Category: Newsletter

Orin Hargraves kicks off a series of pieces I am commissioning about the state of lexicography at present: The 21st Century Lexicographer My view of the profession of lexicography is through a lens shared by many, though not all, of my colleagues: I am now and have always been an independent contractor, a freelance, and never a salaried employee of a dictionary publisher. My guess is that today, most people who define words in exchange for money work in the same capacity as I do and to that degree, my perspective may reflect the experience of others. Perhaps a good way to focus the current state of the occupation is to look at what came before it. I see the trajectory of lexicography over the last quarter century as a series of line graphs, with time on the horizontal axis and various changing parameters on the vertical. I’m better with words than with graphs, so here are descriptions of the graphs with arrows...

Teaching Lexicography Janet DeCesaris Pompeu Fabra University, Barcelona For several years, I taught a class entitled Lexicography in an M.A. program in Applied Linguistics offered by Pompeu Fabra University, a public university in Barcelona, Spain. While this degree program was offered, the class attracted students mainly from Europe and Latin America. My views on teaching lexicography are thus a consequence of this experience. As with designing any class, an important question for me was to first identify what information and skills I wanted the students to learn in the class. This, of course, partly depended on the background of the students and the goals of the degree program as a whole, but to a large extent depended on priorities I set. I was not going to be able to teach everything there is to know about dictionaries and dictionary-making in one term, so determining what was to be included was a challenge. The following are the topics included in my syllabus, in their original...

Cynthia Barnhart enlightens us about the historic nature of Clarence Barnhart’s dictionary done for the U.S Army. The Very First Barnhart Dictionary: The Dictionary of U.S. Army Terms (1944) The first paragraph of the prefatory “Notes on the Use of the Dictionary” lays out its purpose: “a working dictionary for a working army. … It is designed especially for the men who are writing or revising training literature, who are using training literature in the instruction of troops, and as far as it is available to them, for the men who are being trained.”[1] The dictionary was made in the early 1940s when the United States was already at war with the Axis powers and needed to prepare thousands of recruits drafted into its army. Those recruits were not professional soldiers; they were not familiar with either military language or the reality of being part of an army prosecuting a war nor were they selected from a particular group of citizens; they were...

We are graced once again with a piece by David Vancil, one of the DSNA authorities on the collection of dictionaries. Booksellers, Collectors, and Librarians: Building a Special Collection In my experience, most antiquarian booksellers are motivated not primarily by the desire for profit but by a genuine love for the long and complex history of books. Some booksellers, as we know, hang on to the books they love the most and become book collectors. Conversely, although possibly less frequently, some booksellers become collectors first before getting into selling. And not a few antiquarian booksellers become scholars in their own right along the way. Antiquarian booksellers’ sale catalogs frequently contain valuable information which is the result of many hours, if not years, of research.  In fact, not a few antiquarian booksellers’ catalogs are considered indispensable to librarians and researchers. With respect to books purchased for the Cordell Collection from sellers’ catalogs, I retained the catalogs of many booksellers and even had some of...

The big news here is the farewell celebration for DARE. We also have a piece by Eugene Green about use of the Middle English Dictionary.  And we commemorate the passing of Herbert Ernest Wiegand. DARE Farewell Celebration October 27, 2017 As of the end of 2017, the last three of DARE’s employees are no longer working, and the Dictionary of American Regional English is officially out of business.  We decided earlier to end with a celebration, focusing on what we have accomplished: five large volumes covering the whole of the alphabet plus one supplementary volume with geographical and social maps, an index to all the regional and usage terms used (e.g. Danish, euphemism, folk-etymology, Gulf States, Vermont, middle-aged, Shawnee, taboo) followed by all the entries in which such a term occurred, and more – great fun to browse.  DARE also has an online presence. About 150 former DARE staff members, volunteers, student workers, supporters, and friends showed up on Oct. 27 in Madison to help us celebrate.  Many still live...

DSNA 22 at Indiana University May 8–11, 2019 DSNA returns to Bloomington, Indiana, and the campus of Indiana University for its 22nd Biennial Meeting, May 8–11, 2019, and so does Studies in the History of the English Language (SHEL), with which DSNA 20 collaborated in Vancouver in 2015. A separate Call for Papers will be sent to DSNA members late in the summer but abstracts for regular sessions (20-minute papers) should be sent to adamsmp@indiana.edu by October 31, 2018. Participants will be notified of acceptance and a preliminary program posted on the yet-to-be-constructed conference site by the December holidays. We should have the site up and running in mid-summer and will advertise its URL in the summer Call for Papers. The conference will convene with a reception (perhaps after an opening session) on Wednesday evening, May 8. Concurrent sessions for DSNA and SHEL will be scheduled throughout Thursday, Friday, and Saturday morning, with SHEL and DSNA business meetings schedule on Saturday after lunch. The conference...

There is much to report here. We hear from Steve Kleinedler, President of the Society, Kory Stamper, Executive Secretary, Ed Finegan, editor of our journal,  Michael Hancher, who is in charge of our social media presence, Rebecca Shapiro, who reports on MetroLex, and Cinda May, who describes the application for a Warren N. Cordell Research Fellowship. We also present the DSNA Professional Standards and Code of Conduct. Steve Kleinedler: In my capacity as DSNA President, and on behalf of the Executive Board, I would like to thank and acknowledge members for their work with the Society. Our journal Dictionaries has a lot to celebrate and a lot of people to thank and acknowledge. Under the guidance and direction of Ed Finegan (editor), along with the work of Traci Nagle (reviews editor), Sarah Ogilve and Orion Montoya (associate editors), the entire Editorial Advisory Board, and the Publications Committee led by Wendi Nichols, we not only have a handsome new design, but also a semiannual publication schedule....

In this edition of Member News we hear from Orin Hargraves, Steve Kleinedler, Tim Stewart, and Walter Hakala. Orin Hargraves reports that the newly published Routledge Handbook of Lexicography includes three chapters by current DSNA members (Stefan Dollinger, Erin McKean, and Orin himself) and that some past members are also among the contributors (including the volume's editor!). For more information, visit https://www.routledge.com/The-Routledge-Handbook-of-Lexicography/Fuertes-Olivera/p/book/9781138941601. Steve Kleinedler announces the publication of his textbook Is English Changing? in late March. Steve's book is the newest title in the Routledge Guides to Linguistics series, which is being produced as part of the Linguistic Society of America's publishing partnership with Routledge. The book is geared toward undergraduates who have no previous background in linguistics, providing an accessible, easy-to-understand overview of the major branches of linguistic study in the hopes of engaging the reader to take a greater interest in language and linguistics. For more information, please visit https://www.routledge.com/Is-English-Changing/Kleinedler/p/book/9781138234666. Tim Stewart was recently interviewed for the PRI public radio program The World in Words in regard to his research about "Christianese" (the religiolect of North American protestant Christians). The episode...

A grateful editor thanks all who have contributed to this issue and looks forward to the future contributions of these and many more of you. This Newsletter reflects all that you are doing in the service of words and dictionaries. In this issue of the Newsletter, in addition to the usual features, you will find the first of what we hope will be a series of pieces on the state of lexicography. Orin Hargraves begins it with “The 21st Century Lexicographer.” Cynthia Barnhart contributes an addition to our historical knowledge with an article about the dictionary for the United States Army that  Clarence Barnhart compiled during World War II.  David Vancil draws on his vast experience to tell us about “Booksellers, Collectors, and Librarians: Building a Special Collection.” We also get a glimpse of the farewell to DARE accompanied by many photographs. And finally Orion Montoya sings to us....