Sources
About Words and Their Uses
Dictionaries: College/Desk,
Unabridged, Subject, Children’s, Historical, Reverse, Slang, Translation;
Thesauri, Style Manuals, Quotations
Explore the following sources (and similar ones from the textbook or other sources), paying special attention to their intents, potential uses, how they are structured and searched. Use the questions that follow as guides to your thinking about how each of these might be used for those questions, and consider potential sources for each question. On this Catalyst tool, suggest the source you think might be the best, first place to begin; we’ll discuss these in class.
1.
How do you pronounce “chimera”?
2.
What’s the origin of the phrase “Don’t touch that dial!”?
3.
What does CIC stand for?
4.
Is there a word that means to be buried alive?
5.
I’ve heard a Dorothy Parker quotation about eternity and a ham;
can you find the definitive version?
6.
Does “eh” have specific meaning in Canadian English?
7.
What are “calling hours” and where would you likely find them?
8.
I’ve seen a couple of stories about people who are promoting
anorexia as a lifestyle—is there a word or phrase for this? I think it’s a pretty new thing.
Then, read these:
Mon
Dieu! A 'Hashtag' Is Now A
'Mot-Dièse' In France NPR 1/25/13
Do
Your Students Know How to Cite a Tweet? Media Specialist’s Guide to the
Internet
Coining
Terminology for Life on the Web NYT 5/5/12
A
War of Words, Focused on One NYT 10/24/12
Pushing
Science’s Limits in Sign Language Lexicon NYT 12/3/12
Angwin, Julia “Are
Dictionaries Becoming Obsolete?” Wall
Street Journal 9/7/09
“Dated
Definitions” New York Times Magazine
8/12/09
“Third
Edition of OED unlikely to appear in print format” Guardian 8/29/2010
My BFF just told me “TTYL” is in the
dictionary. LMAO. Oxford University Press blog 9/16/10
“Secret
vault of words rejected by the Oxford English Dictionary uncovered” Telegraph 8/4/10
O.E.D.’s
New Chief Editor Speaks of Its Future New
York Times 1/21/14
a discussion of “information” sans antelopes
Nunberg, Geoffrey, “Counting
on Google Books”, Chronicle of Higher
Education 12/16/10
Cohen,
Patricia, “In
500 Billion Words, New Windows on Culture”, New York Times 12/16/10
Winchester,
Simon, “A
Verb for Our Frantic Times”, New York
Times 5/29/11
Ancient
world dictionary finished—after 90 years
And prepare to discuss these
questions:
v What is the “dictionary”
becoming? What do you think it will look
like in 5 years? Will it still exist in
print?
v Why is there such a fascination
with words? So many sources, so many different
kinds of sources, so many general-purpose articles…
v Why is Wikipedia so much more popular and noticed than the Wiktionary?