First impressions are important. When I receive mail – physical items by post, that is – simply the size and shape of the envelope tells me something about the sender. A5-sized envelopes (well, C5-sized, but you know what I mean; ditto below) tend to be bills or notes from the bank, A6 and smaller are […]
Category Archives: articles
An addendum on the history of the word “linguist” in the sense ‘interpreter’
One of my first publications was an article titled “Jurebassos and Linguists: The East India Company and Early Modern English words for ‘interpreter’” (abstract; full paper as a pdf). The article is a fairly straightforward and I admit rather light-weight investigation of the Early Modern English semantic field of ‘interpreter’, in which I note that […]
vanitas, vanitas
From: Wild, Kate. Review of Olga Timofeeva and Tanja Säily (eds.). 2011. Words in Dictionaries and History: Essays in honour of R.W. McConchie, [Terminology and Lexicography Research and Practice 14]. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. In: International Journal of Lexicography 24(4): 487-492.
Nudge, nudge, wink, wink, know what I mean?
To be honest, I’m really quite proud of my newest publication, “Early East India Company merchants and a rare word for sex” (forthcoming June 2011 in Words in Dictionaries and History. Essays in honour of R.W. McConchie). It’s an investigation of cultural history through looking at a bawdy word that comes up a single time […]