The short term rental website, Airbnb, requires users to use real names in their profiles. A recent study published in Bloomberg Business found that hosts accept white renters at a higher rate than they accept black renters.
Month: December 2015
Onomastician Shout-out
Take a look at today’s New York Times Sunday crossword puzzle:
ANS 2016 Conference Program
The ANS 2016 Conference Program is now available.
The program includes:
- schedule of presentations
- keynote address information
- awardee information
- abstracts and biographies of presenters
Lexicom US 2016: Workshop in Lexicography, Corpus Linguistics, and Lexical Computing, Boulder, Colorado, June 6-10, 2016
The University of Colorado at Boulder will be holding a workshop on Lexicography, Corpus Linguistics, and Lexical Computing from the 6th to the 10th of June, 2016, in Boulder, Colorado. This event will give attendees an opportunity to learn how to create and analyze corpus data for the purpose of writing dictionary entries.… Read More
Names Society of Southern Africa International Conference, Bloemfontein, South Africa, September 20-22, 2016
The Names Society of Southern Africa (NSSA) and the Unit for Language Facilitation and Empowerment at the University of the Free State have announced their first call for papers for the 19th NSSA International Conference. Scheduled from the 20th to the 22nd of September 2016 at the University of the Free State in Bloemfontein, South Africa, the theme of this conference is “Symbolism and Instrumentality in Naming”.
The deadline for abstract submission is the 30 of June 2016. The language of the conference is English.
Toponymic Session at the International Geographical Union Congress, Beijing, China, August 21-25,2016
The joint commission of the International Cartographic Association (ICA) and the International Geographical Union (IGU) is organizing a typonymic session entitled “Place Names as Social Constructs” as a part of the 33rd IGU Congress in Beijing, China from the 21st to the 25th of August 2016.
The session is to focus on the ways in which place names reflect existing power relationships within societies.… Read More
Teens pick ‘Smombie’ as hippest German word
Each year in Germany, a team of linguists, journalists, celebrities, and teenagers assemble to select the word of the year from a long list of candidates nominated by the general public. After intense deliberation, the expert German Jury finally announced the winner of the 2015 word of the year among German youth “das Jugendwort des Jahres”: Smombie
The word is the special name which German children and teens have given to a person who walks mindlessly through the world while typing on his/her mobile phone. The name “smombie” is a word-blend formed from “zombie” and “smartphone”.
The contest for the coolest, grooviest, hippest, most totally awesome and rad, youth word of year is held each year by the world famous German dictionary maker, Langenscheidt.
Cast your vote for the ANS Name of the Year!
Tajikistan Mulls Banning Islamic-Sounding Names
The Tajik parliament recently began discussing implementing restrictions on what parents can name their children, particularly focusing on banning Islamic names. Since the 1980s, the Tajik people have shifted away from Russian names towards more traditional Tajik names. In the last decade, this 90% Muslim country has shifted towards more Islamic names, which weren’t previously popular.… Read More
Award for Best Article in Names: A Journal of Onomastics 2015
The 2015 Award Winner is:
Michael Adams, “The Course of a Particular’: Names and Narrative in the Works of Joseph Mitchell” Names: A Journal of Onomastics 63(1): 3-15.
Awardee Biography
Michael Adams is a Professor in the Department of English at Indiana University, Bloomington. He has also served as Editor of American Speech, the publication of the American Dialect Society for ten years. His term ended in November 2015. Most recently, he is co-editor of Studies in the History of the English Language VI: Evidence and Method in Histories of English (De Gruyter Mouton). In addition to being a highly valued, long-time member of the ANS, Professor Adams is also an editorial board member of the Journal of Literary Onomastics, the only scholarly periodical devoted to the study of names in literary texts.
Committee: Michael McGoff, Dr. John Algeo, Kemp Williams.
About Names: Kim once popular for boys and girls
Dr. Cleveland Evans writes about names for the Omaha World-Herald. This recent column explores Kim.