If you want to know how a new word gets into Oxford dictionaries, or are interested more generally in the bubbling cauldron of modern English, check out the the first post of new blog from Oxford University Press, From A to Zimmer. That's Zimmer as in Ben Zimmer, lexicographer, editor at Oxford University Press, and brother.
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As I've mentioned before, my brother Ben also blogs. An editor at Oxford American Dictionaries, he writes about words over at "From A to Zimmer." Not surprisingly, our blogs usually don't overlap. But Ben's latest entry--on very, very long words, has prompted me to pose a question of my own here.…
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In PZ's class we're reading and discussing Soul Made Flesh by Carl Zimmer. This non-fiction book follows the journey that neurobiology has made throughout its history. The details of this history that most prominently catch my attention are the logic, methods, and observations upon which early…
That's the first time I'd encountered "hangry." That's just too useful not to, uh...use.
ok, so there's a B zimmer and a C zimmer. Got an A or a D?
You and Gerald Durrell, always in the shadow of a more famous sibling.
BTW, saw your article on truly alien terrestrial life in the July Discover. Anything on the subject coming up here?
On that grading scale, i'm in trouble. I can hear my folks saying: "You got an 'S'?".
Of course, i could reply that it was all their fault.
Remarkable. And there was I, only yesterday, campaigning on behalf of the rambunctious anarchy of the English language against the siege and assault of the dismal trolls of regulation:
http://network.nature.com/blogs/user/U9556F6A5
I have bookmarked Brother Ben's blog and will visit it regularly.
Ha! I've been reading Language Log (and hence reading numerous Zimmerposts) for ages: I had no idea you were related! Small world...