The Digital World Has Changed The Very Idea Of What Dictionaries Are

“The online OED now allows the reader to click on citations from Shakespeare and Milton to get the extended passage they’re drawn from, and readers can easily go online to do the same with citations from other writers. Online dictionaries like Wordnik already use algorithms to construct citation lists on the fly; at the limit, you could think of an online dictionary as simply a lexicographical web interface… The advent of online historical corpora has also altered the lexicographer’s method. Word sleuthery has become a game that anyone with access to a search engine can play.”

Fearing Another Ghost Ship, Detroit Orders Artists’ Complex Vacated Immediately Due To Safety Violations

“One of the seven buildings of the Russell Industrial Center in Detroit, which has become known as a haven for artists and a locale for edgy events and movies, was ordered closed this week.” Said the city’s director of buildings and safety engineering, “During a recent inspection, the smell of natural gas from the multiple illegal installations was so strong, DTE had to be immediately called to correct the leak.”

Maryland High School Bans Shepard Fairey’s ‘We The People’ Posters For Being ‘Anti-Trump’ – And Students Get Clever

Teachers at Westminster High School in Carroll County, a rural area on the Pennsylvania border, put up the posters as a “show of diversity” – which is precisely their purpose. But after a staff member complained, administrators said that political material couldn’t be displayed in classrooms without “showing both sides.” Westminster students have an alternative planned (and the school board is meeting with lawyers).

NYT Theatre Critic Comes Under Attack For Contextualizing “Big River” In 2017 America

That Laura Collins-Hughes chose to think about Big River, and specifically the Black character of Jim, in the context of an America currently “plumbing its own soul over questions of privilege and belonging,” did not please Jack Viertel, the long-serving producer of Encores! In a hyperbolic, vitriolic response, Viertel characterised the review — which he acknowledged was positive — as “stunningly polarized, politicized, narrow-minded and unfailingly myopic.”

Why People Are Fearful Of Measuring Intelligence

“The idea that intelligence could be quantified, like blood pressure or shoe size, was barely a century old when I took the test that would decide my place in the world. But the notion that intelligence could determine one’s station in life was already much older. It runs like a red thread through Western thought, from the philosophy of Plato to the policies of UK prime minister Theresa May. To say that someone is or is not intelligent has never been merely a comment on their mental faculties. It is always also a judgment on what they are permitted to do. Intelligence, in other words, is political.”