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...
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/...
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
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...
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.
Meted all the way, but if you curious you want www.oed.com/dictionary/m... (sense 5 and see also the forms tab).
Can recommend if you feel the need to listen to piano performances of some of the major variants!
A truly excellent graph! Have you seen the video by Tom Scott about this song? youtu.be/V5u9JSnAAU4?... You have collected some interesting variants he doesn't mention, though.
The packaging for a "Surprise Makiki Doll with keychain". In defiance of the bouba-kiki effect, the Makiki has large round eyes and rounded features.
Speaking as a linguist, I just feel this knock-off Labubu should be spikier, somehow...
Reviews: Holiday Special 2025. SFX magazine, p. 101. The Wolf and His King. 4 stars. Released: Out Now. 339 pages. Hardback / ebook / audiobook. Author: Finn Longman. Publisher: Gollancz. Fantasy novels inspired by classic myths and medieval tales are nothing new, but this one, a queer retelling of the 12th century French tale of Bisclavret, written down by Marie de France, manages to feel fresh and modern. Bisclavret is a garwolf, a man who changes unpredictably into a wolf at night, with no control over the changes or his actions. When the old king dies and the prince is crowned, his cousin urges him to rejoin court life, reclaim the lands lost to his father, and live again. Bisclavret is terrified of revealing himself, but drawn by childhood dreams of knighthood and belonging. Meanwhile, the young king, recently returned from exile, is fascinated by this new knight, unable to resist every opportunity to be with him. It’s a beautiful, lyrical tale of love, betrayal and above all, yearning. Strikingly, no one is named except Bisclavret – we have a cousin, a king, a ward, a knight in green – and yet this never feels forced or unreal, but adds to the mythological, folk tale feel. This is a queer romance that refreshingly combines an acceptance of sexuality with the needs of nobles in a medieval time to marry and have children, while speaking to universal human desires for love, friendship and safety. Rhian Drinkwater
SFX Magazine liked my book!
finnlongman.com/books/the-wo...
I also read "surely see", fwiw, though if that's the case it's a rather blotchy u.
Slightly more recently, try Alexander McCall Smith's Portuguese Irregular Verbs for some excellent academic humour, though the main character is the butt of the jokes in a way that doesn't really lend itself to a happy ending.
In that case, it's even older than Wodehouse, but Three Men in a Boat is a classic book of virtually no stakes and virtually all jokes. No good for market research but well worth reading if you haven't.
I wrote a short blog post on the little-known Dutch scholar Cornelis Stoffel and why people like him are interesting when thinking about the history of scholarship:
www.leidenmedievalistsblog.nl/articles/a-f...
