Marking time on words
The names of trees
William Pettigrew (1825-1906) migrated from Scotland in the ship Fortitude, and arrived in Moreton Bay in 1849. He established the first sawmill in Brisbane in 1853, and was active in community and political affairs.
I have only recently discovered that he also recorded the names used by Yuggera, Gubbi Gubbi and Badtjala people for some of the trees in their country. This reflects the connections he developed with the traditional custodians of the land.
National Library cancels the OED
About a year ago I wrote that I was sad to be a member of a library [that is, The State Library of Queensland] that has so little regard for historical knowledge, but I am pleased to belong to the National Library of Australia which continues to provide online access to the OED.
That pleasure has not lasted. The other day I was having trouble getting a connection, through the national library website, to the online Oxford English Dictionary. I asked for help, and received this email reply:
As part of its ongoing collection management activities, in 2019 the Library conducted a review of the eResources collection to ensure that it is a coherent and cost-effective collection that meets the needs of a broad cross-section of the Library’s diverse audience. Considerations included relevance to the Library’s collecting policy, reader needs and interests, and subscription costs. Unfortunately, as a result of this review, the Library no longer subscribes to the Oxford English Dictionary online.
In place of using OED online I recommend either the Macquarie Dictionary: Australia’s national dictionary online or Oxford Reference. Oxford Reference is a suite of databases and includes a shorter version only of the Oxford English Dictionary.
It looks like we are becoming a banana republic.
State Library cancels the OED
I occasionally visit the State Library of Queensland at South Brisbane—to consult the books, view the exhibitions, or meet people in the coffee shop. But barely a day goes by when I don’t visit the library online. I search the catalogue; I search for and download digital copies of historical photographs, drawings and maps; I connect to various databases and information services (eResources as the library calls them). The card in my wallet calls me a member of the library. I’m delighted to be admitted as a member of that club.
My favourite eResource is the online OED, the Oxford English Dictionary. The other day I couldn’t get the connection to the OED website to work. When I asked for help I was told the library had cancelled the subscription.
I was shocked. I asked why the library would do such a thing. Here is the nub of the answer:
Thank you for your enquiry about the cancellation of the Oxford English Dictionary. After speaking with teams across the library I can provide the following explanation about the process.
State Library reviews all eresources (which includes databases, online reference tools, online newspapers and magazines etc) annually, or at the time when the subscription renewal is due. Oxford English Dictionary was reviewed by the Content Working Group by considering the content, the usage, the viability, other similar resources and the cost. The usage of this eresource was limited, less than 100 uses per month for users across Queensland. The library also subscribes to the Macquarie dictionary online which has significantly more usage. The Macquarie dictionary was considered a suitable alternative source for users of the Oxford English Dictionary.
Don’t get me wrong—I’m a fan of the Macquarie Dictionary. It is my first point of reference. It helps me to select the right words, and spell them correctly and consistently, in line with current Australian usage. I value the Macquarie, but it’s no OED.
The OED has quite a different purpose. It is the principal historical dictionary of the English language (Wikipedia), and the definitive historical dictionary of the English language (Encylopedia Britannica). It is what you need for digging deep into the history of words. As the Oxford University Press blurb says:
The Oxford English Dictionary is the accepted authority on the evolution of the English language over the last millennium. It is an unsurpassed guide to the meaning, history, and pronunciation of over half a million words, both present and past. It traces the usage of words through 2.5 million quotations from a wide range of international English language sources, from classic literature and specialist periodicals to film scripts and cookery books. The OED covers words from across the English-speaking world, from North America to South Africa, from Australia and New Zealand to the Caribbean. It also offers the best in etymological analysis and in listing of variant spellings, and it shows pronunciation using the International Phonetic Alphabet.
I am sad to be a member of a library that has so little regard for historical knowledge, but I am pleased to belong to the National Library of Australia which continues to provide online access to the OED.
Postscript 18 February 2020: The pleasure did not last.
Hunkering down
From my mother I learned a concern for the rightness of words. She had a good ear for them, and a leaning towards linguistic prescriptivism. She had strong opinions about some words…
I am my mother’s child, although I find myself gradually leaning more towards descriptivism. I watch with interest as meanings of words shift, and new words and usages emerge. I generally hold back the peevishness.
But, each summer, as radio news reporters describe people bunkering down as the cyclone comes closer, the spirit of my mother rises in me, and I think to myself “hunker, you idiot, not bunker!”
The Urban dictionary has this definition of bunker down:
A term morons use, particularly when bad weather is afoot, to which they confuse the meaning of “hunker” with. Bunker is a noun, yet hunker is a verb, thus while the words sound similar, when thought of in their linguistic context, one is blatantly wrong.
Yes, the tone is nasty, and the expression is clumsy, but the sentiment is right.
The online Macquarie Dictionary takes a descriptivist line and, at some time since the hard copy second edition was published (1991), has added this under the headword bunker: Also, bunker down: to retreat from the outside world to a place of isolation. In the dictionary blog (behind a pay wall, sorry), one of the editors answers the question Do you hunker down or bunker down?:
It depends on what kind of emergency you are facing. A bunker in the First World War was a reinforced concrete underground shelter, designed to withstand a bomb. To bunker down is to find shelter against attack, whether that shelter is physical or metaphorical. People preparing for a cyclone would bunker down.
They go on to discuss the origins and meanings of bunker and hunker, but …
Okay, I give up. I’ll get used to hearing it. Which does not mean I’ll say it myself.
Contents of my library
Thanks to LibraryThing for revealing how my library stacks up against others of similar size. A new LibraryThing function can automatically classify my books using the Dewey Decimal System and produce a web infographic at the click of a mouse.
The results are interesting, but not surprising:
Old Museum Stories
Today the Old Museum Stories website went live. It is designed as a forum for people to share stories about one of Brisbane’s favourite historic places—a place that, since 1863, has been the site of horticulture, recreation, education, performance, and conviviality. Go on, add your story now.
The little lighthouse
The other day I was in Caloundra to talk to the Friends of the Caloundra Lighthouses. I am working with local architect Roger Todd on an updated conservation management plan for the old and new lighthouses (built in 1896 and 1968) that stand side by side at Caloundra. The Friends are doing this work with a heritage grant from the Sunshine Coast Council, augmented by pro bono contributions from Roger and me.
The Friends have recently had a part in producing a children’s illustrated book about the lighthouses, and I was delighted to be given a copy. It reminded me of reading to my daughters—it brought fond memories of that special pleasure of reading stories together, and of the countless times we read one or other of our favourite books.
Controlled vocabulary
I’m the kind of guy who uses a controlled vocabulary to keyword his photos. This means that I use consistent words to describe things. Am I sadly obsessive? Maybe, but there are benefits.
There are about 75,000 images in my Lightroom catalog—some scanned, some born digital. I have assigned keywords and other useful metadata to almost all of them. For keywords I use the Getty Research Institute’s excellent Art & Architecture Thesaurus, the Australian Pictorial Thesaurus, and my own controlled lists of terms for projects, places, people, and specialised subjects.
Noel Pearson remembers Gough Whitlam
Thanks to the ABC for recording Noel Pearson’s powerful address at the state memorial service for Gough Whitlam in Sydney Town Hall today. The whole address is in the video below. Pearson spoke of Whitlam’s government as the textbook case of reform trumping management. Here’s a taste:
Etymology of a microphone
As I was reading about the technicalities of sound recording, I wondered where the lavalier microphone got its name—(a lavalier is the little microphone you sometimes see clipped to peoples’ shirts when they are interviewed on TV). I did some digging and here’s what I found.
Britannica landscape
Here’s something delightful—24 volumes of an Encyclopaedia Britannica transformed into a mountain landscape by the artist Guy Laramée. I have already admitted to a liking for the printed Britannica, but I know that’s outmoded. Thanks to the blog Colossal for revealing this work to me.
Developing heritage places
I was delighted to hear that the recently published guideline Developing heritage places: using the development criteria has received a commendation from the Planning Institute of Australia. This is what the award judges wrote about the document:
The ‘Developing Heritages Places’ document is a clear and rigorous checklist of assessment criteria and considerations for stakeholders involved in site-specific development proposals relating to a Queensland heritage place.»more»
The checklist is supported by more detailed case studies and recommended (as opposed to required) actions to inform the development of proposals, preparation of better development applications and prelodgement meetings with assessment authorities.
The document is well presented, and as a result, will be accessible to multiple stakeholders. The judges were particularly impressed by the inclusion of photographs of example cases studies, the comprehensiveness of the checklist from scoping through to construction and the ‘road-testing’ of the checklist undertaken by the Department with local government.
‘Developing Heritage Places’ has been endorsed by the Queensland Heritage Council and the judges believe represent a model to be implemented in other jurisdictions moving forward
The Illustrated Burra Charter: how to buy it online
The Illustrated Burra Charter: good practice for heritage places has been widely accepted, often cited, and sometimes commended. But, sadly, the book has never been widely promoted or distributed.
It is hard to find a copy for sale in a bookshop or on the web. I have had quite a few enquiries from people who wanted to buy one, but who couldn’t find a convenient source. In the past I have sent those people to the Australia ICOMOS website, where the online ordering process is a reminder of life before amazon.com.
Esoteric London: the book
Every morning, over a nice cup of tea, I check the Esoteric London blog and enjoy another quirky juxtaposition of a new photograph and a bit of old text. It’s a pleasure, and sometimes a hazardous distraction.
Roger Dean, the photographer and blogger, has been working on a self-published book which is now, at last, almost ready to print. This is not some quickie print-on-demand number, but a proper book (with belly band). Roger has just launched a Kickstarter project to get the job onto the press. I’ve pledged my support!
Heritage impact assessment lah
Here’s a sequel to my post about heritage impact reports. Dr Lee Lik Meng, Associate Professor of planning at the Universiti Sains Malaysia, took part in Donald Ellsmore’s workshop and wrote about the experience on his blog.
Fingerspitzengefühl
I found this delightful German word in Oliver Reichenstein’s fine piece Learning to see. He writes about design that combines functional and aesthetic value—You don’t get there with cosmetics, you get there by taking care of the details, by polishing and refining what you have. This is ultimately a matter of trained taste, or what German speakers call “Fingerspitzengefühl” (literally, “finger-tip-feeling”). He adds a photo of Jan Tschichold to illustrate.
Heritage impact reports
My colleague Donald Ellsmore asked me if I had ever seen a half decent heritage impact assessment in 10 pages or less.
I replied: I favour reports that are as short as possible (but as long as necessary…). The length needs to vary with the complexity of the issues and the nature of the other consultants’ reports in the development application. I am used to writing impact reports that go alongside stuff prepared by design architects and by town planners (who never learned brevity, or have since forgotten about it).
This predilection for sea idiom
This predeliction [sic] for sea idiom is assuredly proper in a maritime people, especially as many of the phrases are at once graphic, terse, and perspicuous. How could the whereabouts of an aching tooth be better pointed out to an operative dentist than Jack’s “’Tis the aftermost grinder aloft, on the starboard quarter.”* The ship expressions preserve many British and Anglo-Saxon words, with their quaint old preterites and telling colloquialisms; and such may require explanation, as well for the youthful aspirant as for the cocoa-nut-headed prelector in nautic lore. It is indeed remarkable how largely that foundation of the English language has been preserved by means of our sailors.»more»
—from the Introduction to Admiral W H Smyth’s, The sailor’s word book: an alphabetical digest of nautical terms< (London: Blackie and Son, 1867), page 6.
* my emphasis
Lucy
Thanks to the on-line OED I now know that lucy is the name of a fish—the northern pike, Esox lucius. Wikipedia adds some more detail: In heraldry, the pike is called a lucy. It is usually blazoned either naiant (swimming), embowed (bowed) or hauriant (jumping), though pairs of lucies may appear addorsed (back to back)…
»more»Sally
I was delighted to find a new meaning of the word sally. I’ll let Charles Dickens explain, as he describes a visit to St Saviour’s Church at Southwark (now Southwark Cathedral). He has just climbed the stone stairs up to the bell ringers’ room in the tower…
The ropes of the twelve bells pass through holes in the ceiling, and reach the floor. Under each is a little raised platform for the ringer to stand on, with a strap for his foot to help him in getting a good purchase and each rope half way up is covered by some four feet by a fluffy, woolly looking covering, technically called a “sally” and intended to afford a good hold to the ringer as he checks his bell in the pull down.—Charles Dickens, All the year round, 27 February 1869. [via].»more»
A visit to the Eddystone Lighthouse
I feel guilty, just a little, because I support the vandals who cut up old books and magazines. I am part of that awful trade. I search for bits of paper on eBay, and I pay money to dealers. Forgive me.
But I rationalise that it’s a small transgression. If I don’t buy those bits of paper, somebody else will; and if nobody wants them, they’ll all go to landfill.
I paid a dealer to send me some pages pulled from a bound volume of the Strand Magazine (Volume IV, July-December 1892)—an article written and illustrated by F G Kitton, describing a visit to the Eddystone lighthouse. It’s a nicely written piece that gave me a peek into the offshore light keepers’ life.
»more»Renaming the Great War
This is a fitting day to mention some clever projects that Tim Sherrat has done to extract and process information from a mass of digital data. He describes in his blog how he worked with the Trove archive of Australian newspapers to see when people stopped talking about the Great War and started talking about the First World War. He discussed a wider range of work concerning the Great War in a keynote address.
»more»The virtues of the snail
Was this gastropod outcomes-driven? And surely there should have been a pair of them?
»more»50 years of Strunk & White
The elements of style (3rd edition, 1979) lurks on the shelf near my dictionaries and style guides. Some of its specific advice on grammar is weird, so it’s not a useful reference book. But as an argument for clarity in writing it’s wonderful.
White’s reworking of William Strunk’s original little book appeared in 1959, and was a publishing hit. Its anniversary has been marked by a new commemorative edition, and a flurry of comment.
»more»David Malouf at West End Library
My local public library opened in 1929, and today we marked it’s 80th birthday with a talk by David Malouf, and a birthday cake.
»more»Faded signage
Oh, how I hate the word signage. So unnecessary, when the ordinary word signs works so well.
I’ll drop that subject, lest I come across as grumpy and pedantic, and distract you with a beautiful collection of faded signage.
»more»Apronman, bagman, chair bodger
An old favourite among my browser bookmarks: A list of occupations, compiled and published on the web by the late John J Lacombe II. It’s a collection of (mostly archaic) occupations, each briefly explained.
»more»Understanding sarcasm
Yesterday I was talking to Lucy, my nine year old daughter, about irony and sarcasm and the difference between them. We looked up both words in the Collins Cobuild Dictionary:
Irony is a subtle form of humour which involves saying things that you do not mean.
Sarcasm is speech or writing which actually means the opposite of what you mean to say. Sarcasm is usually intended to mock or insult someone.
I mostly avoid sarcasm but I have a fondness for irony — a fondness that people of some other nationalities seem to lack. The dictionary can mark out a border between irony and sarcasm, with mockery and insult kept on one side. But there is contested territory where irony and sarcasm meet. Mockery and insult are feelings, not measurable commodities.
Today, I read that a research team from Haifa University has located the parts of the brain that comprehend sarcasm, according to a BBC News report.
»more»Oondooroo
This post commemorates a visit Thom Blake and I made to Oondooroo, a pastoral homestead outside Winton that has a remarkable collection of stone buildings. (Writing about this event is really just a pretext for linking to Thom’s website, and sooling the googlebots on to it).
»more»Knocking off time
In a post to the oldtools mailing list, Jeff Gorman explained the origin of ‘knocking off time’:
In case you might just want to know, the expression derives from coalmining when at the end of the shift, the miner inverts his pick and thumps the shaft end on the ground to release the head.»more»
Celebrating the Illustrated Burra Charter
In this, my three-hundredth posting to Marking time, I want to record that The Illustrated Burra Charter: Good Practice for Heritage Places has been launched.
Writing this book has been a long project for Meredith Walker and me. I have already mentioned it here a few times - at first draft, final draft, proofing, and printing stages. This is a project that seemed like it would never end. But now it has.
»more»Dewey’s birthday
According to a mention in Garrison Keillor’s writer’s almanac, today is the birthday of Melvil Dewey.
This prompted me to look at the middens of paper around me, and think about Dewey’s invention of the vertical filing cabinet. Thinking turned into procrastination. Instead of putting those papers into those filing cabinets, I turned to Google. I found this book review: The social life of paper. Also see the short biographical entry in Wikipedia.
Checking the proofs
At last. The book should be on the press this week.
»more»Placeholder
Actually posted on 7 February 2005.
Until I posted this, there was nothing here for the month of July 2004. That was the month I came back from a New Zealand sabbatical and I was a bit busy. But having a missing month in the monthly archive just looked odd, and I had to fix it. So, here is a dose of lorem ipsum.
»more»Ulysses in daily doses
Today is the centenary of Bloomsday, the day on which everything in James Joyce’s Ulysses took place.
I used to think Ulysses was unapproachable, until I bought myself the Naxos audio book. For long driving trips I load the four disks into the CD magazine, and switch on as soon as I get onto the highway. Jim Norton reads most of the text, with Marcella Riordan as Molly. It’s like having them in the car with me, telling me the story. It’s wonderful, and I’m not the only one who thinks so.
»more»Dub dub dub
I heard this today on Radio New Zealand — Linda Clark interviewed a guest, then announced his web address: Dub-dub-dub wildlands dot cc, instead of the usual clumsy dubya-dubya-dubya…
»more»Engravings on wood
At a second-hand bookshop in Whangarei I bought a copy of E Mervyn Taylor’s Engravings on wood (Wellington: Mermaid Press, 1957). This book displays a body of work influenced by the natural environment of New Zealand, and embedded in the European tradition of printing from engraved end-grain wood blocks. The native birds, plants (like the toi toi), landscapes and people of New Zealand were his subjects, and he engraved them with freshness.
I had not heard of him before, but this says more about my poor knowledge of New Zealand’s cultural history than it does about the artist. I know now that Mervyn Taylor (1906-1964) was a well-known and well-regarded artist.
»more»Dan Price’s moonlight chronicles
The Morning News has a delightful interview with Dan Price, artist, writer and publisher of The moonlight chronicles.
After working as a photojournalist for 10 years I sold all my cameras and began documenting my own little life instead of everyone else’s. Using a pen and paper I was able to document what I was seeing without a machine between me and the subject. If you draw lots you can become very addicted to that peaceful state of being. It’s definitely my drug of choice!»more»
Stop verbing those nouns
Kick me in the shins if I ever write anything as obscure as the following — it’s the abstract for a new book published by IBM, entitled ‘Architecting Portal Solutions’:
»more»Hanlon’s razor
From the Jargon lexicon: Hanlon’s Razor /prov./ A corollary of Finagle’s Law, similar to Occam’s Razor, that reads “Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.” The full entry offers some notes on the origins of the term.
Denis O’Donovan’s library
In 1874 Denis O’Donovan became Queensland Parliamentary Librarian. He was an unlikely arrival in the colonial frontier town of Brisbane — capital of the state of Queensland, separated from New South Wales 15 years before. O’Donovan was a cultivated man, educated in Ireland and France.
»more»Digital Gutenberg bibles II
My post about digital Gutenberg bibles has a sequel. Another Gutenberg bible has been digitised. [via kottke.org]
»more»The month of May
Lest the month go by without leaving anything in the archive, I should explain myself. Meredith Walker and I have handed over the last draft of the new Illustrated Burra Charter book. The project-with-no-end will soon be finished.
»more»Being Googled
I can’t explain it—it’s just a funny feeling that I’m being Googled—caption to a cartoon in the New Yorker of two men talking over drinks.
Doggerel
Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend.
Inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read.
— Groucho Marx
Haircut blogs and other inventions
Pseudodictionary.com collects new words and credits their inventors. So we know who to thank for the useful term haircut blog. That reminds me…
Driving Allen Ginsberg
Elsa Dorfman's fond stories and pictures of Allen Ginsberg reminded me of the time the Beat Poet came to Brisbane.
»more»Irony recognition
From a UK think-tank: We are a charitable institution, founded in 1996, devoted to ensuring that standards of English comprehension are maximised throughout the World Wide Web. Our research revealed what many had previously suspected, and reported informally — certain web users were incapable of recognising, let alone using, irony or sarcasm. This was news to me, but I am pleased to know they have a solution. It’s a web browser plug-in that uses new algorithms to alert users to irony, sarcasm, satire and parody. Downloads are free, but donations to support the research are invited.
Pebbledash people
The BBC’s E-cyclopedia: the words behind the headlines explains a new British use of pebbledash as a term indicating suburbia. Pebbledash people is spin doctor's shorthand for a social group.
Thought to be Tories' paradigm target voter, numbering 2.5 million in 178 target seats. Derives from “pebbledash subtopia”, one of 52 postcode categories employed by market research specialists Experian. Average household income: £25,000; likely to read Daily Mail; not very neighbourly; keen on DIY.»more»
Engaging self obsession
Michael Barrish writes: Google changed my life. This says something about my life. I find this blogger’s self obsession engaging. He carries a bag everywhere, he says. He describes its contents in forensic detail:
»more»New word: NARU
I have spotted this new word on websites and news groups. It appears as NARU, but I predict it will shift to the lower case naru as it slides from acronym to ordinary word.
»more»Australian word map
Word Map is an interactive website mapping Australian regionalisms—words, phrases or expressions used by particular language groups. Add your regionalism or search to see what others have contributed.
Digital Gutenberg bibles
In March 2000, ten researchers and technical experts from Keio University in Tokyo and from NTT spent two weeks in The British Library creating digital images of the two [Gutenberg] Bibles and the other related items.»more»
Writing by numbers: 100
The idea behind 100 words is simple: Write 100 words, no more, no less, every day.
»more»Ftrain spotting
Ftrain is listed in my bookmarks under the heading blogs. But it’s not the usual daily stream of jottings and outbound links. Paul Ford writes short pieces of fiction and non-fiction, each richly linked to other pieces on the site. You can follow connections up and down a hierarchy of subjects, sideways to related pieces, or back and forth chronologically. Ftrain is built on a database of content, and (I guess) some nifty programming that maintains the pages.
»more»Writing by numbers: 500
The Hoopla 500 is an experiment in text. Each entry is approximately 500 words in length, and topically can cover anything from absolute fiction to painfully detailed truth. It is not a diary, a weblog, an art project, a zine or a venue for storytelling. It [is] defined most precisely as itself: the Hoopla500. Sometimes it may be pretentious, others self effacing, but the goal is simply that it will be. In other words, its existence is the sole justification and explanation of its purpose.»more»That, and I like doing it. [Statement by the author, Leslie Harpold]
Ratbag
Any person whose eccentricity I find appealing I am apt to call a ratbag. To me, it’s a word that implies fondness, an Australian idiom it seems. The British dictionaries either don’t know the word, or don’t see any positive connotation in it, and my old Websters doesn’t know the word at all. Here’s what I found:
»more»Recipe for boredom
See this piece by Laura Calder: Recipe for boredom: why must the modern cookbook be such a flavorless affair? She quotes from Elizabeth David, Sir Hugh Platt, George Augustus Sala and Hannah Wooley to show the literary delights of the recipe, now lost. Like Hannah Wooley’s recipe from The Compleat Gentlewoman, published in 1711:
»more»Letterpress
I’m reading Counterpunch: making type in the sixteenth century, designing typefaces now by Fred Smeijers. Fred is a digital type designer who has gone back to the roots of printed type. He has studied early type-makers’ tools in museums, and taught himself to make type punches used for making moulds for casting type for hand setting. A fascinating book.
»more»Omit unnecessary words
An unusual weblog, Textism looks good and reads well. Such economy. Just three words today—sometimes it snows—linked to wordless photographs. It’s been snowing in Pompignan. I want to go there.
Mark time
Wait idly for something to occur, as in ‘We were just marking time until we received our instructions’. This idiom alludes to the literal meaning of marching in place to the time, or beat, of music. [Early 1800s].
—from The American heritage dictionary of idioms by Christine Ammer.