Joseph Bosworth & Old English Studies: Then, Now and the Future (21 May 2026, 16:00-19:00 CEST / 10:00-13:00 EDT) An online academic memorial event reflecting on the continuing impact of Joseph Bosworth († 27 May 1876) and his Old English dictionary on the field of Old English Studies. The programme will consist of a series of 20-minute papers and a roundtable. Confirmed speakers include: • Dabney Bankert (James Madison University) • Rachel A. Fletcher (Leiden University) • Thijs Porck (Leiden University) • Christine Rauer (University of St Andrews) • Ondřej Tichý (Charles University, Prague) • Madeleine Thompson (Anthropic, author of the Bosworth-Toller smartphone app) For more information (or joining the roundtable) you can contact the organisers by sending an e-mail to Rachel A. Fletcher (r.a.fletcher@hum.leidenuniv.nl ). Attendance is free, but please let us know you are coming by filling out this registration form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScj3hMvrYe6vVzQlTWsFyNmgQ44jWkTUyL8ZDlxnF6E6btZJg/viewform Organisers: Rachel A. Fletcher, Thijs Porck, Christine Rauer and Ondřej Tichý This event is is part of a project that has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation program (EMERGENCE, Grant agreement No.101115867, https://doi.org/10.3030/101115867 ). Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Research Council Executive Agency. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.

Like Old English, dictionaries, and/or nineteenth century scholarship? Save the date for an online event celebrating Joseph Bosworth and his Old English dictionary.
Register (free!) here: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

The definition of "coral," sense 3c, from Webster's Third New International Dictionary: "of textiles : a strong pink that is yellower and stronger than carnation rose, bluer, stronger, and slightly lighter than rose d'Althaea, and lighter, stronger, and slightly yellower than sea pink."

The cover of My Second Dumb Book! "True Color: The Strange and Spectacular Quest to Define Color—from Azure to Zinc Pink" in black text on a beige ground, surrounded by multicolored...cards? books? it's not clear and I love that.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, TRUE COLOR! 🌟 My second dumb book is out in the wider world today! www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/555914...

I hope everyone enjoys this winding tale of how this bananas color definition (and it's ~3,000 sibling definitions) came to be:

The Dispersal of the Cotton Collection at University of Birmingham on FindAPhD.com PhD Project - The Dispersal of the Cotton Collection at University of Birmingham, listed on FindAPhD.com

Fully-funded AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Partnership project:

'The Dispersal of the Cotton Collection' - British Library & University of Birmingham

www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

Deadline for student applications: 10 May

I wrote this article about the Oxford English Dictionary using The Other Place as a source of language evidence -- the most cited single source (if that's what it is) in updates since 2018. thelifeofwords.uwaterloo.ca/published-tw...

PhD position on medieval representations of disability within the project DISMANTLE Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society (LUCAS) invites applications for a PhD position on medieval representations of disability within the project DISMANTLE (1.0 fte, 4 years / 0.8 fte, 5 y...

Please help spread the word #medievalsky!

Funded PhD position on medieval literary and artistic representations of disability as part of a Vidi project I will be leading that is funded by the Dutch Research Council:

www.academictransfer.com/nl/jobs/3592...

Charles Bridges Mount (1827–1916) is my latest #OEDMaker, and here’s a piece about him. Also available on Facebook to @DictionarySocNA members and at themakersoftheoed.wordpress.com/the-editors-...

The title page of William Lambarde's Archaionomia from 1569

The title page of Abraham Whelock'ss Archaionomia from 1644

The title page of David Wilkins's Leges Anglo-Saxonicæ ecclesiasticæ & civiles from 1721

Felix Liebermann owned quite a lot of very old books, including first editions of all previous editions of the early English laws. Lucky him! Here are his copies of Lambarde (1568), Whelock (1644) and Wilkins (1721)! 1/3

Fascinating language fact #8: in Mparntwe Arrernte (spoken in Australia), you can indicate complaint or compassion with the same particle, according to Wilkins (1986). You simply add a suffix -iknge, meaning ‘something keeps happening and I feel it shouldn’t’:

Good news that the digitised Beowulf manuscript has survived the digital equivalent of the Cottonian Library fire, the British Library cyberattack of 2023

I'm currently in the strange situation of living in Tokyo as a JSPS fellow to do my research on Anglo-Saxon law. Why? Well, just look here! ingridfiv.github.io/ingridsblog/...

Congratulations, @emgallimore.bsky.social !

Daniel Silvan Evans (1818–1903) is my latest #OEDMaker, and here’s a piece about him. Also available on Facebook to @DictionarySocNA members and at themakersoftheoed.wordpress.com/miscellaneou...

I think we've all been there!

Online only, so you can join from wherever you are!

Joseph Bosworth & Old English Studies: Then, Now and the Future (21 May 2026, 16:00-19:00 CEST / 10:00-13:00 EDT) An online academic memorial event reflecting on the continuing impact of Joseph Bosworth († 27 May 1876) and his Old English dictionary on the field of Old English Studies. The programme will consist of a series of 20-minute papers and a roundtable. Confirmed speakers include: • Dabney Bankert (James Madison University) • Rachel A. Fletcher (Leiden University) • Thijs Porck (Leiden University) • Christine Rauer (University of St Andrews) • Ondřej Tichý (Charles University, Prague) • Madeleine Thompson (Anthropic, author of the Bosworth-Toller smartphone app) For more information (or joining the roundtable) you can contact the organisers by sending an e-mail to Rachel A. Fletcher (r.a.fletcher@hum.leidenuniv.nl ). Attendance is free, but please let us know you are coming by filling out this registration form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScj3hMvrYe6vVzQlTWsFyNmgQ44jWkTUyL8ZDlxnF6E6btZJg/viewform Organisers: Rachel A. Fletcher, Thijs Porck, Christine Rauer and Ondřej Tichý This event is is part of a project that has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation program (EMERGENCE, Grant agreement No.101115867, https://doi.org/10.3030/101115867 ). Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Research Council Executive Agency. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.

Like Old English, dictionaries, and/or nineteenth century scholarship? Save the date for an online event celebrating Joseph Bosworth and his Old English dictionary.
Register (free!) here: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

William Lambarde: Exploring His Historical Impact - London Guided Walks London History Blog - Find out more about London's eclectic history. Read now >>

Hey, looks like my boy William Lambarde has his own Guided Walk now! Wish this had been up last summer: londonguidedwalks.co.uk/william-lamb...

Ernest Weekley (1865–1954) is my latest #OEDMaker, and here’s a piece about him. Also available on Facebook to @DictionarySocNA members and at themakersoftheoed.wordpress.com/miscellaneou...

A copy of The Translations of Seamus Heaney on a wooden surface.

New post!

I take an in-depth look at Seamus Heaney's Beowulf, alongside forays into Victorian translations by William Morris and the brilliantly named Athanasius Diedrich Wackerbarth.

This is based on an undergraduate lecture I gave at Oxford in 2020.

nikolasgunn.co.uk/2026/02/09/o...

Edwin Abbott Abbott (1838–1926) is my latest #OEDMaker, and here’s a piece about him. Also available on Facebook to @DictionarySocNA members and at themakersoftheoed.wordpress.com/miscellaneou...

Turns out there's more to Felix Liebermann than just obsessiveness about manuscripts and a fondness for difficult German. ingridfiv.github.io/ingridsblog/...

Vacancies

Merton College, Oxford are advertising a career development fellowship in medieval English—a four-year teaching-and-research post: www.merton.ox.ac.uk/vacancies.

D/l 9 AM, 24 February (think of it as 23 February!).

Early Modernists: I've encountered a symbol in a page signature and don't know how to represent it in a citation. The closest I can find in MS Word is unicode 0260, "Latin small letter g with hook." How would you represent this? Does it have a name?

If you feel you don't know enought about Richard Cleasby who was the guiding spirit behind the first Old Norse-English dictionary, my new biographical article has just been published in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography -- along with other lexicographers
@oxfordacademic.bsky.social

This is a stunning resource, beautifully presented - congratulations to Ros Smith Kathy Acheson and their team emwmlibrary.com

I remember in the '90s Carl Berkhout used to give a paper at Kalamazoo every year in which he read in a deadpan voice from newly-edited bits of Laurence Nowell's diaries. Most memorable: a trip that was not going well. "Heu, cecidi in lacum."

Our friends at the Early English Text Society are holding a workshop on editing texts from medieval Britain for graduate students and early career scholars.

📖Texts in Transition
📍St Hilda's College, Oxford
📆18/04/2026
🕐11am-5pm

For registration email eets[at]ell.ox.ac.uk

Love on the Victorian Telegraph Wire

Samuel Morse and Alfred Vail demonstrated their #telegraph #OnThisDay in 1838.

The advent of telecommunications gave rise to a new literary genre through which female telegraphers found social freedoms.

🔓 This archive article is free for 7 days

www.historytoday.com/archive/feat...

Madden1826 Frederic Madden's Journal, 1826

The life of Frederic Madden, in his words, 200 years after the events described. Transcribed from his journal by students @ies-sas.bsky.social. Released daily in 2026.👇
madden1826.com

I should have guessed you would! But yes, from a quick skim of it, mote is recorded in ME as a past participle but not (at least in OED or MED) as simple past.