words on a page

Posted on 17 October 2008 by snail

With the Booker freshly sorted, the long list has just been announced for the Australia-Asia Literary Award. It looks like an interesting mix of stuff. One of the nominees is Coetzee’s Diary of a Bad Year which is just out in paperback. Probably about time I got round to getting it though my “in progress” pile is becoming ever larger. Admittedly I hope to at least have Pratchett’s Nation out of the way in the next few days, perhaps followed by Carr. After that I dunno, though I need to get back to the People of the Book and Arabesques.

Also in the news is a proposal to return grammar [PDF, 162k] to the schools once more; a step I applaud. I was never taught grammar when I went through school and what grasp I have is the result of reading lots and lots of books ie being reliant on other folk getting the grammar right. I usually have a reasonable sense of whether a sentence is rightish (though I have a propensity to leave out words which does not assist with comprehension) but am often unable to say why a bit is right or wrong. There’s been many, many occasions throughout my working life when a grasp of grammar would have been invaluable.

I wish I’d learnt latin too.

sporadic

Posted on 10 October 2008 by snail

what I did on my holidays

Been back from holidays about a month now but haven’t really hit my groove. I have at least done lots of reading and am a fair way through Bob Carr’s book roundup which continues to be a pleasurable read to dip into. Amusingly I’ve been interested in reading the memoirs of Peter Costello but wasn’t keen on paying the full $55 for it. In Kmart the other day I found it discounted to $30, which means someone’s losing money on it somewhere. Suits me fine :-) Also well engrossed in the new Dessaix and have made a start on Battles’ “Library: An Unquiet History“.

Have been meaning to post a summary of what I did on my holidays, and the best way to describe it is that I visited a few countries and bought lots of books. I’ve been to the self proclaimed “World’s Biggest Bookstore” in Toronto, Canada (amongst others), not to mention completing something of a pilgrimmage by visiting Hay-on-Wye. Wasn’t there for anywhere nearly long enough but did manage to make it to several bookshops and made too many purchases…actually managed to talk myself out of some books too. With the weather against us, we hightailed it to London (flooding in Wales the day after we left) where we bought even more books. Purchases include (but not limited to):

Defining the World: The Extraordinary Story of Dr Johnson’s Dictionary by Henry Hitchings
Dry Store Room No. 1: The Secret Life of the Natural History Museum by Richard Fortey
The Voynich Manuscript by Gerry Kennedy, Rob Churchill
Tales from Outer Suburbia by Shaun Tan
The 351 Books of Irma Acuri: A Novel by David Bajo
The Mystery of Snailsbury Pond by Hugh Silvey and Wally Jex
The Snailsbury Pet Show by Hugh Silvey and Wally Jex
Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader by Anne Fadiman
Inventions of the Middle Ages by Chiara Frugoni (translated by William McCuaig) (Folio Society ed)
The English Language by Robert Burchfield (Folio Society ed)
An Introduction to Library Science by Pierce Butler (pub: 1933)

…and there’s a few other titles that I need to list as well. These include a few tracts (I s’pose you’d call them) from the Society for Pure English, a series of which some can be found online. Some of the tracts were authored by the early editors of the OED. If I get round to it, I’ll post separately on such and see if I can provide a little background. I found 4 of them (out of a total of 60 odd I believe) and at 2 quid a pop were a nice little bargain.

of words and such

Posted on 1 October 2008 by snail

I’ve noticed mentions here and there, that Oxford have made freely available, the Australian National Dictionary. As far as I can tell it’s the fulltext of the 1988 edition. I think I have a copy of the print somewhere…it’s hard to say exactly where as almost all of my books are in boxes. One day they will be free again. In the meantime, I seem to be accumulating new additions to my library at a rapid rate. Perhaps having books around me provides a certain degree of comfort; interestingly, and happily, I continue to read at a decent rate.

Albeit a quick read, I just raced through Paul Auster’s Travels in the Scriptorium, which I found a little ho hum and reminiscent of some Golden Age science fiction. Though at the same time I enjoyed his writing and would be interested in his other offerings. This particular one may have been less annoying as a short story rather than a 140 odd page novella. I had been anticipating the new Dessaix, and an interview with Dessaix on the weekend only served to increase my desire. I bought it the following day and the initial pages read well. Just wanted to polish off the Auster before I got stuck into Arabesques properly. I will eventually get round to blogging about the books I bought on my recent trip; I bought a few too many and came perilously close to my luggage limits. In other news of words, the government has been urged to assist in the preservation of indigenous languages.

cheap dictionary

Posted on 12 September 2008 by snail

Hmmm…catching up my blog reading and noticed that Abbey’s, courtesy of Oxford, is offering the full OED for AUD$1,300. That’s actually a pretty good price at the moment, as the OED via Amazon is back up to US$895. Alas I never got round to buying it when when it was around the US$660 mark, kicking myself forever more. Now the US price has gone up and the AUD is worth 80 US cents instead of 90 odd. Swings and roundabouts.

ida

Posted on 29 July 2008 by snail

Was reading the SMH on the weekend and noticed that the Biography of Ida Leeson, first female Mitchell Librarian, by Sylvia Martin, has picked up the Magarey Prize for Biography. Needless to say, despite buying it a couple of months ago, I haven’t quite got round to reading it. Regardless, this sort of recognition suggests that it was a good buy and most importantly I really should get round to reading it one of these days. Looking back at why I bought it serves as a reminder that I was going to put together a paper on some point on Library 2.0. Stalled but not forgotten; or perhaps stewing at least.

roundup

Posted on 18 July 2008 by snail

…of another sort. One of the NZ library blogs I keep an eye on, librarytechnz, occasionally publishes a roundup of interesting papers regarding librarianship. This is one of the blogs that was started up by folk at the National Library of NZ and it continues to be a good read.

another word on words

Posted on 1 June 2008 by snail

Recently I came across an article on buying dictionaries and Ruth Wajnryb has just addressed the topic in her latest column. She comments:

Ergo, you need more than one resource. Linguist David Crystal boasts that he refers to more than 100 dictionaries. That’s perhaps a touch OCD but at the other end, one is too few.

Wajnryb compared three dictionaries and found that each had a different thought to contribute in order to attain a fuller meaning. The answer to the question of how many dictionaries, seems to be more than one but less than 100, no doubt depending on context and circumstance.

…just a short moment of your time

Posted on 27 May 2008 by snail

I’ve become rather addicted to checking Amazon for price changes in various Oxford products. If you’re quick, the leather Shorter is now 70% off and is available for a mere US$105 (+pp)! I’m a bit staggered really. That’s cheaper than the non leather edition. Yeah I know, turning into a sad sack.

bundling

Posted on 23 May 2008 by snail

Just browsing a blog I haven’t checked in a while and noticed an article on how to buy a dictionary. I’m not an expert myself though I have a fondness for such. My own approach is to have the Shorter Oxford (6th ed was published around Aug/Sept 2007) as my main reference; with the Macquarie Dictionary alongside it. I’ve not owned a Shorter for very long, so much of my life has been spent relying on the Macquarie. To some extent that suggests, at least 2 dictionaries is a good thing, an OED (or Shorter OED) combined with the main dictionary of the country you inhabit. That seems to work for me at least.

Hmmm…the main site for the Macquarie Dictionary seems to be down at the moment which means I can’t explore this wordmap of Australian regionalisms I’ve just stumbled across. Will have another go later; while I’m waiting I keep an eye on updates to worldcat.