LANGUAGE COMPANIES SHUT BY NEW DEPT. OF ED POLICY

NEW YORK, NY–Connie Attanasio of Middle Village, Queens, has a master’s degree in education and has been in business for 25 years providing books for students learning English and the teachers who guide them. Harlem-born Jesse Harris has been distributing language books and materials on African-American themes to city schools from his Bronx business since 1971. full story

U.S. v Cengage Learning Holdings I, L.P., et al.

BACKGROUNDNOW–WHEREAS, Plaintiff, United States of America, filed its Complaint on May 28, 2008, and the United States and Defendants, Cengage and Houghton Mifflin, as defined below, by their respective attorneys, have consented to the entry of this Final Judgment without trial or adjudication of any issue of fact or law, and without this Final Judgment full story

Instructional materials on public display

EUREKA, CA–The public is invited to preview and submit comments on kindergarten through eighth grade Reading/Language Arts and English Language Development textbooks and instructional materials. The materials are currently on display at the Learning Resource Display Center located in the Louis D. Bucher Resource Center at the Humboldt County Office of Education full story

Collins dictionary asks public to rescue outdated words

LONDON, UK–The introduction of 2,000 new words into the forthcoming edition of the dictionary has meant that some of the lesser known and used words have become endangered and face being lost from the publication.  full story  editorial  another newspaper  just a publicity stunt?

Shattering the Illusions of Texting

LANGUAGE LOG–In my capacity as executive producer of the Visual Thesaurus, I recently had the opportunity to interview David Crystal about his new book, Txtng: The Gr8 Db8, a careful demolition of the myths surrounding text messaging. You can read the first part of my interview full story

The secret life of words

THE ECONOMIST–Many will know that the word “muscle” comes from the Latin for “mouse” (rippling under the skin, so to speak). But what about “chagrin”, derived from the Turkish for roughened leather, or scaly sharkskin. Or “lens” which comes from the Latin “lentil” or “window” meaning “eye of wind” in old Norse? full story