Category: News

ACLS Report on the DSNA Rebecca Shapiro, our Executive Secretary, wrote the following report for the ACLS. It was published with reports from other learned societies in a document entitled "Beyond the Numbers." Here is her explanation of how she came to write this, followed by the report itself. I felt compelled (really) to volunteer for this because we are one of the most unusual organizations in the ACLS because of the history of academics and working lexicographers. I have liked the practical, applied nature of what many people in the society do and how willing they are to share information. I have found myself explaining how different we are at the ACLS meetings because not only are we one of the smallest but we are such an interesting hybrid group of practitioners and scholars, some of whom are both. So, when the leadership asked for a representative from a small organization, my hand went up. Dictionary Society of North America Rebecca Shapiro, Executive...

After the DSNA meeting in Vancouver, people were wishing to prolong the good energy that goes with a conference and were disappointed that the next one would be in two years. In that spirit, Katherine Martin, Ben Zimmer, Wendi Nichols, Ammon Shea, and I—all who live in and around New York City—created a DSNA-sponsored series on lexicography. The email messages in December were exploratory, getting a sense of what we hoped to accomplish. At a meeting we clarified the mission and named ourselves. The early winner was DSNY—perfect, until Ben or Ammon pointed out that those are the initials of the Department of Sanitation, and lexicographers aren’t really into sanitizing the language anymore anyway. Being from New Jersey and feeling a bit put upon by NY—as people from New Jersey often do—I suggested MetroDS (rejected because Ben pointed out that DS in NYC stands for Department of Sanitation and we are not in the business of cleaning up our language)....

Few have ever mastered the English language like Abraham Lincoln. From his days as a young, backwoods bibliophile to one of history’s most expressive writers, Lincoln’s love of language helps us understand not only the man, but all that he represents. How did Lincoln acquire his remarkable way with words? An eighteenth-century dictionary now in the Rare Book Collection at Louisiana State University sheds some light on the question. LSU’s copy of the 1770 edition of Nathan Bailey’s Universal Etymological English Dictionary was owned by Mordecai Lincoln, the future president’s uncle and one of the most influential figures in his early life. First published in 1721 and reissued many times over the next eighty years, Bailey’s dictionary was used throughout the English-speaking world, including the new state of Kentucky, where this copy came into Mordecai Lincoln’s possession at least as early as 1792. The volume raises interesting questions. Scrawled in the margins next to Bailey’s definitions of catfish and castanets are the...

DSNA Conference The 21st Conference of the DSNA will be held in Barbados June 9-11 with an excursion on June 12. The website http://dsna21.weebly.com/ shown above has all the details as well as the registration form. Here are the headings of the various links with a few annotations. Home, About, Call for Papers, Venue, Accommodation, Registration (opens March 1), Programme (check in April), Special Events (Pre-Conference Workshop, Conference Banquet, Island Tour June 12), Useful Information (Travel Tips, Barbados Facts and Figures, Host University),  Contact Other conferences HEL-LEX5, 5th International Symposium on History of English Lexicography and Lexicology, 16-18 February 2017, Zurich, Switzerland,  http://www.hel-lex5.uzh.ch/en.html SHEL 10, English Department, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS. 2-4, June 2017. http://shel10.ku.edu/ ASIALEX 2017,  the National Key Research Center for Linguistics and Applied Linguistics at Guangdong University of Foreign Studies (GDUFS), Guangzhou, China. 10-12, June 2017. AustraLex Conference, University of the South Pacific, Rarotonga, Cook Islands. 28-29 August 2017. http://www.adelaide.edu.au/australex/ eLex Conference, Institute of the Dutch Language, Leiden, the Netherlands, second half of September 2017. https://elex.link/elex2017/ 19th Century Lexicography Conference: Between Science...

The Frederic G. Cassidy Award for Distinguished Achievement in Lexicography or Lexicology is presented to a senior member of the Society who has, throughout his or her career, significantly advanced lexicography or lexicology by major achievements at the highest scholarly standard in one or both of those fields. The Richard W. Bailey Award for Distinguished Service to Lexicography and Lexicology is presented to a senior member of the Society who has, throughout his or her career, significantly advanced lexicography or lexicology by service to one or both of those fields. The awards are presented biennially, for the first time in 2015, when Gerald L. Cohen received the Cassidy Award, and J. Edward Gates the Bailey Award. This year, a committee composed of Victoria Neufeldt, Allan Metcalf, Rod McConchie, Sarah Ogilvie, and me considered various candidates for the awards, and we are pleased to announce that Lise Winer will be the second recipient of the Cassidy Award and Madeline Kripke the...

Christine Ammer writes: The long-awaited new, revised and updated edition of my book, Unsung: A History of Women in American Music, is now available.  Addressed to music lovers of every genre, it chronicles the activities of women composers, conductors, instrumentalists, orchestra and opera managers, conservatory founders, and educators from the late 1700s to 2016.  It can be purchased as an e-book or print-on-demand book from Amazon and booksellers everywhere. Biographical sketches show the active participation of women musicians in every genre, as well as the increasing strides they have made in recent decades.  Christine Ammer has many other titles to her credit, including American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms (approximately 10,000 idioms), Facts on File Dictionary of Cliches (approximately 3,000 cliches), and A to Z of Foreign Musical Terms (translation of expression marks from 35,000 scores).  Earlier word books now available as e-books include Fighting Words from War, Rebellion, and Other Combative Capers; Southpaws and Sunday Punches and Other Sporting Expressions; Fruitcakes and Couch Potatoes and...

Dictionaries: Something to look forward to in 2017 After 37 years as an annual publication, Dictionaries is moving to two issues a year. To trumpet the move we’ll introduce a new cover design and logo and a modern, more readable inside page. What will two issues a year mean to you? Well, quite a bit—but if an increase in dues was the first thing that entered your mind, dispel the thought. But here’s what you can expect. Our annual has varied in size, over the past five years averaging about 270 pages per issue, and while an increase in page numbers would be welcome, we aren’t aiming to double the number published in a year. We will likely increase gradually, but even if page count remains steady, publishing two numbers a year delivers real advantages. For one thing, it’s a way for DSNA and its members to greet one another each spring and fall with both a journal and a newsletter. In...