Month: September 2015

Jane Birkin Asks Hermès to Take Her Name Off Its Celeb-Loved Croc Bags

8638964520_0ee4eccba9_mWhat do Jessica Simpson, Jennifer Lopez, Janet Jackson, Janice Dickenson, Julianne Moore, all have in common?

No, it is not just that their first names all begin with the letter “J”. What connects these five women, other than their fame and fortune, is the fact that all of them have (or at one time had) a Birkin Bag.

Considered by many to be of the world’s most expensive handbags on the market today, the Hermès creation was named after singer-actress Jane Birkin in the mid 1980’s. Now, some three decades later, Birkin has told reporters of the Agence France-Presse (AFP), that she has requested that Hermès “debaptise the Birkin Croco until better practice in line with international norms can be put in place.” Despite this reported request, a recent look at the Hermès website revealed that the handbag is still listed under the actresses’ surname. It remains to be seen whether the company will one day adhere to Ms. Birkin’s request and/or alter international leather production practices which PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) denounced as “appalling” and “gruesome” in a recent video report.

For more information see this article and this article.

Onomastics Sessions at the Leeds International Medieval Congress, July 4-7 2016

8061150830_9bf44a6d5f_mThe Dictionary of Medieval Names from European Sources will be holding special sessions on medieval cross-linguistic/cross-cultural onomastics at the Leeds International Medieval Congress, which is scheduled to take place from the 4th to the 7th of July 2016.

Researchers interested in presenting their work are encouraged to submit a100-200 word paper proposal no later than the 15th of September 2015 to eic[@]dmnes.org. In line with the multicultural focus of the planned sessions, proposed presentations may be held in several non-English languages including German, English, Spanish, French, and Italian. Questions about the event may be directed to the email listed above.

Workshop on Linking Models of Lexical, Sentential and Discourse-Level Semantics, Lisbon, Portugal, September 17-18 2015

3662513017_85ce425833_mFrom the 17th to the 18th of September 2015, a workshop on Linking Models of Lexical, Sentential and Discourse-Level Semantics will be held in in Lisbon, Portugal. The goal of the workshop is to showcase theoretical and computational approaches to and applications of joint models of multi-level semantics.

Click here for a list of the papers which have been accepted for this interface between lexicographers, semanticists, and computational linguistics.

Click here for registration information.

Symposium on Places and Place Names, Adelaide, Australia, September 25, 2015

10182089404_1c8e1f085e_mOn Friday, the 25th of September 2015, a special symposium on Places and Place Names will be held at Flinders University in Adelaide, Australia. The Guest Speaker for the event will be Dr. Alice Gorman who will be lecturing on “Placenames in Outer Space”. Directly after the Symposium, the Annual General Meeting of Placenames Australia (Inc.) will be held.

For more information refer to the September newsletter of the Australian National Placenames Survey (ANPS) or contact Dr. D. Lonergan, Director ANPS.

Welsh Place Name Society and the Society for Name Studies in Britain and Ireland (SNSBI) annual conference, Llanelwedd, Builth Wells, October 3, 2015

11337051566_eed159ebd2_mOn Saturday, the 3rd of October, the Welsh Place Name Society and the Society for Name Studies in Britain and Ireland (SNSBI) will be joining forces for a shared annual conference. Presentations will cover a variety topics within the fascinating field of UK toponymy. The official venue for this special event is the Royal Welsh Agricultural Society showground at Llanelwedd, Builth Wells, LD2 3SY.

For more information regarding the conference program and registration, visit the SNSBI website.