The bust of Tolkien in Oxford’s English Faculty Library, 2015 vs. 2025. He’s aged more gracefully than I have.

Elizabeth Carter offers her view on fashionable accessories in 1748: ‘I should sooner fan myself with a cabbage-leaf than lay out any sum of money, in ornaments, that would buy a book.’

I love finding yet-to-be-revised pockets of Victorian/Edwardian propriety on OED Online. Here’s a note under SWEAT (first published in 1912) advising that the verb is ‘avoided in refined speech in the ordinary physical senses’; the preferred word is PERSPIRE.

The teacher with a thousand faces. Thomas Dyche’s Guide to the English Tongue (1702) proved so popular that it was still being reprinted in 1821. Almost every edition had Dyche’s portrait at the front. Almost every portrait looked like it was of an entirely different person. A curated selection:

If trying to get onto Platform 9¾ at King’s Cross doesn’t work out for you, might I suggest Platform 9 next door? It’ll get you to Cambridge, which is only 200 years younger.

The 2nd edition of The Feminine Monarchie: or the Historie of Bees by grammarian and part-time apiarist Charles Butler. A notice in 1634 announced that the book, having been ‘so long by sinister means detained’, would soon come out in a 3rd edition. Who was trying to suppress the truth about bees?!

Joseph Moxon’s Mechanick Exercises, a 17thC treatise on the printing press, is a delight. A printing-house was customarily called a ‘chapel’. Workers who committed faults in the chapel—swearing, fighting, being drunk, leaving a candle burning at night, etc.—had to pay a fine called a ‘solace’.

I've made the Anne-ual pilgrimage to Halifax to celebrate Lister's 234th birthday with @annelistersociety.bsky.social ! How has it been four years already?

I once went through the Linguistic Atlas of Late Mediaeval English to collect all the attested Middle English spellings of ‘through’ (476).

Today’s word is DIMMET, ‘the dusk of the evening (Exmoor).’ (Francis Grose, A Provincial Glossary, 1787) Illustration courtesy of Port Meadow, Oxford.

Belated congratulations, Zoe! It was a superbly presented paper and a great contribution to #AnneLister studies.

After months of grey, a clear blue sky over Trinity College Chapel. Gather ye vitamins while ye may.

Could this substation sign contain the most inappropriate use of Comic Sans in the history of typography?

I guess Americans whose accents have the cot–caught merger would pronounce ‘hock’ and ‘hawk’ the same way, but what about Americans who don’t? Do they favour one pronunciation/spelling? Would Dustin Hoffman yell “Hey! I’m hawkin’ here” or “I’m hockin’ here”?

Today’s word is CANDLEMAS-BELLS, ‘the snowdrop.’ (Joseph Wright, The English Dialect Dictionary, 1898) Five days late for Candlemas, but they’re still going strong in the University Parks.

Today I learnt that when members of Trinity College, Oxford, book into hall for a meal, among the list of special dietary options they can select (alongside ‘Vegetarian’, ‘Halal’, ‘Gluten-free’, ‘Vegan’, etc.) is ‘Rower’.

Today’s word is TINTAMAR, ‘a confused Noise, a hideous Outcry.’ (Nathan Bailey, Dictionarium Britannicum, 1730)

Today’s word, on the penultimate day of term, is FLAUGHTER, ‘To give free scope to joyful feelings.’ (Joseph Wright, The English Dialect Dictionary, 1900)

Happy publication day to ‘Talking Back to the Dictionary’, a special issue of Dictionaries that I had the honour of guest-editing! Hats off to these brilliant authors for showing that the uses to which people have put their dictionaries are as ingenious as they are infinite. muse.jhu.edu/issue/53360

Today’s word is SHANKWEARY, ‘fatigued with walking.’ (F. K. Robinson, A Glossary of Words Used in the Neighbourhood of Whitby, 1876)

Today’s words are another pair of doublets: WARRANTY and GUARANTEE. The first was borrowed into English from Norman French, the second from Parisian French. The w/gu distinction is also visible in English WAR (borrowed from Norman French WERRE) vs. Modern French GUERRE.

Today’s word is RUDDERISH, ‘passionate; hasty.’ (James Orchard Halliwell, A Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words, 1847)

Still on the theme of clothes (sort of): two words that share an etymological root but that are now both used in one language are known as ‘doublets’.

Today’s words are SKIRT and SHIRT, which—despite their difference in meaning—share an etymological root. SHIRT is from Old English SCYRTE; SKIRT was borrowed from Old Norse SKYRTA. Both descend from one Germanic word referring to a short item of clothing.

Today’s word is RAMINGUE, ‘a resty Horse … that with Malice defends himself against the Spurs, sometimes doubling the Reins, and frequently yerking to favour his Disobedience.’ (Nathan Bailey, Dictionarium Britannicum, 1730) Yerk, yerk, against the dying of the light.

I’d meant to post this image alongside, but it took me much rummaging around to find it! ‘The Pugilistic Puppy‘ and ‘The Complying Puppiess’ from The Bon Ton Magazine, 1791.

Today’s word is WHISTERPOOP, ‘a back-handed blow.’ (Francis Grose, A Provincial Glossary, 1787)

Today’s word is GARLIC, my favourite doesn’t-look-like-a-compound-word-but-used-to-be-one. It derives from Old English GAR ‘spear’ + LEAC ‘leek’. The same GAR appears in the first line of Beowulf: ‘Hwæt! We GARdena in geardagum…’

Today’s word is CAPARISON, ‘a sort of Trappings, or Furniture for a Horse.’ (John Kersey, Dictionarium Anglo-Britannicum, 1708)

Today’s word is GUY, ‘a fright, a dowdy, an ill-dressed person. Derived from the effigy of Guy Fawkes carried about by boys on Nov. 5.’ (John Camden Hotten, A Dictionary of Modern Slang, Cant, and Vulgar Words, 1859)

Today’s word is CRINIGEROUS, ‘that hath or weareth hair.’ (Thomas Blount, Glossographia, 1656) ...So the opposite of GLABROUS, ‘smooth, like baldness.’ (Samuel Johnson & Henry J. Todd, A Dictionary of the English Language, 1818)

Today’s word is GILLATRYPS, ‘The name of a witches’ dance.’ (Scottish National Dictionary, 1956)

Today’s word is COMPANION, which entered English via French from Latin COM- ‘with’ + PANIS ‘bread’. In other words, a companion was someone you broke bread with.

Today’s word is LULLY PRIGGERS, ‘Thieves who steal wet linen.’ (Francis Grose, A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, 2nd ed. 1788) A noble profession doomed by the invention of the tumble dryer.

Today’s word is ILLATEBRATION, ‘A hiding or seeking of corners.’ (Elisha Coles, An English Dictionary, 1676)

Today’s word is BARN, another word that doesn’t look like a compound but started life as one. It comes from Old English BERN, which is a shortened form of BERE ‘barley’ + ÆRN ‘house’.

Apple cultivars in Britain have names that sound too good to be real. Some personal favourites: Peasgood’s Nonsuch Newton Wonder Winter Queening Ribston Pippin

Today’s word is SCRUMP, ‘To steal (apples), esp. from orchards.’ (Oxford English Dictionary, 1982) (These apples were not scrumped but honestly paid for at the Wolvercote Community Orchard’s annual Apple Day.)

Today’s word is ALEATORY, ‘Dependent on an accident or uncertain contingency, literally upon the casting of dice.’ (Isaac Funk, A Standard Dictionary of the English Language, 1893)

Today’s word is LORD, which doesn’t look like a compound but started out as one. It comes (via Middle English forms like LAUERD) from Old English HLAFORD, which derives from HLAF + WEARD, ‘loaf ward’ or ‘bread keeper’. A lord was in charge of feeding his household.

Today’s word is FEUILLEMORT, ‘The colour of a faded leaf, corrupted commonly to PHILEMOT.’ (Samuel Johnson, A Dictionary of the English Language, 1755)

Today’s word, fashionably late, is CALENDS, ‘Among the Romans, the first day of each month.’ (Noah Webster, An American Dictionary of the English Language, 1828)

Today’s word—ahead of a new term at @universityofoxford.bsky.social—is PERPACATE, ‘To set all things in order.’ (Henry Cockeram, The English Dictionarie, 1623)

Today’s word is TOSIE, ‘Comfortable, cosy, snug, agreeably warm.’ (Scottish National Dictionary, 1974)

I was shopping around for a sink plug and found this. If only Sauron had thought of having one of these fitted in Mount Doom, he could have stopped the Ring going in.

Today’s word is APRON, which entered Middle English as NAPRON. (Later, people misheard ‘a napron’ as ‘an apron’.) NAPRON was borrowed from Old French NAPERON, from NAPE ‘tablecloth’ + diminutive -ERON. English also borrowed NAPE and added its own diminutive to create NAPKIN.

Today’s word is DISASTER, which comes from Italian DIS- + ASTRO ‘star’. In other words, a disaster is an event that occurs under a contrary star.

Got caught in a sudden downpour on Broad Street. Ducked into the Bodleian Library shop, bought an umbrella, and stepped out into streaming sunshine. Oxford’s gift shop industry even has the weather working for it.

A CFP that will be of special interest to #AnneLister scholars: travel writing, poetry, natural philosophy, animal studies... is there any box that Lister doesn’t tick?

Today’s word is MENOLOGION, ‘An Account of the Course of the Moon, an Almanack.’ (Nathan Bailey, Dictionarium Britannicum, 1730)