![]() If you haven't been there already, it's well worth a visit. On the subject of cutting-edge innovations sponsored by the online transformation of the book world, our relaunched books website - see - is far more interactive and user-friendly than it used to be. Do the write thing and check out our website So far so Dada, but the author's claim that this is a "love story that feels like Shakespeare wrote it himself" is simply e-gregious. It does not steal any of Arogundade's thunder to reveal that, in this version, Othello has a relationship with Juliet and Desdemona starts an affair with Romeo, to get even. The result is a tragicomic remix that subjects Shakespeare to the creative idioms of Jamaica by way of Notting Hill Gate. ![]() Costing just £2.99 from Arogundade's new digital imprint, this deconstruction of Romeo & Juliet and Othello uses unaltered lines from the bard and reconfigures the original elements to make a new story. None, I think, quite matches writer/publisher Ben Arogundade's The Shakespeare Mash-Up, subtitled "Hellomeorootlietju". The ebook revolution has already seen several bold innovations. What's yours? Is this a mashed-up bard I see before me? For the record, my favourite English word is "willow". But it hasn't turned its back on e-reading, so there is an app. The latest edition is a magnificent volume on fine paper. Interestingly, Chambers has not gone down this road. The dictionary declares "a responsibility to showcase our historic language, not just words of the moment".Ĭhambers's southern rival in Oxford put itself in the vanguard of the digital revolution when it launched the online OED. This new miscellany also includes lists of "words to cherish" ("arctophile", "roscid") "words with pleasing sounds" ("mumpsimus", "tosticated", "williwaw") "super-slang words" ("skank", "scrote", "cum-savvy", "meemies", "tweedler") "extinct words" ("bejade", "giglet", "pundigrion") and "100 words to watch" ("dumbsizing", "foodoir", "notspot").Ĭhambers's miscellany also displays a bit of attitude, declaring war on the grisly management jargon of "best practice", "diarize", "rebranding" and "road map". Among them are "gi" (a judo costume) and "zo" (a kind of hybrid domestic cattle found in parts of the Himalayas), though I'm betting the latter is made up. Recognising that, for ardent Scrabblers and quiz addicts, a lexicon is a competitive tool, Chambers includes an entertaining "word lovers' miscellany", with a thrilling list of more than 100 two-letter words for word games. This volume is more than an exuberant dictionary. ![]() Instead, Chambers nominates "pneumono-ultramicroscopicsilcovulcano-coniosis". Could this be "antidisestablishment– arianism"? Certainly not. This edition claims to preserve "the longest English word in any dictionary". Its editors report that nearly a quarter of all the new words in this 620,000-word volume are derived from internet culture and technology.Ĭhambers was always radical, innovative and different. This 12th edition also reveals an imprint, scorched by the digital revolution, now embracing the language of nerds and geeks: "miniblog", "captcha", "webisode", "blook", "tweet", "paywall" and "defriend". It also recognises "neet", "flipping" (of MPs' expenses) and "bromance" (a close, but not sexual, relationship between two men). Threatened with annihilation, it has come back fighting in the best Scottish tradition.Ĭhambers redux is a cornucopia of fire-new words, reflecting the extraordinary economic, social and cultural upheavals of our time words such as "up-cycle", "double-dip", "globesity" (the global obesity epidemic) and "locavore" (someone who only eats locally produced food). The 12th edition of Chambers has just been published. ![]() In the end, Chambers survived, by the skin of its teeth, some of the "old duffers" moved south, and the dictionary became part of Hodder Education.Ī fine Augustan mansion swallowed up in the faceless concrete of modernity: this, you might think, would be the end of the story. One Scottish newspaper described the 27 Chambers staff members threatened with redundancy as "white-haired, cardiganed, index-carded old duffers". Inevitably, being Scotland, there was sarcasm. The Scots protested about "cultural vandalism" and a vigorous rearguard action was launched, led by a ragtag army of MSPs and Margo MacDonald. In 2009, after failing to adapt to the digital revolution, and having been sold to Hachette UK, Chambers was faced with closure by its French corporate owner. Like many totems of British book publishing, Chambers has been through a 21st-century crisis that nearly closed it down for ever and eventually saw its forced evacuation from Edinburgh. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |