Here is an exercise: Think of a piece of music that you love or hate. Got it? Can you hear that wonderful (or annoying) rhythm in your head? But here is the million dollar question — Were you able to recall that tune without remembering the title of that music? If you were (or even if you weren’t), there may be a very good reason why and it has very little to do with the number of records sold and everything to do with brain physiology. Interested in learning more? Read what researchers have recently discovered about the connection between music and naming in this article at Scientific American. They conducted a scientific study to find out which parts of the brain are important for naming a famous song.
Do you know where you’re going to? Identical placenames result in lost travellers
Milan Schipper, a Dutch teenager, found himself 10,000 miles away from Sydney, Australia – staring out at a snow-covered, frozen landscape – as he realized that he had accidentally booked a flight to Sydney, Nova Scotia, a municipality of 32,000 people on Canada’s east coast.
Schipper was far from the first tourist to inadvertently end up in Nova Scotia – the mixup has previously struck tourists from Italy, Argentina and Britain.… Read More
Discovered a disease? WHO has new rules for avoiding offensive names
The World Health Organization (WHO) is an internationally recognized leader in the international fight against deadly diseases. What few people know, however, is that the WHO is also involved in the bestowing names to illnesses. As any scientist can tell you, naming a disease is no easy task. The moniker chosen must not only be unique, descriptive, and accurate. Ideally, it will also avoid causing any unnecessary offense to people, places, and animals. To help the disease name-givers in their task, the WHO has a whole set of official guidelines for the naming of newly discovered human infectious diseases, as reported in Science magazine. However, not everyone is pleased about the rules and recommendations.
Among the existing monikers that its new guidelines “for the Naming of New Human Infectious Diseases” would discourage: Ebola, swine flu, Rift Valley Fever, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, and monkey pox. Instead, WHO says researchers, health officials, and journalists should use more neutral, generic terms, such as severe respiratory disease or novel neurologic syndrome.
Webinar: LinkedIn for Linguists (and Onomasticians!)
The LSA’s “Linguistics Beyond Academia” Special Interest Group invites you to join us for a professional development webinar focused on LinkedIn.
Friday, April 28, 1:00 – 2:00 PM US Eastern Time
Register for the webinar here.
Those of you who attended the “Onomastics Beyond Academia” panel at the ANS 2017 meeting will find this webinar very useful!
Linguists at all levels of training and all careers – undergraduates, graduate students, PhDs, postdocs, faculty, and professional linguists working in any field – are welcome. You do not need to be a member of the LSA or the SIG to attend, although members of the LSA will be given first priority in registration. Attendance will be capped at 100 attendees, so please sign up early!
LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional networking platform and has become one of the most important ways to connect with past, current and potential colleagues, collaborators, employees, employers, mentors, subject matter experts and clients. Thus, the communication which takes place on LinkedIn is tremendously valuable for all linguists. However, many people misunderstand or underestimate LinkedIn as a tool, and it remains underused in the linguistics community. In this webinar, we bring a linguistic lens to the site and we convene expert linguists to talk about their experiences in using it!!
You will learn why and how to “join the conversation.”
The webinar will begin with a brief presentation from Anna Marie Trester (Career Linguist) with an overview of interactional practices such as sharing, connecting, referring, “following,” endorsing and discussing. We will then turn to focused discussion from linguists who are active users of the site: Alex Botti (WNYC) and Christopher Phipps (IBM) will share their insights and experiences. The conversation will be facilitated by Anastasia Nylund (Georgetown University).
Note: we will focus primarily on individual use of the site (not organizational or group pages), and use of features like JYMBE (jobs you may be interested in), the newsfeed, and search.
Come prepared with questions, or just listen and observe, but come prepared to think creatively about how to join the conversation!
American Name Society Spring Newsletter
The American Name Society is pleased to share the ANS 2017 Spring Newsletter.
Please consider becoming a member to receive more news updates.
New California law affects mascot naming
While the controversy continues in Washington, D.C., the state of California has introduced a new law (AB-30) prohibiting all public schools from using the name “redskins” for sports teams and mascots. American Indians regard the term as offensive. Calaveras High School, in Calaveras County, chose to drop the name it used for decades and decided that it would no longer have a mascot at all.
The new law is called the “California Racial Mascots Act“. To read the exact text of this landmark piece of legislation, click through to the California Legislative Information website.
Nameless No Longer: Pluto’s Geography to Receive Official Titles
Pluto has not been having an easy time of it. There was all that nasty controversy over whether it could retain the name “planet”. The year 2017 seems to be looking up for Pluto though; the International Astronomical Union has recently announced that Pluto’s lovely heart-shaped region will finally be receiving an official name of its own. And if that wasn’t exciting enough, several other topographical features of this heavenly body are up for naming. Interested in learning more? Click through to this Scientific American article to catch up on Pluto news!
Call for Submissions: ONOMA 50, 2018
ONOMA, the official journal of the International Council of Onomastic Sciences, is now accepting abstracts for proposed articles for the next non-themed volume. The deadline for abstracts is April 30, 2017. Interested researchers are encouraged to send a one-page abstract to the following address: onoma AT icosweb.net. Submissions may be in English, French, or German. Before submitting their proposals, authors are asked to consult the ONOMA style sheet.
About Onoma
From vol. 32 (1995) onwards, Onoma has been inviting topical research reports as well as articles and reviews of a general and theoretical interest concerning all areas of scholarly name research. Membership of ICOS is not required for authors wishing to publish in Onoma. Onoma is a fully peer-reviewed journal. Manuscripts of articles are read and evaluated anonymously by at least two qualified scholars. Manuscripts of onomastic reports are appraised by the ICOS Editorial Board.
Chinese baby naming in the 21st century
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Beijing fortune-teller Mao Shandong offers Chinese parents an auspicious name for their newborn but he faces competition from tech-savvy entrepreneurs who have turned the ancient tradition into a lucrative online business
For many Chinese parents, making the right choice for their child’s name has become even more imperative as they seek to help their children stand out in the world’s most populous country. These days, they are more likely to turn to online businesses than to more traditional resources like fortune tellers. According to this article at the news site Phys.org, a quick web search reveals more than a hundred such businesses in China, each promising names that will pave the way for future success. But what kinds of names do they suggest? Read on to find out.
“Create a Character Contest”: Scholastic Partners with Marlane Kennedy
Marlane Kennedy, children’s book author of such classics as Lucky Dog, Me and the Pumpkin Queen, and The Dog Days of Charlotte Hayes, recently joined forces in a novel contest with Storyworks, an educational resource for teachers, parents, administrators, and librarians. The competition asked teachers and their students to “create a character” for the award-winning author’s upcoming publication. Winners of the contest would receive a two-year class subscription to Storyworks and a signed class set of Ms. Kennedy’s book, Disaster Strikes: Earthquake Shock. The name of the contest-winning character will be published in the May/June 2017 issue of Storyworks.