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Ammon Shea recently spent a year of his life reading the OED from start to finish. Over the next few months he will be posting weekly blogs about the insights, gems, and thoughts on language that came from this experience. His book, Reading the OED, has been published by Perigee, so go check it out in your local bookstore. In the post below Ammon reflects on an article he saw in The New York Times Book Review.

Last Sunday, in the New York Times, I read a book reviewer taking an author to task for her word use. The reviewer stated that “the last time I checked the American Heritage Dictionary, in spite of how computer trade journalists might choose to use the word, “architect” was not recognized as a verb”.

First, putting aside the obvious slander against computer trade journalists (who themselves would likely not claim to be arbiters of what is recognized in language), are there perhaps some other sources that might recognize “architect” as a verb? Surprisingly enough, there are - both the Oxford English Dictionary and Merriam-Webster’s Third International list “architect” as a verb.

The OED provides citations from as far back as 1813, quoting a letter from Keats, in which he writes “This was architected thus By the great Oceanus.” The OED also specifies that the word, in addition to being used as a verb, is used in a figurative and transferred sense. Perhaps those computer trade journalists were engaging their poetic whimsy and quoting this early nineteenth century versifier.

Webster’s Third does not provide dates for their citation (“the book is not well architected”), but it is from the Times Literary Supplement, and so perhaps the aforementioned computer trade journalists were simply imitating the writing style of some other, more lofty and intellectual publication.

It is always a little bit risky to make a claim that something is not a word, or not used thusly, or has never been a certain part of speech. First, there is simply the possibility that you are wrong. But also, if you spend enough time looking through dictionaries you are just as likely as not to find one or two which contradict whatever position you’ve so boldly staked out. Of course, the flip side of this is that if someone states that you are wrong on the meaning of a word, you can usually find some source that will back up your position.

I’ll bet that the hordes of angry computer trade journalists who read that comment are right now sharpening their pens and rifling through their dictionaries, searching about for the perfect vicious rejoinder to refute this review.

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Copyright is an issue on the Internet. I believe it is respectful to do the right thing by others I have posted the basics here in regard to quoting form primary source material. From my research the following is my understanding of the rules for quoting. I hope this is helpful to you. More information can be located at: http://cil.usu.edu/tests/ET/citing.html When we want to quote from a book

This is the first post I writing from my brand new MacBook Pro - my second book sale present to myself. Of course, I haven't yet had the advance yet, so it's a little "previous" as a consultant I knew used to say, but I've been coveting my daughter's MacBook for so long that I couldn't restrain myself any longer.

It's taken a bit of getting used to - I was driving myself crazy trying to right click when I wanted to copy and paste, but then I figured out how to set it so if you use two fingers on the touch pad you can right click and now I'm a happy camper.

I still need more time to play around with it, but fortunately my 10 year old is light years ahead of me on the MacBook front, so she's able to give me free tutorials. Well, free except that I'm going to have to pay in kind with Webkinz, just you wait.

Of course, it hasn't all gone completely smoothly. Today I arrived at Fairfield University to do two writing workshops with kids from six middle schools for the Connecticut Writing Project and when I went to plug in my brand new MacBook for the Powerpoint I almost had heart failure because the plug hole on the MacBook wasn't the same shape as the video input for the Powerpoint projector. I don't know about you but I get Powerpoint anxiety before every talk. Fortunately there was a very nice tech man from Fairfield U on site.

"Don't you have the adaptor in your briefcase?" he asked.

Adaptor? What Adaptor?!!

"They usually come in the box with the MacBook".

Oh! So that's what that funny plug thingie that I didn't know what to do with was...the one that's sitting in the closet in my house 30 miles away and I have a talk to give in...four minutes. AAAAAAAAAH!

Fortunately, Mr. Nice Tech Man had a thumb drive (and I normally carry a thumb drive myself, but had just changed handbags and taken it out, figures) and we were able to save my powerpoint to the drive and put it on one of the University's computers. Whew. The day was saved.

Note to Self: NEVER take a new computer to an author event until you're sure you know how to use the #$^*(#% thing!

The workshops went really well. I've done author visits to middle schools before, but they were more about how I became an author and a bit about the writing process and the importance of revision. This was the first time I'd done an hour and a half workshop that involved getting the kids to write their own story. Thanks to several helpful suggestions from the collective brain of the YA Novelists listserv and a few little ideas of my own, both the kids and the language arts teachers appeared to get a lot out of the workshop, and I was so proud of the things the kids came up with, which several of them shared at the open mic.

Best of all, a teacher from St. Augustine's School told me "Confessions" had sold out at their Scholastic Book Fair last week. Yay!