A Linguist among Many Fires
People coin words, and they behave like us: live in
obscurity or become famous, form temporary or
permanent unions, fight, concede defeat or conquer their
rivals, stay forever or die. They show an uncanny ability to
change, modify their meaning (to say nothing of their
form), and sometimes acquire senses opposite of the
ones with which they were endowed. Such changes
delight punsters and puzzle scholars. Consider a dialogue
borrowed from an old book. Professor: "Sir, you have
missed my lecture today." Student: "Not in the least,
Sir, not in the least!"
Don't miss this lecture by Professor Anatoly Liberman,
who has studied many things, from Danish accents to
Shakespeare's sonnets. Over the last twenty-five years,
one of his main areas of research has been the origin of
English words. He will speak about etymology (which is
not the same as entomology) and the change of meaning
in the history of English.
Better known as
(Marr et al, 2000: 726)
Friday, April 14 @ high noon