Exciting developments are afoot at DMNES central, as they’ve partnered with Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts for their summer internship programme, which means that the Dictionary Project has four research interns working for them for the next 8-12 weeks! So many back-burner projects are being brought to the front burner and are now already bubbling away.

In addition to working behind the scenes, each will write a few blog posts updating their progress and what they’re learning/finding out, as well as take over the twitter account for a week. Let us briefly introduce thems: Adelia Brown (majoring in Philosophy and English), Juliet Pepe (majoring in Neuroscience and Behavior), Sidney Boker (English major) and K. J. Lewis (studying Physics, Engineering and English).

Jennifer Moss, longtime member of the American Name Society and owner of BabyNames.com, has chosen a unique and powerful way to show solidarity with the black community and support for Black Lives Matter.

Instead of the usual popular name rankings and photos of babies, the site’s homepage shows a black box with dozens of names, all belonging to black Americans who’ve died due to police violence or, in a few cases, at the hands of civilians.

“Each of these names was somebody’s baby,” the site reads. A reminder of the importance of names.

Chinese netizens on May 31, 2020 protested against the US’ continued hyping of doctor Li Wenliang’s death to attack China, saying the US should find fault with itself and reflect on George Floyd’s death rather than point its fingers at others. Some Net users suggested renaming the road near the US Embassy in Beijing as Floyd Road in commemoration of the victim of US racism and police violence.

Fu Xuejie, the wife of late doctor Li Wenliang, has voiced her opposition to a US lawmaker’s push that calls for the street in front of the Chinese Embassy in the US to be renamed Li Wenliang Plaza, saying she was “very sad to hear that.”

Frank Herbert’s Dune is one of the well-known science-fiction novels of the 20th century. Set in a fictional feudal universe and centered on the conflict between two powerful houses, it’s a dense book full of terminology that Herbert crafted from many sources, but that feel almost impossible to pronounce unless you’re familiar with the languages he borrowed from to give Dune its unique tone.

If you’re curious how to pronounce some of the oft-repeated terms in Dune but have no idea where to start, you’re in luck! One clever fan compiled sound clips of Herbert himself saying the words of Dune on a blog called Usul’s Homepage.

Many of the words in Dune appear to come from Arabic root words, but Herbert doesn’t actually use the proper Arabic pronunciations in his reading. It appears he anglicized much of it, perhaps intentionally or perhaps from his own misunderstanding of Arabic.

(Original post at Nerdist)

Charm city in Maryland, U.S., founded 1729, named for Cecilius Calvert (1605-1675), 2nd baron Baltimore, who held the charter for Maryland colony; the name is from a small port town in southern Ireland where the family had its seat, from Irish Baile na Tighe Mor, literally “townland of the big house.” In old baseball slang, a Baltimore chop was a hit right in front of the plate that bounced high.