Over forty years is a long time to work on a single task. Yet that has been the lot of the four editors of the Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary. The massive 3,952 page double volume will be released this month, the culmination of the editors’ entire careers. In our world of fast, it is a timely reminder that, sometimes, good things need time. This new thesaurus has been pulled together almost entirely by hand. Words from past and present editions of the full dictionary were studiously transcribed onto slips of paper, then sorted, stacked and re-sorted into categories, sub-categories and sub-sub-categories, and finally put into historical context. Nearly a million words were sorted this way into quarter of a million categories. And, as I said, it took over 40 years.
Why Everyone - even Blokes - should see 'The September Issue'
To judge from the gender balance in the audience, there aren't a lot of blokes lining up to see The September Issue, the new documentary feature that gives us a peek inside the walls of Vogue magazine in New York. Which is a pity, because the film has a lot to offer anyone - male or female - with an interest in creativity or innovation. If we are to believe what we are fed by the media, all conflict and disagreement - especially between those on the 'same side' - is bad. Daily newspapers magnify any difference in opinion between two politicians of the same party. The sports pages hone in on the smallest sign of disagreement between a coach and a player. And of course the tabloid press couches every tiff between celebrity partners as a sign of impending separation.
Our Life at Work Stripped Bare
Most of us spend a healthy slice of our lives working. We spend additional time thinking about work, but these thoughts are generally focused on the job at hand. We think through an upcoming meeting, worry about a deadline or scheme about our next job change. Much less often do we think about the wider connection of our work to our community. Rarely, if ever, do we think about the extent to which others’ work impacts on, and is essential to, our way of life. In 'The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work', Alain de Botton does this for us in a thoughtful and entertaining way.
Obama's Cairo Speech Dissected: The Power of Language
So Barack Obama has made another inspirational speech. This is hardly remarkable: we’ve known for some time that Obama makes George W. look like a performing seal, and an inarticulate one at that. Yet even in this context Obama’s speech in Cairo was remarkable. In less than 6000 words he was able to strip bare some of the most complex international politics of the last 100+ years. To read his speech is to wonder what all the fuss has been about. There was much anticipation of this speech. It was always going to involve treading a careful path. How could he raise the issues without raising ire? In the end, Obama didn’t tiptoe the fine line nor stumble over it. He simply strode along it as if it were a red carpet.
Avoiding Murder on the Internet: Making Writing Worthwhile
Yep. Nup. Nothin’. No one. Sort of. Dunno. Nowhere. Good. That’s about the extent of it. Your average teenager’s vocabulary as captured cleverly by songwriter Peter Denahy in his song Sort of Dunno Nothin’. Parents all over the world bemoan their offsprings’ metamorphosis from bubbly, verbose toddler to mumbly inarticulate teen. Yet it is a mistake to accuse the teenager of being unintelligible simply because he doesn’t say much. Listen to a politician, call customer service or, particularly, read the web and you will quickly discover that saying a lot does not necessarily make for comprehensibility either.