The Research Institute of Information and Language Processing (RIILP) at the University of Wolverhampton (UK) has just announced a new MA degree programme in Practical Corpus Linguistics.  One of the key components of this interdisciplinary programme will be Lexicography. Information about the entry requirements, course fees, and course curriculum can be found here.

If you would like to learn how to explore language using innovative techniques and computer tools, then the course will offer you cutting-edge, research-led training of the highest quality, taught by leading researchers in the fields of linguistics and computer science.

You will have options enabling you to study:
– How people use words to make meanings;
– How to analyse real language usage;
– The role of phraseology, metaphor, and idioms;
– Creative and poetic uses of language;
– New approaches to language teaching;
– Translation tools such as translation memory systems;
– Creating dictionaries using new kinds of evidence;
– Using computer tools for teaching and translation.

Join the team of international researchers and start exploring language now!

Yale University has just announced that the college previously named after former John C. Calhoun, the 7th Vice President of the United States and diehard slavery advocate, will be renamed after Grace Murray Hopper.  An awardee of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, Dr. Hopper earned a MA in mathematics and a PhD in mathematics and mathematical physics in the 1930’s from Yale University and invented the first compiler for computer languages.  Along with her long-list of achievements in computer science, “Amazing Grace” as she was often affectionately named, she served more than four decades in the United States Navy and reached the rank of Rear Admiral.  Yale’s recent decision marks the end to a long and contentious onomastic debate that had sharply divided the university’s community.  In a statement given to the New York Times, Rianna Johnson-Levy, 21, a senior from Ann Arbor, Mich., who was involved in the protests, stated: “This is definitely a victory, but we’re not done fighting […] It’s our job to keep pushing Yale in the right direction.”

For companies trying to convince consumers that artificially intelligent robots are helpful, not scary, giving them a cute name seems like one of the first steps. Linguist and verbal branding expert Christopher Johnson explains why “they sound like the kind of names you might give your dog.” But while we might want our bots to have the semblance of a personality (including a sense of humor), we don’t necessarily want them to seem too human. Read more at Fast Company.

Are you fascinated by placenames?  Do you have a weakness for tea, clotted cream, strawberry preserves, and homemade scones?  Have you ever thought how cool it would be to be a part of an international project to preserve the cultural history of Great Britain? If you answered “Yes”, then you will be happy to hear that volunteers are being solicited to help collect and preserve all of the names of places (yes, ALL) in Britain from the Ordnance Survey’s six-inch to the mile maps of the early 20th century.  Interested in learning more? Just follow this link!

By contributing to this project you’ll be helping to compile the most detailed list of historic places in Britain. It is intended that the GB 1900 gazetteer will form the backbone of a national collection of the country’s historic place-names, comprising everything from the earliest medieval records to the field-names still known to modern farming families. The names of places are a vital key to unlocking the social and linguistic history of the land. They recall agricultural practices and local industries, changed landscapes and lost settlements. They preserve a rich heritage of Welsh- and Gaelic-language forms from across Wales and Scotland, chart the arrival of English, and illustrate interactions between the two.

If you want to protect a business name, you should trademark it. And that’s just what singer Kylie Minogue did in 2006, for the name “Kylie”. So when US reality TV star Kylie Jenner filed for the mark “Kylie” for her clothing and beauty empire, it was refused, because it would be too easy to confuse the two marks. Will Kylie Jenner’s appeal gain her any ground? Read the whole article here.

At Forbes, Michael Dunne writes about the next Chinese auto coming to the US: the Trumpchi SUV. It was was China’s fastest-growing car brand in 2016, scoring highest among all Chinese car brands. Officials at GAC, Guangzhou Automotive Corporation, insist privately that there is no connection to President Donald Trump. Chinese customers know the brand by its two Chinese characters, pronounced chuan chee. Those characters mean “delivering good fortune.” But will it have the same name in the U.S.? Head over to Forbes to get the whole story.

Founded in 1972, Stash Tea has suddenly become very busy defending their trademark. In Washington state, where recreational marijuana is legal, the word “stash” has been popping up in business names; not surprising, since “stash” has been a slang term for “hidden collection”, usually of some type of drugs, since the 1960s. In April in federal court in Portland, Stash Tea filed a trademark infringement lawsuit against Stash Cannabis Co., and recently sent a notice of trademark infringement to the Stash Pot Shop in Seattle.

Read the whole article at the Oregonian. And, starting this week, Stash Pot Shop of Seattle is Lux Pot Shop of Seattle.

 

Did you know that bathroom articles at IKEA are given names of Swedish lakes and bodies of water? Or that the Billy bookcase was named after IKEA employee Billy Likjedhal? Everything you’d ever want to know about IKEA product naming was explained at a Jan. 25 product showcase in New York City, by IKEA designer Jon Karlsson. He revealed that IKEA has a crack team of product namers, who assign names from a database of Swedish words. Quartz covers the event and looks at IKEA’s naming rules. You knew that IKEA was an acronym, right? It stands for Ingvar (founder’s first name), Kamprad (founder’s surname), Elmtaryd (his family’s farm) and Agunnaryd (the village in Småland where he grew up in).