On the 5th of February 2015, a congressional committee was assigned to consider H.R. 760, a bill to rename the “Bureau of Prisons” to the “Bureau of Corrections”. Jason Chaffetz, a Republican representative for Utah’s 3rd congressional district, introduced the bill to help change the US society’s mindset toward incarceration. As Chaffetz explained in an interview with The Hill, the name change would also reflect the fact that 48 states in the Union currently use the name “corrections” instead of “prisons”. According to some prognoses, the bill only has a 1% chance of being enacted.
Melbourne edition of Monopoly drops streets, picks special places instead
This November, the makers of the Monopoly board game unveiled the official Melbourne edition. From Great Ocean Road and the National Gallery of Victoria to Queen Vic Market and the University of Melbourne, this special edition has replaced many of the original iconic place names with well-known toponymic tourist attractions.
While many Melburnians are lamenting the loss of the toponyms they grew up with, others are complaining that the board game’s choice of place names reinforces many outsiders’ stereotypes. However, Lord Mayor of Melbourne, Robert Doyle, is not worried at all by the fuss. As he revealed in an interview featured on news.com.au, he hopes that families will have “amicable fights about what should be on the board and what is” while they have “a wonderful time playing their local game […] This is our game, a part of our community and the landmarks that make up our story.”
Center for Language Research (CLAR) Conference, Rijeka, Croatia, June 3-5, 2016
The Center for Language Research (CLAR) at the University of Rijeka, Croatia will be holding a conference from the 3rd to the 5th of June 2016. The official theme of CLAR2016 is “Perspectives on Language Planning and Policies.”
Paper proposals on any topic related to the domain of language planning and policies are invited by the 10th of January 2016 deadline.… Read More
Call for Nominations for the 2015 Name of the Year
The American Name Society requests nominations for the “Names of the Year for 2015”. The names selected will be ones that best illustrate, through their creation and/or use during the past 12 months, important trends in the culture of the United States and Canada.
Nominations are called for in the four following categories:
Personal Names: Names or nicknames of individual real people, animals, or hurricanes.
Place Names: Names or nicknames of any real geographical location, including all natural features, political subdivisions, streets, and buildings. Names of national or ethnic groups would be included here.
Trade Names: Names of real commercial products, as well as names of both for-profit and non-profit companies and organizations, including businesses, universities, and political parties.
Fictional/Literary Names: Names of fictional persons, places, or institutions, in any written, oral, or visual medium, as well as titles of art works, books, plays, television programs, or movies.
Winners will be chosen in each category, and then a final vote will determine the overall Name of the Year for 2015. Anyone may nominate a name. All members of the American Name Society attending the annual meeting will select the winner from among the nominees at the annual ANS meeting in Washington, D. C. on January 8, 2016. The winner will be announced that evening at a joint celebration with the American Dialect Society.
Advance nominations must be received before January 5, 2016, though nominations will also be accepted from the floor at the annual meeting. Please send your nominations, along with a brief rationale, to Dr. Cleveland K. Evans at cevans[@]bellevue.edu
International Conference on Theoretical and Applied Linguistics Structure, Use, and Me, Brasov, Romania, September 21-24, 2016
From the 21st to the 24th of September 2016, the 4th International Conference on Theoretical and Applied Linguistics Structure, Use, and Me (SUM2016) will be held in Brasov, Romania. The purpose of this event is to provide an interdisciplinary forum for researchers and practitioners working in the fields of theoretical and applied linguistics. Scholars working within the areas of lexicography and lexicology are encouraged to submit an abstract by the deadline on the 29th of February 2016.
10th International Conference of the Asian Association for Lexicography, Manila, Philippines, June 1-3 2016
The 10th International Conference of the Asian Association for Lexicography, AsiaLex2016, has been scheduled for the 1st to the 3rd of June 2016 in Manila, Philippines. Co-organized by the University of the Philippines-Diliman Department of Linguistics (UP-Lingg), the National University (NU), and the Computing Society of the Philippines (CSP), the thematic focus of this conference is the exploration of recent research trends and practices for lexicography and corpus-building in general and in relation to Asian languages.
The deadline for the call for papers is the 15th of January 2016.
Seattle Public Library board rejects $935K name change to ‘Seattle Public Libraries’
After conducting extensive market research and spending more than $300,000 in private funding, the proposal was made to change the former name of The Seattle Public Library to the new and improved name: Seattle Public Libraries. The suggested change involved changing the word-final “y” to “ies”…oh and the “The” was to be dropped as well. In light of the fact that implementing this re-branding would cost several hundred thousand more, many Seattleites reacted less than enthusiastically to the proposed name change. After much deliberation, the Library’s Board of Trustees voted unanimously against the proposed re-branding.
Names and Food
If you are a name watcher and a food lover, here are a few interesting / maddening / humbling / irritating links for you:
Washington Post journalist Christopher Ingraham challenges readers to name a food “just by looking at where it comes from” as indicated by a series of dots on a map of the United States.
The Daily Meal lists the top ten most commonly misspelled food names.
Discover Huffington Post’s list of commonly mispronounced food names. And yes, that brown UK steak sauce in on the list!
Reminder: Emerging Scholar Award Submissions DUE 11/16/15
Reminder: Emerging Scholar Award Submissions are due Monday, November 16, 2015.
Presenters for the 2016 ANS Conference who are eligible for and interested in applying for the ANS Emerging Scholar Award (ESA), should have received all pertinent information.
Please send submissions to the chair of this year’s ANS-ESA Selection Committee, Lisa Radding: raddinglisa [ @ ] gmail.com.… Read More
The Society for Name Studies in Britain and Ireland (SNSMI) Conference, Maynooth, Ireland, April 15-18, 2016
The Society for Name Studies in Britain and Ireland (SNSMI) will be holding its 25th annual Spring Conference from the 15th to the 18th of April 2016 at Maynooth University, a part of the National University of Ireland. Located on the outskirts of Dublin, access to the Maynooth campus is easily accessible from the Dublin Airport. In addition to the main conference, the event organizers will also be hosting a special postgraduate workshop.
The deadline for registration is the 15th of November 2015. Researchers interested in presenting a paper on personal or place naming are asked to email their title and abstract to submissions to confsec at snsbi.org.uk.