a lack of confidence

The little hyphen sat very still.
Originally uploaded by
The Stakhanovite Twins.

People are not confident about using hyphens anymore. They’re not really sure what they’re for.

Oxford English Dictionary editor Angus Stevenson, commenting on how some 16,000 hyphens were eliminated from the sixth edition, published last month. As reported in the New York Times.

That's all well and good -- but I'm going to make a fuss if they start messing with my em dash.

the indulgence of appetites

a found poem

Pleasure is a beautiful word.

That s in the middle
like the z in azure
gives a little thrill to the mouth

The meaning in the noun alone
runs 26 pages in the O.E.D.

including the indulgence of appetites
specifically
to take one’s pleasure
a lazily elegant way of saying

Pleasure is a beautiful word.


Found in At the Pleasure, this Sunday's On Language column by William Saffire in the New York Times Magazine.

O.E.D. Q.E.D.

a found poem

They are working on the P’s.
Pletzel, plish, polyamorous

Two years.
They are almost done
(Except that they’ll never be done)

The Q’s will be just a twinkle of an eye

Priz[ing] patience and the long view
And a quality for which it can only strive:

Completeness.

It wants every word:
Idioms and euphemisms
Sacred or profane
Dead or alive
King’s English or the street’s

Perfect record
Perfect repository
Perfect mirror of the entire language

Because it is the O.E.D.
Once something goes in,
It cannot ever come out again


Found in « Cyber-Neologoliferation» by James Gleick, in this Sunday’s New York Times Magazine. The piece is subtitled: In the age of the Internet, the Oxford English Dictionary is coming face to face with the boundlessness of the English language.

One of my best girlfriends in college was granddaughter to a woman who worked on the original O.E.D. As an English major I thought that was just the sh*t. I still do.