America will award small grants in 2025 in support of practical or scholarly lexicographic projects by independent researchers, dictionary makers, and early-career scholars. The awards aim to support existing projects for which a small grant would make a substantial difference in bringing the project to a more advanced stage or to completion. The grants may be used to support purchase of necessary resources, including travel in order to gather research or data. We welcome projects regarding any facet of lexicography, including but not limited to dictionaries or glossaries of any language or languages (including indigenous or minority languages) or scholarship regarding dictionaries or lexicography of any language or era. DSNA will make one or two awards, not exceeding $2,500 each.Applications comprise three items: 1) a description (not to exceed 1,200 words) of the overall project, indicating what has been accomplished to date, what remains to be completed, and what the award funds...
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Newsletter Spring 2024

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Newsletter Spring 2024 Table of Contents Society Announcement: DSNA25 in Buffalo President's Message (Kory Stamper) Member & Dictionary News In Memoriam: Patrick Hanks (Orin Hargraves) In Memoriam: Philip M. Rideout (Michael Adams) Upcoming Conferences Publication Information Society Announcement: DSNA25 in Buffalo Buffalo State University and the University at Buffalo will host the 25th biennial meeting of the Dictionary Society of North America, May 28–31, 2025, in Buffalo, New York. Conference chairs Lisa Berglund and Walter Hakala are already planning an exciting conference in celebration of the Society's 50th anniversary! President's Message Though it's an "off" and conference-less year for the DSNA at large, there are some big changes afoot. The first and foremost is that Dictionaries, our journal, will be joining Project MUSE's open-access pilot program, Subscribe2Open, or S2O for short. This innovative program will run from 2025–27, and all the issues of Dictionaries published during the program will be fully open access. In exchange, MUSE offers participating publishers a guaranteed minimum royalty for every year of participation. Our Executive Board and Publications...
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Newsletter Fall 2023

by DSNA Office Comment Closed
Newsletter Fall 2023 Table of Contents Member & Dictionary News Conference Report (Orin Hargraves) A Life of Lexicography (Edward Finegan) CFP: Dictionaries Special Issue on "Talking Back to the Dictionary" Column: Quotations (Elizabeth Knowles) In Memoriam: Ari Kernerman (Ilan Ketrnerman, Michael Rundell) Upcoming Conferences Upcoming Events Publication Information Member & Dictionary News What have you been up to? The DSNA loves to share news of member projects, publications, programs, and more! Please send your news to dsna.membernews@gmail.com for inclusion; deadline for submissions for the Spring 2024 issue is Monday 25 March 2024. You can also see and share what’s happening on DSNA’s Member Forum, Facebook, and Twitter.  Helen Zaltzman's The Allusionist, a podcast about language, features DSNA 24 presenters in recent episodes: Sterling Martin (Allusionist 180. Project ENABLE) and Lindsay Rose Russell (Allusionist 181. Cairns); George Aaron Broadwell forthcoming. Paul Schaffner has sent news of the recent update to the Middle English Dictionary: The Middle English Dictionary is pleased to announce that corrections and improvements made to the Dictionary during the last three years...
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