Blog Posts | Dictionary Society of North America

Newsletter Fall 2025

January 7, 2026January 7, 2026 by DSNA Office Comment Closed

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...

Newsletter Spring 2025

May 9, 2025May 9, 2025 by DSNA Office Comment Closed

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...

Opportunity: Reviews Editor, Dictionaries

January 10, 2025January 10, 2025 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...

Opportunity: Associate Editor, Dictionaries

January 10, 2025January 10, 2025 by DSNA Office Comment Closed

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...

Newsletter Fall 2024

October 29, 2024October 29, 2024 by DSNA Office Comment Closed

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...

2025 Project Grants

October 3, 2024October 3, 2024 by DSNA Office Comment Closed

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...

Newsletter Spring 2024

April 29, 2024 by DSNA Office Comment Closed

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...

Newsletter Fall 2023

October 8, 2023October 9, 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...

Newsletter Spring 2023

April 17, 2023April 24, 2023 by DSNA Office Comment Closed

Newsletter Spring 2023 Table of Contents Member News Conference Update (Orin Hargraves) CFP: Dictionaries Special Issue on Indigenous Lexicography Column: Quotations (Elizabeth Knowles) In Memoriam Gerard Morris Gifts to the DSNA (Ed Finegan) News from the DSNA Office (Lindsay Rose Russell) Upcoming Conferences Publication Information Member 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 Fall 2023 issue is Friday 25 August 2023. You can also see and share what’s happening on DSNA’s Member Forum, Facebook, and Twitter. David Vancil has published a collection of poetry, Expiation: War and Its Discontents (Kelsay Books, 2022). It’s available for purchase on Amazon.com and on the publisher’s website. Dabney A. Bankert's book, Philology in Turbulent Times: Joseph Bosworth, His Dictionary, and the Recovery of Old English has been published as part of the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies series Publications of the Dictionary of Old English. Bankert's detailed analysis of the creation of Joseph Bosworth and...

CFP: Indigenous Lexicography, a special issue of Dictionaries

March 6, 2023March 6, 2023 by DSNA Office Comment Closed

This special issue centers the work of Indigenous language champions and scholars, particularlyanthropologists and linguists, who are engaged in active collaborations on dictionary projects forcommunities as both forms of language documentation and as essential tools in language revitalization. Read the full call for papers here!...