The current issue of the New York Review of Books carries this exchange between Sam Abrams and Tony Judt, who passed away August 6, 2010. In a letter to the… Read more »

It’s the 250th anniversary of Samuel Johnson Dictionary of the English Language , one of the very first great dictionaries, and, as such, reason enough to celebrate in itself. But… Read more »

A first-ever dictionary of the Chinese-Manchu language, meant to “preserve the official language of the Qing Dynasty, China’s last imperial dynasty that lasted from 1644 to 1911,” has been published.… Read more »

The editors of the Miriam-Webster Dictionary have assembled a list of “Top Ten Favorite Words Not in the Dictionary,” based on suggestions sent in to its website by “vocabularians.” The… Read more »

A recent commentary in The New Criterion attacks The Cambridge History of Twentieth-Century English Literature for a slew of errors and omissions. The essay decries the “self-described ‘authoritative narrative'” for… Read more »

The former Simon & Schuster (UK) executive Nick Webb, in a Publishing News report, discusses his forthcoming book, The Dictionary of Bullshit, due out next fall. It is, says the report, “an attack on… Read more »

A 12-year-old British schoolboy “has uncovered several mistakes in the latest edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica — regarded by readers as an authority on everything,” notes Justin Parkinson in a… Read more »

First, as it neared publication, it received worldwide publicity—as in this excited report by Clive Ellis and Neil Tweedie frm the January 31, 2003 edition of The Daily Telegraph. It… Read more »