By: Beth Kephart ,
on 9/23/2011
By: Ben Zimmer,
on 6/28/2007
Rebecca OUP-US
Today we are proud to present Ben Zimmer’s first installment in his new column, From A To Zimmer. To read more about the column click here.
When I told friends that I was taking a job as editor for American dictionaries at Oxford University Press, I started getting emails asking, “So how do I get a word in the dictionary?” One college friend, who’s now a pediatrics professor researching the effects of smoking on children, had a specific term that he thought deserved recognition: thirdhand smoke, used to refer to residual tobacco smoke contamination that lingers after a cigarette is extinguished. I had never heard of thirdhand smoke, but it turns out it’s gotten some press attention due to recent research indicating what a serious danger smoke residue poses to infants. (more…)
Just awesome!
xo