Home › Taxonomy term

English language

The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary

in

By Simon Winchester

Go to catalog

There are two tales in this page-turner. One is how the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) was compiled, which is fascinating in itself; and the other is a gripping story of a convicted murderer who spends his life sentence as a major contributor to the OED. This one stays in your mind for a long, long time.

Reserve this title

R.I.P. William Safire: Lord of the Language Arts, 1929-2009

Mon, 09/28/2009 - 12:42 | Virginia Johnson
in

Mr. Safire had no college degree, yet he went on to win the Pulitzer Prize in 1978 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2006. Already in his forties when he joined the NYT staff, Safire had previously worked as a U.S. Army correspondant, as a publicist, and as a radio & television producer. He also wrote speeches for Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew and was outraged to discover that Nixon's administration had been secretly taping his phone conversations.

E.S.O.L.: English for Speakers of Other Languages

Tue, 04/07/2009 - 13:29 | Virginia Johnson
in

Immigrants to America come here with hopes and dreams for their futures. They are willing to work hard, but to succeed they need to become proficient in the language of their new country. For over a hundred years, libraries, churches, and other social institutions have been places where newly arrived immigrants could go to learn English. The tradition continues today with the help of adult education programs across the United States, some of which receive federal funding.