Bruce Moore
Letters to the Editor - April 2018
Comments from John Miller, Barry Oakley, Davd Fitzpatrick, Claire Rhoden, and Robert Wills.
MoreBruce Moore reviews 'Beowulf' translated by Stephen Mitchell
The Old English Beowulf, the most important poem in English before Chaucer, was probably composed in the eighth century. The poem traces Beowulf’s three fights against the monst More
Bruce Moore reviews 'That’s the Way It Crumbles: The American conquest of English' by Matthew Engel
Matthew Engel has written for many years in The Guardian and the Financial Times, on topics ranging from politics to sport, and between 1993 and 2007 he produced editions More
Bruce Moore reviews 'The Word Detective: A life in words, from Serendipity to Selfie' by John Simpson
What does a lexicographer do? How do you become a lexicographer? What makes a good lexicographer? What is the difference between a ‘standard’ dictionary and a dictionary based on historical principles? How do you reinvent the Oxford English Dictionary so that it has a secure place in an online modern publishing world? These are among the questions explo ... More
Bruce Moore reviews 'The Making of the Oxford English Dictionary' by Peter Gilliver
There have been popular accounts of the making of the Oxford English Dictionary, especially Simon Winchester’s The Surgeon of Crowthorne (1998) and The Meaning of Everything (2003), and th More
The new 'Australian National Dictionary' by Bruce Moore
The Australian National Dictionary – the second edition of which has just been published – is based on historical principles and modelled on the large Oxford ...
MoreBruce Moore reviews 'Authorisms' by Paul Dickson
American Paul Dickson has written many books on aspects of language, including Words from the White House (2013). He also claims to have invented some fifty words, although he admits that only two of these have any real chance of becoming ‘household words’: word word ‘a word that is repeated to distinguish it ... More
Bruce Moore reviews 'Colonial Voices: A Cultural History of English in Australia 1840–1940' by Joy Damousi
This is a book about the role of English speech in the creation and spread of British colonialism in Australia, about the eventual disintegration of this imperial speech and its values in More
