You’re invited to the book launch at the Ottawa Bagel Shop on August 17, 2007 at 7 pm. That’s at 1321 Wellington Street in Canada’s capital. Collected Works Bookstore will be on hand if you have the urge to buy a copy.

I’ve had the pleasure over the last few days of unpacking a whole crate of the books and packing them off one by one to some of the people who’ve helped me. These include the generous fellows who reviewed the manuscript years ago; Mark Morton (author of Cupboard Love and The Lover’s Tongue, two fun etymology books that I like); Dennis Osmond (Emeritus Professor of Anatomy); and Elgin Duke (physician). Thank you three!

I also packed and posted copies to the kind souls who offered me endorsement blurbs that now adorn the cover of the book.

• Lynne Truss (author of Eats, Shoots & Leaves)
• Richard Lederer (former host of NPRs A Way With Words and author of countless books such as the forthcoming The Ants Are My Friends, a collection of puns on song lyrics, the title of course on “the answer my friends…”)
• Erin McKean (author of the Weird and Wonderful Words series of books and Editor in Chief of The New Oxford American Dictionary)
• Robert Hartwell Fisk (Editor of The Vocabula Review and author of The Dictionary of Disagreeable English)
• Jane Farrow (author of the Wanted Words series)
• Dave Shepherd (podcaster at The Word Nerds)

Thanks to you guys too.

I extended my thanks to many other people who’ve helped “get the word out” about the podcast and the book, and who’ve given me encouragement and material support in the five years it’s taken to get this book onto bookstore shelves.

Trust me, my next effort will not be so long in coming!

Ella, who deserves the most thanks, doesn’t get a book, she gets the author.

Today I got my first look at the final product; a courier delivered advance copies of Carnal Knowledge to my door.  This means the things really have been printed and are beginning to make their way toward the stores.  One of the stores they are making their way toward is in Halifax, Nova Scotia and since I’m going to be there in town on July 28th I’ve arranged to do my first reading at The Jade W 5233 Prince Street at 2 oclock in the afternoon.  Since The Jade W itself just opened for business today, my reading will be their first author event as well.  And the event is a little tricky too since July 28th is actually twelve days before the book is “officially” released on August 9th.

While I was in Chicago for the Dictionary Society of North America meeting I was lucky enough to get to meet Anatoly Liberman in person.  Professor Liberman is the author of Word Origins and How We Know Them and blogs as The Oxford Etymologyst for Oxford University Press.  He was kind enough one day almost a year  ago to join me on podictionary to discuss the etymology of the word macabre.  As you can imagine it was great to meet him this summer. 

When we had talked about macabre Professor Liberman talked about how widely educated some of the early editors and lexicographers of the Oxford English Dictionary had been and how they had been cautious about extending etymologies in their dictionary entrys beyond what they knew to be pretty certain.

During our converstion in Chicago I noted two points that he made that I’ve been thinking about since.  One was his personal feeling (if I understood him correctly) that an English etymological dictionary should stick to the bounds of English and not trace back into other languages.  My first reaction was “well I sure like to learn the deeper backgrounds of words” and I’ve heard from numerous podictionary listeners who also tell me that they appreciate the etymological threads that trace back into Indo-European.  So I think I disagree with him on that one.  I do think it’s worth tracing a word’s history back (for example) past the Old French origin it might have had, pointing to the Latin root before that, and quite possibly the Greek and Indo-European roots before that. 

Unless what he meant was fleshing out the entire tree.  Of course these words that trace deeply back into history also sent up other shoots from those same roots.  Other shoots in other languages.  Professor Liberman speaks many languages and so perhaps what he meant was that an English etymological dictionary should not explore all the connections back up to present times in other languages.  There I’d have to agree with him.  It would be overwhelming for anyone but a true expert like himself.

And that brings me to the second point that got me thinking.  He, like the lexicographers from history that he had earlier complemented, seemed unwilling to let an etymology get beyond his personal sphere of understanding.  I understand him on that.  Even resepected professors must get overwhelmed at some point.  But what I was thinking about was that now with collaborative internet tools it would be possible to go further.  Presumably where Professor Liberman’s vast expertise ends it overlaps and is complemented by the expertiese of another scholar.  Historically most projects such as this are assembled by some talented individual or team, and in the better cases, shared around among other smart people for comments and additional insight.  But the circle of reviewers has necessarily been limited and the time allowed for them to comment relatively short. 

A web based model where input was broadly accepted and indefinitely open for comment could grow with time.  There are problems with this of course, not every Tom, Dick & Harry is qualified to add value so the contributors would need to be restricted for this reason and also to guard against just plain spam.  But it’s a thought.