There are perhaps few political terms more idiosyncratically American than caucus. In 1818, the English writer Sydney Smith referred to it as ‘the cant word of the Americans for the…
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Appeals to you: #wordswhereyouare and #hobbywords Last year saw the ninetieth anniversary of the completion of the first edition of the OED, and as part of the celebration we’ve been…
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Welcome to the March update to the OED, which contains no fewer than 650 new words, phrases, and senses. Each new and revised entry has been painstakingly researched, and at no…
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‘There’s nothing like the thrill of finding a word that isn’t in the dictionary yet. It gives me a real buzz. I think it must be similar to the thrill that scientists feel when they discover a new species or a new sub-atomic particle.’
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In this next post of the series, Joy Winnington, a reader for the Science Reading Programme (SciRP), shares her experience of the work and the titles that have especially inspired her:
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The decade that time forgot? Can any of the new vocabulary of the 1970s help to pinpoint the sources of disenchantment?
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‘If we count it worth while to have all words, we can only have them by reading all books…drawing as with a sweep-net over the whole extent of English Literature…’…
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