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“What a chance for an architect!” Charles Barry exclaimed as he watched the old Palace of Westminster burning down in 1834. When he then went on to win the competition to design the new Houses of Parliament he thought it was the chance of a lifetime. Instead it turned into the most nightmarish building project of the nineteenth century. What ‘lessons learned’ might the brilliant classical architect draw up today based on his experiences?

The post Rebuilding the Houses of Parliament: Victorian lessons learned appeared first on OUPblog.

Teenagers Need To Realize, Sooner.

    My dream job, since I was 7, is an Architect of some sort. Pictures of mostly modern day architecture is my kind of eye candy. I don’t know why, i guess it’s just the fact that architects create a structure, on paper, that eventually becomes more than just a technical drawing.

    But anyway, me being 16 years young, going into my junior year, I am entering the most important beginning of my future. I have recently been researching on how to reach my goal of earning a Masters, minimum; and just like any other career, getting a Masters degree takes a lot of education. But the worst part of going to college is…going to college; with the strong possibility of separating from your family at home for years.

    No, the worst part is not in terms of financial status towards tuition, but losing the strongest support you will have in your life. And I came to realize that when the middle of June of 2011 comes around, there’s going to be a lot of weight on my shoulders, which I will have to bestow in order to do do what I want to do.  Seeing this, I now look back at my earlier childhood, wishing: Man, I wish I had the ability to comprehend that this was coming. I do so bad, because I would have fully appreciated the care that my parents have given me, because I will never be looked after and mentored with such affection as I did during my childhood years.

Now.

   The end of senior year may, in reality, be in only a couple years, but to tell you the truth, I feel as if the end of the beginning will be over within the same amount of time as displayed by a watch. All I can do now is prepare for my future.

Image Cred

Ammon Shea recently spent a year of his life reading the OED from start to finish. Over the next few months he will be posting weekly blogs about the insights, gems, and thoughts on language that came from this experience. His book, Reading the OED, has been published by Perigee, so go check it out in your local bookstore. In the post below Ammon reflects on an article he saw in The New York Times Book Review.

Last Sunday, in the New York Times, I read a book reviewer taking an author to task for her word use. The reviewer stated that “the last time I checked the American Heritage Dictionary, in spite of how computer trade journalists might choose to use the word, “architect” was not recognized as a verb”.

First, putting aside the obvious slander against computer trade journalists (who themselves would likely not claim to be arbiters of what is recognized in language), are there perhaps some other sources that might recognize “architect” as a verb? Surprisingly enough, there are - both the Oxford English Dictionary and Merriam-Webster’s Third International list “architect” as a verb.

The OED provides citations from as far back as 1813, quoting a letter from Keats, in which he writes “This was architected thus By the great Oceanus.” The OED also specifies that the word, in addition to being used as a verb, is used in a figurative and transferred sense. Perhaps those computer trade journalists were engaging their poetic whimsy and quoting this early nineteenth century versifier.

Webster’s Third does not provide dates for their citation (“the book is not well architected”), but it is from the Times Literary Supplement, and so perhaps the aforementioned computer trade journalists were simply imitating the writing style of some other, more lofty and intellectual publication.

It is always a little bit risky to make a claim that something is not a word, or not used thusly, or has never been a certain part of speech. First, there is simply the possibility that you are wrong. But also, if you spend enough time looking through dictionaries you are just as likely as not to find one or two which contradict whatever position you’ve so boldly staked out. Of course, the flip side of this is that if someone states that you are wrong on the meaning of a word, you can usually find some source that will back up your position.

I’ll bet that the hordes of angry computer trade journalists who read that comment are right now sharpening their pens and rifling through their dictionaries, searching about for the perfect vicious rejoinder to refute this review.

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