That's what the University of Leeds is calling its project to digitize its huge collection of field recordings of vernacular speech in regional England in the 1950s and '60s — and to update that collection with the way people speak around the country today. - The Guardian
Mayank Kejriwal and fellow researcher Akarsh Nagaraj used data from 3,000 books that are part of the Gutenberg Project, across genres including adventure, science fiction, mystery and romance. - The Guardian
Oh, it goes way beyond Wordle (which, luckily, only lets us play once a day) and crosswords. A.J. Jacobs looks at the New York Times Spelling Bee, anagrams, "flats," and the particular psycho-chemical buttons they press. - Literary Hub
"Leonard Goodman, a Chicago attorney and member of the billionaire Crown family, ... had demanded more representation on a nonprofit board set up to take over the publication. The demand was likely to kill plans for the nonprofit's takeover of the money-losing Reader." - Chicago Sun-Times
"What is happening in this country in terms of banning books in schools is unparalleled in its frequency, intensity, and success," said Jonathan Friedman, director of PEN America's Free Expression and Education program and lead author of the report. - Business Insider
"The Surrendered Wife's popularity highlights how an insular religious group with carefully preserved boundaries can in fact be quite porous to outside influence — particularly to views popular on the American Christian right. ... (Because) the idea of female surrender as a virtue is a foreign import." - MSN (The Atlantic)
In the prewar period, university professors were apt to make vague aesthetic judgments about a book’s “beauty” or “soul” before lobbing in a few comments about the author’s mother or the publishing practices of the time. Richards’s students, by contrast, were asked to exclude all such background blather. - The Guardian
Natural history can certainly accommodate a profusion of perspectives – indeed, it will always benefit from greater diversity in how we look and think. But I wonder if there are unhelpful dichotomies in play, where we pit ‘knowledge’ against lived experience, against emotional engagement... - Aeon
He sent anonymous comments and messages to Merriam-Webster, which publishes a widely used online dictionary, condemning the company for changing the definitions of words including “boy, “girl” and “trans woman.” - The New York Times
"When you’ve written something by hand, the only person who could have done it is you. It’s unmistakable you wrote this, touched it, laid hands and eyes upon it. Something written by hand is a piece of your personality on paper. Typed words are not a fair swap." - LitHub
Aaron Blabey "had been working a series of increasingly dissatisfying day jobs — from acting to advertising — and although his children’s books were 'warmly received' (as he put it), the earnings were not supporting his family." He gave himself an ultimatum. It worked. - The New York Times
Indie bookstores are thriving. "During the lockdowns these small shops discovered how much they were valued by their customers; booksellers tell me about switching to mail order, doing deliveries by bike and on foot, setting up subscription schemes ... reinforcing personal relationships that have built up over years." - The Guardian (UK)
Why not, she says - there’s no reason not to work just as hard promoting your book as you did writing it. "The worst that can happen is you’ve spent a little energy on something that didn’t result in you being a bestseller." - Irish Times
For Alaskans whose people's languages are Yup'ik and Iñupiak, "the spelling bee gives students the opportunity to practice reading and writing a language they might only speak or hear." - Alaska Public Radio
