[Dixonary] OT: Endangered species

[Dodi Schultz]

Those across the Pond have probably seen this already, but for the rest:
There was an interesting and relevant piece by Iain Hollingshead in
Monday's Telegraph. The full URL is very long and wouldn't fit on one line.
Yeah, I could've created a TinyURL, but this way is easy:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/

and when you get there, type in the search slot:

hollingshead +collins

--Dodi

[Paul Keating]

I may be across the Pond, but an hour by plane out to the other side, so I
missed this. Thanks for the pointer, Dodi. It was entertaining. The
journalists certainly had a lot of fun with it.

In the whole list, the only word I recognized as once having read was
_skirr_. Tolkien? McCaffrey? LeGuin? Stephen Donaldson? The OED cites Thomas
Hardy, but him I have thankfully managed to avoid reading.

Full marks to Collins for a cheap and effective publicity campaign. All
those celebs piling in and not even expecting to be paid!

But I do have visions of buying a new edition (the most recent one on my
shelf is 10 years old and due for retirement) and finding some articles
printed in bright blue on a yellow background with the tag "sponsored entry"
or, worse still, "word preserved through the generous support of Stephen
Fry" (whoever he might be).

I will still buy it, though, because for my money the Collins is the very
best one-volume English dictionary, and has been for 30 years. The first
edition, in 1979, was the child of the recently deceased and largely unsung
Laurence Urdang, and it blew a welcome breath of fresh air through English
lexicography. It was, and still is, an admirable dictionary.

Revolutions like that happen at most once in a generation. The previous one
was Philip Gove's W3 in 1961.

For a regular commentary on what is really happening to the definition of
new words and the redefinition of old (as opposed to appeals to
bunny-huggers to "rescue the muliebrity!") can I recommend the commentaries
that accompany the OED's quarterly updates, which are to be found at
http://dictionary.oed.com/news/updates/.

The OED can't offer save-the-vilipend sponsorships because no word is ever
too old for them. And the commentaries are written by a lexicographer, so
the humour can be dry and donnish. But still entertaining.



----- Original Message -----
From: "Dodi Schultz" <SCHULTZ (AT) compuserve (DOT) com>
To: <Dixonary (AT) googlegroups (DOT) com>
Sent: Thursday, September 25, 2008 7:44 PM
Subject: [Dixonary] OT: Endangered species




Those across the Pond have probably seen this already, but for the rest:
There was an interesting and relevant piece by Iain Hollingshead in
Monday's Telegraph. The full URL is very long and wouldn't fit on one line.
Yeah, I could've created a TinyURL, but this way is easy:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/

and when you get there, type in the search slot:

hollingshead +collins

--Dodi

[Judy G. Russell]

Or just see this post:

http://www.tapcis.com/forums/showthread.php?t=6679!