DSNA NEWS FALL 2018

by David Jost Comment Closed
In DSNA news, this fall we have an update from Ed Finegan about our journal, requests from Steve Kleinedler and Stefan Dollinger, a report on the most recent MetroLex, and an obituary for one of our earliest members. Update on Dictionaries Ed Finegan, Editor, Dictionaries In the Spring 2017 issue of the Society’s Newsletter, I reported that our journal would be moving to two issues a year in 2017, and we successfully did that, with the help of two associate editors (Orion Montoya and Sarah Ogilvie) and a new reviews editor (Traci Nagle). Volume 38 contained four articles (including the second installment of the history of the early years of the Society, written by Michael Adams), five Reference Works in Progress reports, and seven book reviews. The first issue of volume 39 will be mailed in August—a special issue treating problems of chronology in historical lexicography and lexicology (and with something of interest for all DSNA members in its ten articles—see the ToC...
Read More

CONFERENCES FALL 2018

by David Jost Comment Closed
DSNA 22 at Indiana University May 8–11, 2019 REGISTRATION IS OPEN We’re happy to report that registration for DSNA 22 (May 8-11, 2019, in Bloomington, Indiana) is open! Register at https://www.indiana.edu/~iucweb/dsna/ Attendance at DSNA 22 is open to members of the DSNA. If you aren’t sure about your membership status, contact the DSNA office at dsnaadmin@gmail.com. We encourage you to register early to guarantee your lodging preference. We look forward to seeing you in May! DSNA 22ND BIENNIAL 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. Abstracts of no more than 500 words for 20-minute papers about any aspect of lexicography or lexicology should be sent to adamsmp@indiana.edu by October 31, 2018. Participants will be notified of acceptance and a preliminary program posted on the conference website by the December holidays.  NB: Although DSNA is meeting with SHEL, DSNA papers will be...
Read More

MEMBER NEWS FALL 2018

by David Jost Comment Closed
On 20 July Peter Gilliver was awarded a PhD by the University of Cambridge for his work on the history of the OED. The body of published work submitted for consideration included principally his book The Making of the OED—which has just been issued in paperback—but also several papers given at DSNA conferences or published in Dictionaries. Brianne Hughes reports: the Bishop Fox Cybersecurity Style Guide was compiled over the last 2 years to help the technical editors and security researchers of Bishop Fox be technically accurate and internally consistent in their technical reports. Since its public release, groups like tech journalists, sci-fi writers, and non-security businesses have used it as a starting place for their own in-house style guides. The guide’s usage notes focus on how to capitalize terms in the middle of a sentence, how to pronounce them, and when to use monospace font. Most terms do not have a definition, but many make the user aware of potential...
Read More

INTRODUCTION FALL 2018

by David Jost Comment Closed
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 second of what we hope will be a series of pieces on the state of lexicography: Jason Siegel's “Lexicography in the French Caribbean: An assessment of future opportunities.“  I begin a series of articles on the history of the DSNA Newsletter. David Vancil draws on more of his vast experience to tell us about “Memories of Missouri & Collectors.” We also learn from Walter Hakala and his student Kerry Collins about his course in lexicography, one of a continuing series about teaching the subject. I hope that others of you who offer similar courses will contribute. Something to which lexicographers can aspire: the Joseph Worcester house on Brattle Street,...
Read More

PUBLICATION INFORMATION SPRING 2018

by David Jost Comment Closed
The DSNA Newsletter is usually published twice a year, in the Spring and Fall. The editor is David Jost. Member news items can be sent to dsna.membernews@gmail.com. Other Newsletter correspondence, such as articles for publication, should be directed to the editor at dajebj@gmail.com. Send correspondence re membership, etc. to Kory Stamper, Executive Secretary, DSNA PO Box 537 Collingswood, NJ 08108-0537 This issue:  Vol. 42 No. 1 (2018) Cumulative issue #85...
Read More

STATE OF LEXICOGRAPHY SPRING 2018

by David Jost Comment Closed
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...
Read More

EDUCATION NEWS SPRING 2018

by David Jost Comment Closed
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...
Read More

HISTORY OF DICTIONARIES SPRING 2018

by David Jost Comment Closed
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...
Read More

COLLECTION NEWS SPRING 2018

by David Jost Comment Closed
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...
Read More