At one level, few things are simpler than a dictionary: a list of the words people use or have used, with an explanation of what those words mean, or have meant. At the level that matters, though – the level that lexicographers fret and obsess about – few things could be more complex. Who used those words, where and when? How do you know? Which words do you include, and on what basis? How do you tease apart this sense from that? And what is “English” anyway?
Tag: 02.23.18
The Artist Whose Medium Is Big Data
Laurie Frick imagines a future in which your smart watch will know how your body is responding to someone. Then it will combine with Facebook data about their personality. And that will let you know whether that person makes you lethargic, raises your blood pressure or depresses you. “If you start training people that, ‘Look at what’s happening to your inflammation levels or whatever. This is the best thing for you and you can let go of the guilt.’ “
Those Articulate Florida Kids Leading The #NeverAgain Movement? Theatre Nerds
Are you surprised that these teenage drama nerds are now taking the international stage by storm? I’m not. A theatre class is more than an artistic distraction for students. It can serve as a lightning rod of empowerment for young people. For many teens, the experience of standing in a spotlight on a stage in a play or musical, galvanizing the attention of adults in the audience, is the first time a young person discovers that what they say matters. They learn that words have power, that their voice can move and inspire others.
How Cincinnati Invested In Selling The Arts To Sell Itself
Regional Tourism Network provided a half-million dollars that was matched by ArtsWave to co-create the region’s first arts marketing campaign outside of a 100-mile radius. The result: Their $1 million campaign in fall 2016 reaped $14 million in hotel stays. Arts audiences across the region increased 3 percent. Surveys showed that Cincinnati was gaining a reputation as a place people might like to live, work and visit.
Canada’s Public Broadcaster Says It Will Destroy Archive Of 200,000 Recordings
The main French-language production centre of Radio-Canada in Montreal has been digitising its collection. However recently it was revealed that most of the collection of over 200,000 CDs will be destroyed when the process is completed in 2019, prior to the move to new quarters in 2020.
Should The Press Really Be “Objective”? That’s A Relatively New Idea
Widespread objective, nonpartisan media did once exist in this country, from roughly the 1950s to the late 1970s. But at the time, that was something new, too. Before that, there was no press other than the partisan press. Newspapers controlled by the Federalists branded Thomas Jefferson an “infidel,” while the Democratic-Republican press called George Washington a “traitor.” Before journalism became a “profession” in the Progressive Era, newspaper editors organized parties and held meetings in their offices. So if the passage of modern objective news is lamentable, it is also not all that surprising.
The Great Mound Cities Of The Midwest Were So Amazing, White Archaeologists Decided They Were Made By Aliens (Or Anyone But Native Peoples)
The large earthen mound complexes lie everywhere in the river valleys of the Midwest and Southeast. But “early archaeologists working to answer the question of who built the mounds attributed them to the Toltecs, Vikings, Welshmen, Hindus, and many others. It seemed that any group — other than the American Indian — could serve as the likely architects of the great earthworks.”
The Great Book Acquisition Adventures Of The 17th And 18th Century
Yes, it was partly about European colonial greed. “In Istanbul, the buying of books by foreigners eventually got so out of hand that in 1715 or 1716 the grand vizir, Şehid Ali Pasha, himself a book collector, ‘enacted a law … banning the sale of books to foreigners.’ This protectionist measure was designed to prevent the disappearance of valuable intellectual resources from the capital.”
The Screwball Comedies Of 1930s Hollywood Were Great, But They’ve Devolved Into Chaos
As Game Night opens, the history of the screwball comedy has become the history of the chaos comedy, often with the word “Night” in the tile. Basically: “Two or more characters who’ve hit a roadblock in their (sometimes platonic) relationship get wrapped up in craaazy-wild frolics, forcing them to work together to escape the scenario. No matter the nature of their connection, they are seeking to reaffirm their value to one another’s lives. Instead of Hepburn wooing Grant away from his fiancée in a battle of the sexes, these characters are wooing one another away from the monotony of adult routines, marital discord or corporate greed.”
The Hammer Museum Gets Massive Donations As L.A. Dominates Arts Funding
The museum’s director says it’s because people in L.A. love the city, and donor Lynda Resnick has more pointed words. “The gift to the Hammer, Lynda Resnick said in a phone interview, comes at a time when the economy may be good but ‘we can depend less and less on the government and what they can do. It’s up to the private sector to give back.'”