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Industrial Design A-Z

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influential 20C designers, companies, and products

These Taschen pocketbooks are very well produced, with high quality print, full colour illustrations, and amazingly cheap. I’ve bought several of them, both in the UK and abroad, and somehow always been surprised at the integrity of the writing and the scholarship. But I have not been surprised at the quality of the illustration and the graphic design. It’s always been first rate.

Industrial Design A-Z This particular volume concentrates on industrial design – which authors Charlotte and Peter Fiell suggest is a twentieth century concept which essentially adds aesthetics to functionality and mass production. It’s an A to Z listing of designers and companies, running from AEG, via Herman Miller, to Xerox and the stylish but ill-fated product of Ferdinand Graff von Zeppelin.

Each entry consists of a biographical sketch or a historical account of a design company. The range of products represented is truly amazing – everything from the ball-point pen to aeroplanes designed by Boeing and McDonnell Douglas. There are cars, cameras, telephones, vacuum cleaners, computers, typewriters, radios, and kettles, electric shavers, and office furniture. All of these design classics are illustrated by well-chosen full colour photographs.

Standout individuals include the multi-talented and hugely influential Peter Behrens, Henry Dreyfuss, and Raymond Loewy. It’s interesting to note how many of the most influential were trans-nationals and how many German – either by birth, education, or influence.

The authors are both experts in industrial design, both ex-Sotheby’s, and now running their own design consultancy in London, specialising in industrial design. They offer some fascinating information which reveals the breadth of their knowledge. Did you know that over 15 million BIC pens are sold every day, and that the best-selling iMac was created by the English designer Jonathan Ive?

If you are the slightest interested in design, it’s really impossible to go wrong with this book – which is itself well designed, stylishly illustrated, and amazingly cheap.

© Roy Johnson 2004

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Charlotte and Peter Fiell, Industrial Design A—Z, Taschen, 2003, pp.190, ISBN: 3822824267

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MHRA Style Guide

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pocket academic writing style guide for humanities

The key to this style guide is in its subtitle: ‘Notes for Authors, Editors, and Writers of Theses’. It has been produced by the Modern Humanities Research Association as a manual of advice and procedures for people preparing texts for publication. The MHRA Style Guide assembles a set of conventions to help users through the minutiae of the scholarly editing and presentation of texts.

MHRA Style Guide If you are a student, a researcher, or a writer, the net result is a brief and very usable guide. One of its principal advantages over other guides is its brevity: it only includes the essentials, and everything is easy to find. And yet it covers everything you would normally require for academic writing or formal publication – from spelling, abbreviations, and punctuation through to the thorny issue of bibliographic referencing, which is what often drives students into fits of nail-biting frenzy.

It’s all very succinct, and yet manages to pack in the presentation of foreign languages, citations from articles, journals, and newspapers, and even a nod towards the Author-Date (or Harvard) system of referencing.

The latest edition has been expanded to cover preparing texts for electronic publication and there are sections on indexing and writing a thesis or a dissertation. There’s a glossary, sections on book reviews and correcting proofs, and a good index.

I first came across this book when it was chosen by the Open University as a set text for some of its postgraduate courses. Getting students to follow the conventions is still hard work, but it’s a lot easier than it used to be.

What I like most about the book is that it gives you the impression that you’re just about to publish an important piece of work. Since it’s also amazingly cheap, it’s worth buying as a confidence-booster alone.

© Roy Johnson 2008

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MHRA Style Guide: Notes for Authors, Editors, and Writers of Theses, London: Modern Humanities Research Association, new second edition 2008, pp.95, ISBN: 0947623620

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MLA Style Guide

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What is the MLA Style Guide?

MLA Style GuideMLA stands for the Modern Language Association (of America). Its style manual has the full title MLA Style Manual and Guide to Scholarly Publishing. This presents a full set of protocols for the writing and presentation of documents and research in the humanities (literature, languages, media studies, and cultural studies). The guide and its standards are in general use throughout north America and Europe.

The guide does not cover the protocols used in disciplines such as history, sociology, philosophy, or sciences. These use either the Chicago Manual of Style or the Harvard System of referencing.

In the notes which follow, the terms citation (US usage) and referencing (UK usage) are used interchangeably.

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What does the MLA Style Guide do?

The MLA Style Guide offers a complete set of standards showing you how to present academic writing and research. These standards are not questions of correct or incorrect writing: they are merely a coherent system which ensure consistency and rigour in the presentation of academic writing. The standards show you how to –

  • embed quotations
  • cite secondary sources
  • give bibliographic references
  • present names and titles
  • avoid plagiarism
  • cite electronic sources
How does the MLA Style Guide work?

The MLA citation style uses a simple two-part system for citing sources. When you refer to or quote from a secondary source within your work, you provide a citation which points to an alphabetical list of Works Cited that appears at the end of the essay or term paper. The citation is an abbreviation given in brackets (Smith 128) and the full details of this source are listed at the end of your work. This example refers to page 128 in work written by someone called Smith.

This system of referencing identifies and credits the sources you have used in the essay. It allows someone reading the essay to identify and if necessary consult these secondary sources.

References within your text

In MLA style, you place references to secondary sources in the essay to briefly identify them and enable readers to find them in the list of Works Cited. These references should be kept as brief and as clear as possible.

Give only the minimum information needed to identify a source. The author’s last name and a page reference are usually sufficient. Example – (Barber 45).

Place the reference as close as possible to its source, preferably where a pause would naturally occur, which is often at the end of a sentence.

Information in the brackets should not repeat information given in the text. If you include an author’s name in a sentence, you don’t need to repeat it in your reference.

The reference should precede the punctuation mark that concludes the sentence, clause, or phrase that contains the cited material.

Electronic and online sources are cited just like print resources in references. If an online source lacks page numbers, omit numbers from the bracketed references.

Examples

Author’s name in text Browning has expressed this concern (122-25).
Author’s name in reference This concern has been expressed (Browning 122-25).
Multiple authors This hypothesis has proved very persuasive (Bradley, Morgan, and Smith 46).
Two works cited (Beetham 68; Covington 34)
Volumes and pages Robinson 3: 14-19
Corporate authors (United Nations, Economic Report 51-56)
Online sources Fetting, pars. 5-8)
List of Works Cited

References cited in the text of an essay or a research paper must appear at the end of your work in a list of Works Cited. This is also known as a bibliography. This list provides the information necessary to identify and retrieve each source that has been used in your work.

Arrange the entries in alphabetical order of the authors’ last names (surnames), or by the title for any sources without authors.

Capitalize the first word and all other principal words of the titles and subtitles of cited works listed. Do not capitalize articles, prepositions, coordinating conjunctions, or the “to” in infinitives. (The Angel at the Grave)

The titles of books and journals should be shown in italics. Choose a font in which the italic style contrasts clearly with the regular style.

Shorten the publisher’s name. For example, omit articles, business abbreviations (Co., Inc.), and descriptive words (Press, Publisher).

When multiple publishers are listed, include all of them, placing a semicolon between each.

When more than one city is listed for the same publisher, use only the first city.

Use the conjunction ‘and’, not an ampersand [&], when listing multiple authors of a single work.

Do not use the abbreviations p. or pp. to designate page numbers.

Indentation: Align the first line of the entry flush with the left margin, and indent all subsequent lines (5 to 7 spaces) to form a ‘hanging indent’.

Bibliographic description

References to an entire book should include the following elements:

  • author(s) or editor(s)
  • complete title
  • edition, if indicated
  • place of publication
  • shortened name of publisher
  • date of publication
  • medium of publication

The basic format

Lastname, Firstname. Title of Book. Place of Publication: Publisher, Year of Publication. Medium of Publication.

One author

Nabokov, Vladimir. Strong Opinions. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1973. Print.

Another work, same author

—. Speak, Memory: An Autobiography Revisited. New York: Knopf, 1999. Print.

Two authors

Cresswell, Susan, and Charles Hoffman. Theaters of Experiment. London: Thames and Hudson, 2004. Print.

Three authors

Loewen, Thomas, Bentham Ginsberg, and Stuart Jacks. Analyzing Democratic Government. 3rd ed. New York: Norton, 1994. Print.

More than three authors

Sander, Jefferton et al. Beyond the Utility Principle. London: Heinemann, 1993. Print.

Editor (anthology or collection of essays)

Hillman, Charles, and Margery Hamilton, eds. Defining Milton’s Poetics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Print.

No author or editor

The Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook. 2014 ed. London: A and C Black. 2014. Print

Articles in books

Jones, Josephine Teresa. “Within These Walls.” Feminism and its Relation to Architecture. Ed. Maureen Harrington. New York: Lexington Books, 2010. 109-24. Print.

Reprinted article

Huntford, Thomas. “The Misreading of Ken Kesey.” Review of Contemporary Fiction 4.3 (1985): 30-43. Rpt. in Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed. Carleen Rilmont. Vol. 61. Detroit: Gale, 1990. 308-10. Print.

Articles or entries from reference books

If the article or entry is signed, put the author’s name first; if it is unsigned, give the title first. For well-known reference works, it is not necessary to include full publication information. Include only the title of the reference source, edition, and date of publication.

Dictionary entry

“Hostages.” Def. 1a. Shorter Oxford Dictionary. 1993. Print.

Encyclopedia entry

Merrington, Barbara. “Cooking with Gas.” The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America. Ed. Andrew F. Smith. Vol. 2. 2004. Print.

Articles in journals, magazines, and newspapers

References to periodical articles must include the following elements:

  • author(s)
  • article title
  • publication title
  • volume number
  • publication date
  • inclusive page numbers
  • medium of publication

Issue numbers should be stated as decimals to a given volume number. For instance, the number 25.4 refers to Volume 25, issue 4. When citing newspapers, it is important to specify the edition used (early ed. or late ed.) because different editions of a newspaper might contain different material.

Journal article, one author

Mentone-Cassidy, David. “Beyond Boundaries: Reaching Multi-Cultural Development.” Journal of Tourism Research 37.4 (2010): 141-63. Print.

Journal article, two authors

Langton, Jennifer, and Warren Furst. “Exploring Challenges and Opportunities Associated with Sharing Medical Resources.” International Journal of Hospital Management 29.2 (2010): 261-7. Print.

Magazine article

Keinster, Donald A. “Corporate Greed: The New Economics.” Vanity Fair 23 Nov. 2012: 84-91. Print.

Newspaper article, no author

“American Independence Day: The View from England.” The Guardian 31 May 2012, 16. Print.

Film, video, or audio recordings

Film

Manhattan. Dir. Woody Allen. 1979. Videocassette. MGM/UA Home Video, 1991.

Sound recording

Bob Dylan. Highway 61 Revisited. Columbia / Sony, 2004. CD.

Specific song

Bob Dylan. “Desolation Row.” Highway 61 Revisited. Columbia / Sony, 2004. CD.

CD-ROM

Citations should include the medium of the electronic publication (CD-ROM), the name of the vendor that made the material available on CD-ROM, and publications dates for the version used, if relevant.

“Matrimony.” Encyclopaedia Britannica. CD-ROM. London: Encyclopaedia Britannica Inc. Multimedia, 2014.

Citing online sources

References to online sources, like those for printed sources, should provide the information that both identifies a source and allows it to be located and retrieved again.

All references should include the medium of publication (Web) and the date the content was viewed.

If the source is difficult to locate, you should list the complete Web address (URL) within angle brackets after the date. In many cases, it is also necessary to identify the Web site or the database that has made the material available on line.

There are currently no fixed standards governing the organization and presentation of online publications. Consequently, the information that is available can vary widely from one resource to another. In general, references to online works require more information than references to print sources.

For instance, the online encyclopaedia Wikipedia is being edited and updated all the time – so in some instances it might be necessary to record not only the date of an entry being visited, but even the time of day.

See sections 5.6.1-4 in the MLA Handbook for more complete information on creating references to online sources.

Web page

This example includes the optional URL. All other examples below use the shorter citation format.

Cornell University Library. ‘Introduction to Research’. Cornell University Library. Cornell University, 2009. Web. 19 June 2009 <http://www.library.cornell.edu/resrch/intro>.

Personal web site

If a work is untitled, you may use a genre label such as Home page, Introduction, etc.

Remington, Gregory. Home page. Web. 16 Nov. 2008.

Entry in an online encyclopedia

‘Epstein, Jacob’. Encyclopaedia Britannica Online. Encyclopedia Britannica, 1999. Web. 27 Apr. 2009.

Article from a less familiar online reference book

Norton, John S. ‘European History and Islam’. Encyclopedia the Muslim World. Ed. Richard C. Martin. New York: Macmillan Reference-Thomson/Gale, 2004. Web. 4 July 2009.

Article in an online periodical

If pagination is unavailable or is not continuous, use n. pag. in place of the page numbers.

Chatterton, Heather. ‘The Epidemic in Saratoga’. Salon 19 Feb. 1999: n. pag. Web. 12 July 1999.

Article in a full-text journal accessed from a database

Valentino, Jose Antonio. ‘The Other Side of Facebook’. New Yorker 86.28 (2010): 54-63. Academic Search Premier. Web. 25 Jan. 2011.

Online book with print information

Henderson, Robert. South of Boston. 2nd ed. New York: Henry Holt, 1915. Google Books. Web. 30 June 2009.

The examples of MLA style and format listed on this page include many of the most common types of sources used in academic research. For additional examples and more detailed information about MLA citation style, refer to the following resources:

MLA Style Manual and Guide to Scholarly Publishing. 3rd ed. New York: Modern Language Association of America, 2008. Print. [Amazon US]

MLA Style Manual and Guide to Scholarly Publishing. 3rd ed. New York: Modern Language Association of America, 2008. Print. [Amazon UK]

MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers. 7th ed. New York: Modern Language Association of America, 2009. Print. [Amazon US]

MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers. 7th ed. New York: Modern Language Association of America, 2009. Print. [Amazon UK]

The Chicago Manual of Style: The Essential Guide for Writers, Editors and Publishers. 16th ed. Chicago: University of Chicago, 2010. Print. [Amazon US]

The Chicago Manual of Style: The Essential Guide for Writers, Editors and Publishers. 16th ed. Chicago: University of Chicago, 2010. Print. [Amazon UK]

© Roy Johnson 2014

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Mother Tongue

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English language – its history and peculiarities

If you are interested in language, this is the sort of book which will both entertain you and stimulate you to learn more. Bill Bryson re-tells the history of the English language in a way which is both amusing and well-informed. His account is shot through with a gift for bringing statistics alive and illustrating complex issues with striking anecdotes. He covers the history of the language, its odd spelling system, and its even stranger pronunciation; varieties of English from around the world; American English; swearing; where words and names come from, and how English is likely to develop in future.

English LanguageHe has an excellent chapter on the irregularities of English spelling. This explains why problems occur, he outlines the various doomed schemes for spelling reform, and he even mounts a persuasive defence of retaining all the irregularities.

Imposing Latin rules on English structure is a little like trying to play baseball in ice skates

He is astonishingly well informed. Although his principal focus is English, you will come away with a lot of information on many other languages. Basque for instance is not related to any other language in the world. [Not many people know that.]

His general approach is refreshingly democratic and anti-stuffy. Most of the people who have tried to regulate language have failed, and he is happy to explain where they have gone wrong.

He pays homage to the great dictionary compilers – Samuel Johnson, Noah Webster, and John Murray – all of them amateurs with no professional training – and he is quite obviously intimately acquainted with their works.

There’s a very amusing chapter on swearing in which he tackles the hard Anglo-Saxon words head on – without any sense of coyness.

Bill Bryson has recently become a best-selling travel writer This book demonstrates the solid foundations of scholarly linguistic knowledge on which that reputation has been built.

It’s packed with interesting nuggets of information about English in particular and language in general. Readable; entertaining; highly recommended.

© Roy Johnson 2009

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Bill Bryson, Mother Tongue, London: Penguin Books, 2nd edn, 2009, pp.288, ISBN: 0141040084

New Hart’s Rules

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style and text-presentation rules for writers and editors

New Hart’s Rules started its life as the house style rule book for editorial principles at Oxford University Press. It was written by Horace Henry Hart who was Printer to the Press, and first published in 1893 as quite a slim volume. But it has become so popular ever since that it grew in size and eventually reached a thirty-ninth edition. Now it has been enlarged even further and completely re-cast in a new format, adapted from The Oxford Guide to Style, but retaining much of the content and the spirit of the old Hart’s Rules.

New Hart's Rules The guide deals with the typographic details of assembling writing ready for its appearance in printed form. This includes punctuation, capitalization, italicization, abbreviations, and the presentation of numbers. The latest edition also has completely new chapters covering law and legal references, tables, illustrations, indexing, plus copyright and other publishing responsibilities. Each chapter has been given far more illustrative examples.

For instance, my edition of the old 39th edition has less than 200 pages: this new version has more than 400. The beauty of this book – in common with other style guides which have become classics – is that it quickly establishes the general rule, then all further examples are the difficult, awkward, and obscure cases. For those people endlessly puzzled by spelling-checkers, there is an explanation of the rules governing -ise and -ize. OUP have always favoured -ize, so surprisingly it’s criticize yet compromise, and agonize yet televise.

The principles underlying the need for consistent conventions remain as important as ever. The presentation of money, time, dates, and even the points of the compass are included, as well as temperature, Latin plant and animal names, capitalization of titles, word breaks (hyphenation) and such wonderfully arcane details as the need for a possessive ‘s’ in Roman following an italicized title – as in the Dreadnought‘s crew.

There’s an explanation of proof correction (with examples) and a guide to punctuation, symbols, and the presentation of scientific equations and formulae. Then in the centre of the book there is a section dealing with the alternate spellings of ‘difficult’ words (colander, haemorrhoids, skiing) then a very useful explanation of the rules on the tricky issue of doubling consonants at word endings (billeted, compelled, travelling) and plurals formed in non-English words (bacilli, errata, matrices).

Hart then takes on the topic of language change in listing those words which have progressed from compounds to single words (a process which is usually faster in the US than the UK) – antifreeze, lifetime, tonight – though it is hard for a book of this type to keep up with contemporary developments in this respect. Do we write word processor, word-processor, or wordprocessor, for instance? However, Hart has no hesitation in recommending birth-rate, copy-book, and test-tube.

Guidance on how to deal with foreign languages include sections on French, German, Italian, and Russian – plus Welsh, Dutch and Afrikaans which have been added in the latest edition.

The latter part of the book includes a complete checklist of topics to be covered in preparing a book for publication: text, footnotes, illustrations, bibliographies, tables, and even how to deal with plays and poetry. And finally, since it’s quite hard to locate items in such a tightly-compacted work of reference, there’s an excellent index.

This is a source for anyone interested in the preparation of text for print. If you have a research paper, an article, or a book which you hope will see light of day as a publication, then do yourself a favour and buy this marvelous guide to the small details which make all the difference between an amateurish and a properly edited piece of writing.

© Roy Johnson 2005

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New Hart’s Rules, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005, pp.417, ISBN: 0198610416

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New Oxford Dictionary of English

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new single-volume compilation based on modern usage

The New Oxford Dictionary of English is a one-volume giant from Oxford University Press and a departure from their normal practice. Instead of being based on other dictionaries, it’s a completely new selection of words, compiled after in-depth analysis of computerized databases of contemporary English. The emphasis is very much on current relevance. Each word is defined first by its modern meaning, as used by the majority of people. Rulings are given on tricky questions of usage – [due to is not the same as because of, for instance]. These provide advice on old and new problems.

New Oxford Dictionary of English This populist approach may not please traditionalists, but the dictionary is certainly very user-friendly – and that’s in there too. The other principal novelty is the inclusion of encyclopedia-type entries. So, for instance, opening randomly at the letter ‘P’ – you are offered ‘perquisite’, followed by potted biographies of Charles Perrault, Fred Perry, and Persephone; then a micro-history of Persia, and an explanation of correct usage for the ‘personal pronoun’. I suspect these will make this a popular choice for those people who want a serious dictionary and a useful general reference book all in one.

Brief notes on word history explain the linguistic roots of words and tell the story of how a word’s meaning and form have changed over time. Modern pronunciations are also given, using the internationally recognized pronunciation system. A rapid-reference page design separates out parts of speech, word histories, and phrases.

This new revised edition embraces the OUP’s latest style of having the headword printed in a bold san-serif font, with the explanation which follows in Times Roman (serif). Extra notes then revert to san-serif in a grey box. All this variety makes it something of a typographic jumble – but it is easy to use. Here’s what a typical entry looks like:

ear 1 > noun the organ of hearing and balance in humans and other vertebrates, especially the external part of this

• an organ sensitive to sound in other animals. •
[in sing.] an ability to recognise, appreciate, and reproduce sounds, especially music or language: an ear for rhythm and melody. • used to refer to a person’s willingness to listen and pay attention to something: she offers a sympathetic ear to worried pet owners.

The ear of a mammal is composed of three parts. The outer or external ear consists of a fleshy external flap and a tube leading to the eardrum or tympanum. The middle ear is an air-filled cavity connected to the throat, containing three small linked bones that transmit vibrations from the eardrum to the inner ear. The inner ear is a complex fluid-filled labyrinth including the spiral cochlea (where vibrations are converted to nerve impulses) and the three semi-circular canals (forming the organ of balance). The ears of other vertebrates are broadly similar.

– PHRASES be all ears informal
be listening eagerly and attentively. bring something (down) about one’s ears – bring something, especially misfortune, on oneself; she brought her world crashing about her ears. one’s ears are burning – one is subconsciously aware of being talked about or criticized. grin (or smile) from ear to ear: smile broadly. have something coming out of one’s ears: have a substantial or excessive amount of something: that man’s got money coming out of his ears. have someone’s ear have access to and influence with someone: he claimed to have the prime minister’s ear. have (or keep) an ear to the ground – be well informed about events and trends. in (at) one ear and out (at) the other – heard but disregarded or quickly forgotten: whatever you tell him seems to go in one ear and out the other. listen with half an ear not give one’s full attention. be out on one’s ear informal be dismissed or ejected ignominiously. up to one’s ears in informal very busy or deeply involved in: I’m up to my ears in work here.
— DERIVATIVES eared adjective [in combination] long-eared, earless adjective.
— ORIGIN Old English ëare, of Germanic origin; related to Dutch oor and German Ohr, from an Indo-European root shared by Latin auris and Greek ous.
ear 2> noun the seed-bearing head or spike of a cereal plant.
• N. Amer. a head of maize.
— ORIGIN Old English ëar, of Germanic origin; related to Dutch aar and German Ähre

© Roy Johnson 2005

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The New Oxford Dictionary of English, 2nd revised edn, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005, pp.2010, ISBN: 0198610572

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New Oxford Rhyming Dictionary

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grouped lists of rhyming words – plus cross references

As John Lennard says in his introduction to this godsend compendium for rhymers and poets: “Rhyme is everywhere – because it works. In advertising jingles, football chants, birthday card greetings, tabloid headlines, political slogans, and catchphrases, rhyme makes the sentiments more powerful and more memorable”. You can use the New Oxford Rhyming Dictionary to look up rhymes for specific words; browse sets of words for inspiration; use the tips in marginal notes to create extra sets of rhymes; or learn from examples given throughout the book how other writers past and present have used rhyme. The book is structured in quite an interesting way. First Lennard’s introduction explains the nature of rhyme and its prevalence in poetry and everyday life. He gives a very wide-ranging account of how poets have worked – from the early Renaissance to the present day.

New Oxford Rhyming DictionaryThe second part of the book is the heart of the matter – words grouped into sets according to their vowel sound. These are actually listed in the order of word endings – as in -ar, -ee, and -ng. So the listings for -ar run aargh, Accra, afar, aide mémoire and so on. This might sound complicated, but becomes clearer with use, as in the example which follows here.

The third part is an index which runs from Aachen (rhyme words darken and Petrachan) to zymurgy. Can you imagine trying to find a word that would rhyme with zymurgy? I realise you’ve probably never heard of the word – and neither had I. (It means ‘The branch of chemistry that deals with fermentation processes, as in brewing….’) But that’s how thorough the listings are.

What you are likely to do is look up a term in the 4500 word index. There you will be directed to the rhyming terms listed in part two. These are arranged in order of correspondence, where the first word is a perfect rhyme, and subsequent entries less so. For instance if you look up the word lover in the index you are referred to section 12,87 where you find the following options:

  • disapprover, hoover, improver, louvre (US louver), manoeuvre (US maneuver), mover, outmanoeuvre (US outmaneuver), reprover, Suva, Tuva, Vancouver
  • cover, Glover, hardcover, lover, plover, undercover
  • vulva, triumvir, slipcover, Cordova, baklava, helluva, Ulanova, Genova, Vaishnava, Ostrava, Vltava
  • fervour (US fervor), Minerva, Nerva, observer, server, swerver
  • time-server

The choice amongst these terms leads to interesting issues of pronunciation and the politics of accent and language use – which Lennard touches on in his introduction. The examples of good rhyme he gives throughout the book are an interesting and very unstuffy selection which includes classics, modern poetry, and even song lyrics.

The new second edition of this work has added fifty extra pages of recently coined words – such as Americano, iPod, sub-prime,, and vuvuzela. These are drawn from the huge databases held by Oxford Dictionaries as part of the corpus on which their linguistic research is based.

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© Roy Johnson 2010

John Lennard (ed), New Oxford Rhyming Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press, second edition, 2012, pp.448, ISBN: 0199652465

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New Oxford Spelling Dictionary

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spellings, hyphens, capitals, and presentation of terms

Unlike a conventional dictionary, the New Oxford Spelling Dictionary lists words without giving their definitions. So – you might well ask – if there are no explanations of meanings, what information does such a book contain? Quite a lot, as it turns out. For instance, it shows distinctions between words which might easily be confused – as in hare/hair – and it also indicates grammatical parts of speech – as in double fault used as a noun and double-fault used as a verb.

New Oxford Spelling Dictionary It also makes firm recommendations where there are variants in possible spellings (use judgement), shows where capitals are required in names, gives American spellings, and shows where logical word breaks occur for hyphenation and compounds. Entries run from aa (lava) and Aachen (which used to be Aix-la-Chapelle) to zymotic and zymurgy. This particular guidance makes it an ideal reference tool for those working with printed or word-processed text.

The reference data is based on the reputable scholarship of the Oxford Dictionary of English. It contains over 110,000 words and names, and in the latest edition includes a large number of compound words as well as very basic information about people and places. So, for instance, Enver Hoxha is the Albanian prime minister, and Santa Catarina is a Brazilian state.

A typical entry on proper nouns shows the variants on a personal name, with the pipe (these things – || -) showing the word breaks.

Kath|er|ine also
Cath|ar|ine,
Cath|er|ine,
Cath|ryn,
Kath|ar|ine,
Kath|ryn

And the same presentation of typical word is rendered thus:

tar|tar + s
(deposit on teeth etc.;
violent-tempered person;
in ‘cream of tartar’.
‡ tartare, ta-ta)

This last detail is an injunction that the term should not be confused with tartare or goodbye.

Of course you still need some idea of how a word is spelled (or spelt) in order to look it up. But this dictionary makes the job less distracting than using a normal dictionary, because it eliminates all that interesting stuff. Less may not be more, but it’s certainly faster.

This will be of most interest to authors, editors, proofreaders or typesetters, for whom it provides an ideal way to ensure the best spelling practice working on any sort of text – newspapers, magazines, reports, theses, or even websites. It has also been produced to team up neatly with the New Oxford Dictionary for Writers and Editors and New Hart’s Rules to form an ideal reference set.

© Roy Johnson 2005

New Oxford Spelling Dictionary   Buy the book at Amazon UK

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New Oxford Spelling Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005, pp.596, ISBN: 0198608810

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New Oxford Style Manual

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compendium of writing skills PLUS  specialist dictionary

This New Oxford Style Manual is the result of putting together in one volume the Oxford Guide to Style [formerly Hart’s Rules] and the Oxford Dictionary for Writers and Editors. It starts from ‘parts of the book’ then moves on to punctuation, names, capitals, and numbers. The editor covers all other aspects of text presentation – such as how you should deal with music, mathematics, quotations, lists, tables, and even illustrations. There is even a special section on foreign languages which begins with the thorny issue of UK and American English – but it also covers Latin, European, Asiatic, Classical, and even Sanskrit.

New Oxford Style Manual Works such as this reveal the small but important conventions which academics, journalists, and professional writers need to know – but which are hard to remember. How do you punctuate a reference given in a footnote for instance? How are abbreviations shown in foreign languages? Where do spaces go when showing degrees of temperature? It deals with special subjects, plus linguistics and phonetics, translations, audio and visual broadcasts, and electronic data. In addition, it also incorporates the most recent changes in citing digital media, and details on the submission of materials for publication.

The second part of the book is a specialist dictionary for writers, journalists, and text-editors. It offers rulings on words and spellings which are commonly problematic. For instance, do we write Muslim or Moslem, customise or customize? It covers the names of well-known people and places, foreign words and commonly-used phrases such as petit-bourgeois and persona non grata.

The editor Robert Ritter also covers abbreviations, capitalization and punctuation. Only today, I’ve looked up amendment [one ‘m’] superseded [yes – it is spelt with an ‘s’] and manageable [it keeps the ‘e’]. It can also be used as a quick guide to many niceties of writing (the difference between hyphens and dashes) and as a potted encyclopedia for historical names (and their dates).

It should certainly be amongst the reference tools of anybody who takes a serious interest in writing. The single volume is even 25% cheaper than buying the two books separately. Fantastic value. Make sure you get the new revised edition which has materials gleaned from OUP’s latest researches into the Oxford English Corpus – a gigantic database containing hundreds of millions of words in current and historic use.

© Roy Johnson 2012

New Oxford Style Manual   Buy the book at Amazon UK

New Oxford Style Manual   Buy the book at Amazon US

Robert M. Ritter (ed), The Oxford Style Manual, Oxford: Oxford University Press, new second edition 2012, pp.861, ISBN: 0198605641

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New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary

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two-volume reference dictionary with etymologies

When checking a word, I usually reach first for the Concise Oxford – because it’s right in front of me on the desk. You can pick it up in one hand. If that doesn’t give the answer, I go to the New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary. This involves a trip to the bookcase, because it’s in two volumes – and they’re heavy. The term ‘Shorter’ for this publication is almost misleading, because it’s a big, serious, scholarly work of reference. It’s only shorter in being an abridged version of the monumental Oxford English Dictionary.

New Shorter Oxford Dictionary In recent editions however, the material draws on the OED’s ongoing revision, as well as its own independent research program. The entries are slightly abbreviated, but still rich in historical etymology. This is a dictionary for those concerned with lexicological scholarship – people who need to know both the origin of a term, and how it has been used in printed history since the Renaissance. The headword is recorded in all its possible forms, and the linguistic, grammatical, and bibliographical apparatus surrounding it is rendered via a code of abbreviations. A typical entry might run as follows:

Endeavour (ende’vðr) sb. ME. [app. f. next vb.] 1. The action of endeavouring; action directed to obtain an object; a strenuous attempt. †2. Philos. Used by Hobbs: =L. conatus [see quote.] -1667.
1. On this high e. The light of praise shall shine WORDSW. Phr. To do one’s endeavour(s): to do all one can; My best endeauours shall be done herein Merch. V. II.ii.182. 2. These small beginnings of Motion, within the Body of Man…are commonly called E.  HOBBES
Endeavour (ende’vðr) v. ME.[f. EN–1+DEVOIR sb. ; cf. F. se mettre en devoir de faire quelque chose to make it one’s duty to do something; hence, to endeavour.] †1. refl. To exert onself -1655; †trans. to exert (one’s power, etc.) -1642. †intr. for refl. To exert oneself; to direct one’s efforts -1624. 3. intr. To try, strive, make an effort for a specified object; to attempt strenuously.   The only mod. sense.) 1594.   4. trans. To use effort for; to attempt (now arch.) 1581; †to try to fulfil (a Law) MILT.
3. To e. to compromise matters FROUDE.   To e. at eminence JOHNSON, after more riches MILL.   4. To e. the extirpation of Popery CLARENDON.   Hence Endea’vourer one who endeavours; an aspirant; also spec., a member of the Christian Endeavour Society founded in U.S. in 1881.   †Endea’vourment, endeavour.

You can see from this that it illustrates definitions with quotations which show precisely how the meanings of words have changed over the centuries. Each entry provides a wealth of information, including history and meaning, pronunciation, etymology, definitions, variant spellings, irregular inflections, quotations, idiomatic phrases and a record of the word’s use. Some entries run to almost two columns on the page.

Thousands upon thousands of changing meanings are followed through history, illustrated by more than 83,000 quotations, from Benjamin Franklin to Lord Byron, and Jane Austen to Ricky Gervais.

The new edition has 600,000 definitions, 2,500 new words since the last edition in 2003, and 83,000 illustrative quotations. There’s a full index of the authors cited, a guide to pronunciation, and it comes in either the two-volume printed edition, or on a CD-ROM.

The obvious advantage of the CD version is that you can use the SEARCH feature – and the program also searches by anagram and by rhyme, by quotation and by etymology. Perusing the headword group is like flipping the pages of the book version. You can also copy the CD sub-directories onto your hard disk, which means you can access the material without loading the compact disk. This improves performance, and leaves your CD drive free for other tasks.

If you don’t want the complete Oxford English Dictionary this is the next best thing. It will last you a lifetime. In fact you’ll be able to pass it on to your children and grandchildren.

© Roy Johnson 2007

New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary   Buy the book at Amazon UK

New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary   Buy the book at Amazon US

The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (in 2 volumes) Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007, pp.3800, ISBN: 0199206872

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