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October 6, 2008
Best Librarian Geeky Video
OK, I just watched this video. I loved it and that makes be a librarian geek. Here's a lexicographer getting laughs too.
Before I started my MLS we were told to read the biography of James Murray, the first editor of the OED. See - I am a geek - I don't spell out OED. I just assume everyone knows all the jargony professional initialisms.
Anyway this is about 15 minutes and it's Erin McKean talking about dictionaries. She's delightful. "Is the beloved paper dictionary doomed to extinction? In this infectiously exuberant talk, leading lexicographer Erin McKean looks at the many ways today's print dictionary is poised for transformation. As one of the youngest editors of a "Big Five" American dictionary, Erin McKean is at the forefront of a new guard of lexicographers reshaping not just dictionaries, but our language itself."
TED: Redefining the dictionary
Watch it now.
Stephen
Posted by stephen at October 6, 2008 7:51 PM
Comments
So have you read The Professor and the Madman? More geeky library/lexicographer stuff! But a good read!
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We read the old one:
Caught in the web of words : James A.H. Murray and the Oxford English dictionary
by Katharine Maud Elisabeth Murray
SA
Posted by: Sara at October 7, 2008 9:20 PM
I wonder how many people know the abbreviation OED was originally a way to play to scholars (who all knew Latin) by making it synonymous with QED (quod erat demonstratum), which are the three letters used at the bottom of a geometric proof - to have been demonstrated. Using the OED has always been a final move in any play for words in my world. No one can refute it. Until Wikipedia, right?
Posted by: Russell D. James, cA at October 11, 2008 10:40 AM