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People who ♥Love♥ words~~Now is your chance.

 
 
Reply Fri 5 Oct, 2012 06:31 pm
http://newsbreaks.infotoday.com/Digest/emOxford-English-Dictionaryem-Appeals-to-the-Public-for-Help-85384.asp

They are serious. Are you?

Oxford English Dictionary Appeals to the Public for Help

The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) announced the launch of OED Appeals, a major online initiative set to involve the public in tracing the history of English words. Using a dedicated community space on the OED website, editors are soliciting help in unearthing new information about the history and usage of English, including the earliest examples of particular words. The website will enable the public to post evidence in direct response to OED editors online, fostering a collective effort to record the English language and find the true roots of our vocabulary.
Appeals will be posted to the website on a frequent basis. Some of the entries the OED team is initially asking the public’s help with include the following:

bellini
Can you provide evidence of "bellini" before 1965? The famous cocktail of peach juice mixed with Prosecco or champagne is said to have been invented in Venice at Harry’s Bar in the 1930s, and named (in Italian) in 1948 (in honour of the painter Giovanni Bellini, c1430-1516). Earlier evidence in English may be available in travelogues or guidebooks.

come in from the cold
Did John le Carré coin the phrase? Meaning ‘(esp. of a spy) to return from isolation, concealment, or exile,’ it is famous from le Carré’s 1963 novel The Spy who Came in from the Cold but was it ever used by actual intelligence officers?

FAQ
Do you have proof of the earliest FAQ? The term is currently attributed to Eugene N. Miya, a researcher at NASA, who is said to have coined it c1983 in documents circulated to Usenet groups on the history of the space programme. Our earliest verifiable evidence is from 1989 but we’d like to go back further to prove the coinage of the word.

Other entries now open on the OED Appeals site at launch include in your dreams!, cooties, and Kwanzaa. The OED Appeals site will be updated regularly; other words scheduled for research in the coming weeks include baked Alaska, bimble, carbo-loading, easy-peasy, email, heads-up, and party animal. Followers of the OED on Twitter and Facebook will be alerted to new Appeals and can keep abreast of new word evidence as it comes to light.

The OED’s expansive record of the history of English has relied on input from the public since its earliest days, from the original Appeal for contributions from "a thousand readers" in 1859, to the popular BBC TV program Balderdash & Piffle in 2005. The online OED Appeals brings the public into conversation with the dictionary’s professional lexicographers more directly than ever before.

Follow on Twitter: @OEDonline.

Watch this video: Senior Editor Fiona McPherson introduces OED Appeals

Source: Oxford University Press

~~Joe(Besides it would be fun to submit something that made it into OED.)Nation

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Type: Question • Score: 5 • Views: 3,169 • Replies: 7
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ossobuco
 
  1  
Reply Fri 5 Oct, 2012 06:47 pm
@Joe Nation,
Hmmm, the bellini may or may not be in James (later Jan) Morris' 1960 edition of World of Venice.
Then there's Mary McCarthy and her Venice Observed, 1953 and 1963. I've got those, could dig them out and riffle through them (they're small).
I've read the Harry's Bar tale numerous times, probably in some fairly early art/police mysteries set in Venice, but I forget.
Barzini wrote The Italians in 1964; could be in there.
Well, someone will show up with information re the Cipriani claim to fame.




...So the Venice books are in a separate biggo container in the garage. Will nose around them tomorrow.
laughoutlood
 
  2  
Reply Fri 5 Oct, 2012 10:31 pm
@Joe Nation,
Blue phrase earns Duke dictionary entry

http://resources3.news.com.au/images/2012/10/04/1226487/950499-121004-prince-philip.jpg


IT would, perhaps, be one of the most memorable royal contributions to the English language.

Unless the Oxford English Dictionary can find an earlier source, its latest edition will suggest that the Duke of Edinburgh was the first person to use the phrase "blue-arsed fly" in public.

The dictionary has now appealed to readers to trace any earlier source for this latest colourful addition to the language, and, if possible, to find out why flies were deemed to have such an unusual attribute.

It was this newspaper that first quoted the Prince's usage, on April 22, 1970. As our reporter then noted: "The Duke of Edinburgh ... asked a photographer if he was getting enough pictures ... 'You have been running around like a blue-arsed fly'."

The OED's editors suspect a transatlantic origin. They can attest that the American spelling of "blue-assed fly" was in use as early as 1932. How and when did the insect buzz across into British English?

http://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSdbWhtp2gBm9sIzMa3-uLGnyT96kfEGt4YXslhKhs5fOCV3Wqo

Where entomology meets etymology
Joe Nation
 
  1  
Reply Sat 6 Oct, 2012 03:08 am
@laughoutlood,
I love this.

There is, of course, the American folk song "Blue-Tailed Fly"
from before the Civil War of 1861-65.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zj9qAvOZq28

Joe(horseflies bite!)Nation
0 Replies
 
izzythepush
 
  1  
Reply Sat 6 Oct, 2012 12:03 pm
This has been going on quite a long time. There's been a television series about it.

0 Replies
 
ossobuco
 
  1  
Reply Sat 6 Oct, 2012 01:55 pm
@ossobuco,
Well, nuts, that was short lived. I found my stash of books on Venice and did start riffling through just in case I saw some kind of argument about the history of the Bellini drink concoction. No, I didn't, but I quickly lost interest, and find myself reading Mary McCarthy's Venice Observed over again. Such a rich book for its small size. She did talk about the Bellinis and their paintings - and how!

There was a guide book stuck in there, John Kent's Venice, that mentioned that "Giuseppe Cipriani's fruit juice and champagne cocktails are named after Venetian painters; a Bellini with peach juice, and a Tiziano, with grapefruit juice. and grenadine. His most famous dish, thin slices of raw beef with mayonnaise, is named after Carpaccio." That sound believable to me.
Joe Nation
 
  1  
Reply Sat 6 Oct, 2012 07:05 pm
@ossobuco,
call it in. ?
ossobuco
 
  1  
Reply Sat 6 Oct, 2012 07:44 pm
@Joe Nation,
Nah, that guide book was way post '65 and I know I've read the same many times. What I was looking for was running across a reference to it in one of my books written earlier that have a gossipy element to them. I was doing it for fun - didn't even look in wiki because I wanted to fool with my books (they're still there!) Didn't find the Jan Morris book, which, oh, wait, I just looked it up on amazon. The original was written in 1923, when he/she was first there. Huh.

Well, never mind. You can tell I'm off on other booky escapades.

edit -
Now I look on wiki and Jan Morris, born James Morris, was born in
'26. So that amazon note on one edition was not true. This is all more interesting than the Bellini cocktail..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Morris
Now there's a story - check it out.
0 Replies
 
 

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