Lise's Ramblings

The world of the tiny is intriguing and mystical. Think of the staying power of mesmerizing stories such as Mary Norton's The Borrowers , John Petersen's The Littles , J.R.R. Tolkien's hobbits , the Lilliputians in Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels , and of course, we musn't forget Alice's adventure in minisculeness after she drank from the "drink me" bottle in Lewis Carroll's classic tale .    Even Hollywood had a hit with  Honey I Shrunk the Kids . Not that I'm saying that movie is on par with the books mentioned above. Yesterday, I found toadstools in my garden. Their caps aren't red with white polka dots, but perhaps it's still a sign that wee folk, gnomes or other mystical creatures live in our woods. Granted they haven't formed a ring . All the same, I'll keep an eye out for Shakespeare's "demi-puppets" as I muck about in the garden. Toadstools and a fairy dusting of       AWESOME! Have an...

Sure, my Scrabble Dictionary suffices for resolving most disputes in word games, but it doesn’t cut it for anything else. Sometimes you need to consult an authority. When it comes to words, The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) reigns as the heavyweight―literally and figuratively speaking. After all, the OED is dubbed “The definitive record of the English language” and its weighty 20 volumes fill at least one reference shelf. Photo by emdot on Flickr And talk about dedicated fans. When new words are added to the OED ’s tomes, healthy debates rage internationally between bibliophiles, librarians, lexicographers, linguists, etymologists, academics and your average Joe/Jane. I find it remarkable that more than 150 years after the OED ’s origins, authors and bloggers alike continue to be inspired to write fiction and non-fiction works about the OED (e.g., The Professor and the Madman ; The Meaning of Everything ; Reading the OED ; Treasure House of the English Language ; Empir...