in the game of whist: the four of hearts, considered as an unlucky card—southeastern Scotland and northeastern England, early 19th century—origin unknown| word histories
dominated by a woman or by women—UK, 1809—past participle of ‘ride’, ‘ridden’ combines with nouns to form adjectives meaning: afflicted, affected or dominated by something or by someone specified…| word histories
Dictionaries are extremely useful data objects. A dictionary is an associative store, basically a set of key-value pairs. A dictionary takes a key and returns the associated value. Python has dicti…| Bill Wadge's Blog
everyone is accountable for their own actions—17th century—may refer to herrings being hung when up for sale (that is to say: every piece of merchandise must sell on its own merits)| word histories
said of a great number of persons or things, especially when pressed against one another—UK, 1776—refers to herrings in a barrel| word histories
a conscientious objector—UK, 1916—from the initial syllable of the noun ‘conscientious objector’ and the suffix ‘-ie’, used to form familiar diminutives| word histories
originally (1830): the rule, or the power, of paper money (as opposed to metallic currency)—later also (1940): the rule, or the power, of bureaucracy| word histories
And just like that, it’s August. Between yoga classes, meetings and (yes) more heat waves, here’s what I have been reading: Unabridged: The Thrill of (and Threat To) the Modern Dictionary, Stefan FatsisI was fascinated by Fatsis’ deep dive into the history of American dictionaries, the threats they face in the digital age, descriptive vs. […]| cakes, tea and dreams
A Python dictionary has a simple & well-known API. It is possible to merge data using a nice & minimalistic syntax, without mutating or worrying about state. You're probably not gonna need classes.| Agile & Coding
The Dictionary People: The Unsung Heroes who Created the Oxford English Dictionary is a celebration of words and word-people: authors, editors, publishers, linguists, lexicographers, philologists, …| Library Planet
It’s a phenomenon as predictable as the tides: a dictionary adds new words or definitions, and then people grouse about those changes, either because they don’t like the new words and think that the dictionary is declaring them acceptable, or because they personally have never heard of those words before and therefore don’t see why […]| Arrant Pedantry
