Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Director of the Hutchins Center for African and American Research at Harvard University, will provide editorial direction to Oxford University Press as it devises a dictionary that will exclusively be dedicated to “African-American Vernacular English,” according to the Washington Times.
Mellon and Wagner Foundations provided grants for the undertaking. The Oxford Dictionary of African American English (ODAAE) is a seminal erudite initiative focused on documenting the evolution of the vast and historical influential lexicon of AAVE and compiling it into a dictionary, the Oxford English reports.
“African American English has had a profound impact on the world’s most widely spoken language, yet much of it has been obscured. The ODAAE seeks to acknowledge this contribution more fully and formally and, in doing so, create a powerful tool for a new generation of researchers, students, and scholars to build a more accurate picture of how African American life has influenced how we speak, and therefore who we are,” Casper Grathwohl, President of Oxford Languages at Oxford University Press, said in a released statement.
The glossary will contain “quotations taken from real examples of language in use,” in conjunction with meanings, pronunciation, spelling, proper usage, and the historical context of each word within the Oxford dictionary notations, as mentioned by the Oxford English Dictionary.
Gates will lead a group of researchers and editors recruited from Oxford and Harvard, the Washington Times reports.
Gates explained, “Every speaker of American English borrows heavily from words invented by African Americans, whether they know it or not. Words with African origins such as ”goober’, ‘gumbo’ and ‘okra’ survived the Middle Passage along with our African ancestors. And words that we take for granted today, such as ‘cool’ and ‘crib,’ ‘hokum’ and ‘diss,’ ‘hip’ and ‘hep,’ ‘bad,’ meaning ‘good,’ and ‘dig,’ meaning ‘to understand’—these are just a tiny fraction of the words that have come into American English from African American speakers, neologisms that emerged out of the Black Experience in this country, over the last few hundred years.”
Lil Nas X Wants 'Bussy' Added to the Dictionary For Pride Month
Pride Month 2022 is all about the bussy!
That’s the message Grammy-winning artist Lil Nas X is sending, at least, and we are on board 100 percent! Over the weekend, the "Industry Baby" rapper and singer tweeted that “for Pride Month it’s really important that our government finally takes a stand and adds bussy to the dictionary.” We couldn’t agree more!
Now, Dictionary.com has decided to step up and be a true ally, replying “we added WAP to the dictionary, so anything’s possible.” Happy Pride indeed!!!
If you’re not familiar, “bussy” is a portmanteau of the words “boy” and “p*ssy” used to describe the anus. The first time the word was used online goes way back to 2007 where an Urban Dictionary user uploaded the definition “Slang term used by gay men to connote Boy-P*ssy. In reference to their anus. Bussy has been used for at least 15 years by gay men to describe their man hole of love!”
While the phrase has been popular in gay and trans communities for years, it reached widespread audiences in 2019 when Taron Egerton did a video for BuzzFeed entitled “Taron Egerton Reads Thirst Tweets.”
One of the tweets he read in the video said “Taron Egerton is a white boy that I trust to destroy my bussy.” After he read it, Egerton asked, “What does that mean?”
Now the word has become so ubiquitous that cis, straight people are misusing it. But don’t worry, Lil Nas X is here to save us and make sure the word is used correctly. He even uses the word in an upcoming song.
There are still about two weeks left in Pride Month, so that’s plenty of time for the dictionary to officially add bussy.
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Get up to date on one of the biggest players of the future of the music industry-Web3, with this Glossary of artists you must know.
by Janelle Borg from AmplifyYou
If you’re confused about the web3-related terms that pop up on Twitter or Instagram, you’re not alone. Web3 has led to a lexicon of new words that are quickly becoming part of the jargon of several industries – including the music industry. So if you want to stay ahead of the curb, here’s a simple web3 glossary to get you started!
A – Address
A string of characters representing a crypto wallet. These characters are randomly generated and are essential when it comes to sending or receiving digital assets.
B – Blockchain
A digital ledger system that makes it impossible to change or hack information. It is a form of distributed database that records all transactions.
C – Crypto
Short for cryptocurrency, it is a digital currency secured by cryptography. Cryptocurrencies are different from “normal” currencies, in that they are not regulated by central or third-party authorities and run on the blockchain.
D – DAO
Stands for Decentralized Autonomous Organization. DAOs are blockchain-based organisations that are community-led and do not have a central authority. They are governed by members who decide on the current and future direction of the DAO.
E – Ethereum
Ethereum is a decentralized, open-source blockchain with smart contract functionality. Its native cryptocurrency, Ether, is the token most commonly used in the Ethereum blockchain network.
F – Fiat money
This refers to government-issued, “traditional” currencies such as dollars, pounds and euros. Fiat money is largely controlled by central authorities, such as banks and governments.
G – Gas
Gas is the fee required to make a transaction on the Ethereum network. The exact price of the gas fee depends on demand and supply.
H – Hot wallet
A hot wallet is a wallet connected to the internet. It enables holders to send, receive and store tokens. Hot wallets are secured by public and private keys that facilitate transactions.
I – Interoperability
This refers to techniques that enable different blockchains to work together and transfer assets to each other for maximum functionality. Interoperability is one of the building blocks of web3 as it leads to inter-industry collaboration.
K – KYC
Know Your Customer (KYC) refers to a set of standards in financial services used to verify customers. In crypto, it is the process of verifying identities before allowing users to use a crypto exchange.
L – Liquidity
This refers to the speed with which an asset can be converted into standard cash without affecting the market price. Essentially, liquidity is how quickly you can get cash in your hands.
M – Metaverse
The metaverse refers to a shared virtual environment that can be accessed using technologies such as virtual reality and augmented reality. One of the main tenets of the metaverse is social connection. Therefore, the concept refers to a future iteration of the Internet that is universal and more like an immersive virtual world than it is today.
N – NFT
NFT stands for Non-Fungible Token. An NFT is a digital asset that exists on the blockchain. Since NFTs are secured by cryptography, they are totally unique and therefore cannot be replicated.
P – P2P
P2P or peer-to-peer refers to a direct exchange of an asset between individuals, without the involvement of third parties. Unlike traditional online transactions, P2P transactions are safeguarded by being recorded on every peer’s network.
R – Rug Pull
A rug pull is a common scam in the crypto and NFT spaces. This is when a project owner promotes a new project to investors, hypes it up, and then abandons it after taking all the funds.
S – Smart Contract
A smart contract is a transaction protocol in the form of code that runs when certain conditions are met. Smart contracts automate the execution of a workflow so that the individuals involved know what the outcome is going to be.
T – Token
A token is a representation of an asset that is held, traded, or staked to earn interest. Technically, it’s just another word for crypto. However, it is mostly used when referring to cryptocurrencies other than Ethereum and Bitcoin. “Token” is also used to refer to digital assets or collectibles.
V – Virtual Reality
Virtual reality or VR is a simulated experience that can be accessed using headsets or multi-projected environments. VR is computer-generated and can be interacted with in a “real” way via specialised equipment.
W – Web3
The impending iteration of the Internet, which is based on blockchain technology, token-based economics and interoperability. Coined in 2014 by Ethereum co-founder Gavin Wood, web3 gained a lot of popularity from 2020 as blockchain technology and crypto became mainstream.
For to read deeply is to appreciate how the book has come to be, in its entirety. | Photo Credit: Getty Images
You have to sympathise with the Finnish translator working on Catch-22 back in 1962 who wrote to Heller, “Would you please explain me one thing: What means Catch-22?” The gentleman had looked up dictionaries, he had sought out the help of the U.S. air attaché in Helsinki. But remained clueless
The dictionary loaded on my laptop defines Catch-22 as “a dilemma or difficult circumstance from which there is no escape because of mutually conflicting or dependent conditions”. It also adds the origin of the phrase: “1960s: title of a novel by Joseph Heller (1961), in which the main character feigns madness in order to avoid dangerous combat missions, but his desire to avoid them is taken to prove his sanity.”
So, you have to sympathise with the Finnish translator working on the book back in 1962 who wrote to Heller, “Would you please explain to me one thing: What means Catch-22?” The gentleman had looked up dictionaries, he had sought out the help of the U.S. air attaché in Helsinki. But remained clueless. The meaning we now derive from the phrase drawn from the book; the book came first, then the popular interpretation of the phrase. As Rebecca Lee recounts this incident in How Words Get Good: The Story of Making a Book (Profile Books, ₹1,220 Kindle edition), Heller concluded, “I think in Finland the book will lose a great deal in translation.” We can only hope that wasn’t the case, and the Finnish translator found a way around his bafflement, which was, in effect, the entire point of the phrase.
Lee, an editorial manager at Penguin Random House with two decades in publishing, provides a detailed, witty overview of not just how a book proceeds from an idea to the volume in the reader’s hand — the commissioning of the book, editing, etc. She also makes a solid case for understanding how we read. For to read deeply, is to appreciate how the book has come to be, in its entirety.
As we are seeing currently with Geetanjali Shree sharing the International Booker Prize for Tomb of Sand with Daisy Rockwell, who translated it from the Hindi original, Ret Samadhi, the process of translation specifically is rightfully in the news.
Freedom deepened by persuasion
In this, it’s interesting to see translation as part of a package that Lee calls, in the last third of her book, “how words get free”. Translation allows a book to find readers outside of the subset defined by the language of the original. This freedom, she argues, is also deepened by persuasion: through blurbs and covers that interest readers, through typography, footnotes (Lee adores them), margins, typeface. Each aspect has its experts, its history, and its fascinating anecdotes.
On the blurb, for instance. In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, writes Lee, when bookstores opened after the first lockdown, many discouraged browsers from picking up books they were not seriously considering buying. So instead of displaying books by their covers, they turned the books around, so the customers saw the back covers. Browsers got to judge a book by its blurb, as it were. That restriction, thankfully, did not last. But it does bring to Lee’s mind J.D. Salinger’s book contracts that only the title and his name be on the cover, “absolutely no images... quotes, blurb or biography”. And it also makes you wonder at the dilemma that would have been faced by adherents of Marshall McLuhan’s reported rule of the thumb — mentioned elsewhere by Lee — that if you are not sure whether to buy a book, turn to page 69, and judge the book by it.
In the end, unsurprisingly, Lee makes a case for the physical book. Should she like a book she’s read on an e-reader, she goes and buys a physical copy too, for she invests “more meaning and value in the printed word”. And she warns that books downloaded on e-readers are never really yours hereafter: “On an e-reader, you can only license and hire words.” Under specific circumstances, you may lose access to them.
There are yet greater threats to always guard against. Lee’s citation of the horrific Nazi book burning of 25,000 volumes deemed “un-German” in May 1933 frames the case for protecting and appreciating the book-making process beyond getting the printed copy into the reader’s hands. At the site of that crime, in Berlin, this quote by Heinrich Heine is engraved: “Where they burn books, they will, in the end, burn human beings too.”
Oxford University Press has announced it will produce a new dictionary of “African American English,” which will include slang ranging from “hip” to “diss.”
Black Harvard literary critic Henry Louis Gates Jr. will oversee the three-year project for Oxford Languages to compile the “Oxford Dictionary of African American English,” the publisher said in a news release Thursday.
The new book will include “quotations taken from real examples of language in use,” alongside the usual Oxford dictionary notations on the meaning, pronunciation, spelling, usage and history of each word.
“This will serve to acknowledge the contributions of African-American writers, thinkers, and artists, as well as everyday African Americans, to the evolution of the English lexicon,” Oxford University Press said in the release. “Evidence will be gathered from such diverse sources as novels, academic research papers, newspapers and magazines, song lyrics, recipes, social media and more.”
Mr. Gates, director of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University, will oversee a team of researchers and editors from Oxford and Harvard.
“Every speaker of American English borrows heavily from words invented by African Americans, whether they know it or not,” Mr. Gates said.
He cited the words “goober,” “gumbo,” “okra,” “cool,” “crib,” “hokum,” “diss,” “hip,” “hep,” “bad” (meaning good) and “dig” (meaning to understand) as examples.
“The editing of the Oxford Dictionary of African American English will realize a dream I’ve nurtured since I first studied the pages of Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary of the English Language: to research and compile fully and systematically the richness of African American English,” he said.
The professor said his team will solicit “crowd-sourced contributions” to the dictionary from Black Americans to give the most accurate snapshot of African American English and its contributions to the English language. The three-year research project is being funded partly by grants from the Mellon and Wagner Foundations.
The Operations Transformation Fund (OTF) blog series gives a brief overview of its projects. This blog post highlights a project led by the Office of Immigrant Affairs (OIA) and the Office of Innovation and Technology (OIT) to improve Philadelphia language access services for Phila.gov webpages.
The project will take a look at the City’s language services and improve them via new protocols, improved guidelines, and community engagement. The City will roll out improved translations on phila.gov webpages in nine target languages:
Arabic
French
Haitian Creole
Portuguese
Russian
Simplified Chinese (Mandarin)
Spanish
Swahili
Vietnamese
What stage is this project at now?
OIT used OTF funds to hire a software engineer, Khristian Marcial, to take on the technical element of the expansion. Khris’ work will allow visitors on phila.gov sites to access and engage more easily with higher-quality translations.
OIA hired a new language expert, Kahlil Thomas, at the beginning of May. Kahlil and the language access team will meet with other organizations, agencies and experts to discuss how to improve translations from a language perspective. The teams are also working with the community—and the City wants to work with you! Improving language access will rely heavily on feedback from the city’s multilingual residents.
In the coming weeks, OIA will create language access surveys to understand how to make the best impact for each language community. OIA will also be conducting pop-up activities and workshops at City Hall and throughout the City to get a better understanding of how different language communities in Philly use and respond to our services.
This post was originally written in English. If you have feedback on the translation of the post, or other thoughts to share about this OTF project or public language access in your language, please email Kahlil Thomas, Translation Services Coordinator (kahlil.thomas@phila.gov).
Stay up to date by following @phillyOIA on Twitter and Instagram to find out where and when we’ll be out speaking with your speech community!
