The Ucheldre Centre have just sent me the leaflet with details of Ben's Dreame fortnight - an Elizabethan-style adaptation of A Midsummer Night's Dream - involving actors, puppeteers, choreographers, and other contacts of Ben from around the world, all gathering in Holyhead for open rehearsals (30 July - 2 Aug), two free performances (3-4 Aug), and follow-up workshops on dance, movement, and Shakespeare (6-8 Aug) and puppetry making and working (9-10 Aug).
Wednesday 18 July 2018
Monday 23 April 2018
Shakespeare's Words version 3.0 launches today
The better the day, the better the deed, as Shakespeare didn't say. But for everything he did say Ben amd I are thrilled to announce that we've reached the end of a 6-month development phase and can launch the 3.0 version of Shakespeare's Words.
We’ve received many suggestions for new
features over the past decade, and all are now implemented in the new edition
of the site. These include:
The site now runs up to ten
times faster than before.
All texts are shown in a First
Folio or Quarto edition alongside the modern text .
All Folio & Quarto
spellings of words are now in the Glossary .
The Circles showing the relationships between characters are
now interactive: click on a name to see that character's part in the play .
We've rebuilt the search
engine, and added auto-completion functionality for word-search and
character-search - start typing a word…
You can now search for words
used by individual characters and in individual plays or poems .
With rebuilt advanced search
function, it’s easy to see if a particular word is being used nearby your
search word .
And most importantly, the site
is now mobile-adaptive, so people can explore it on their cell-phone or tablet.
Shakespeare’s Words is now pocket-sized!
In order to meet the substantial costs incurred
in developing this new site we've introduced a ticketing model: after a limited
free exploration, those who wish to carry on using the site can purchase access
for a day, a month, a year, or a decade. As before, once running costs are
covered, we intend to make donations to theatre companies that receive no
public subscription.
Please feel free to circulate this to any of your
contacts who might like to hear this news.
Tuesday 5 September 2017
Day Courses in 2018
One of the outcomes of my August 2017 weekend
on the English language was a request to have further days focusing on topics
in greater depth. As most enquiries have been made in relation to the following
topics, I will now host the following series for 2018. I haven't ruled out the possibility of repeating the general course, or covering other themes, but will wait for interest to be expressed before doing so.
Friday, 16 February
(during half-term), 9.30--4.00
Grammar Day
Introduction to English grammar; grammar in child language
acquisition; grammar in relation to reading and writing; grammar clinic
(dealing with questions raised by participants).
Wednesday, 30 May
(during half-term), 9.30--4.00
History of the
Language Day
Introduction to the history of the English language; Old
English, Middle English, Early Modern English; change in pronunciation,
grammar, and vocabulary; change and variation today.
Saturday and Sunday,
28-29 July, 9.30--4.00 with an evening film
or performance event
Shakespeare's
Language Weekend
Introduction to Shakespeare's use of vocabulary, grammar,
metre, orthography; his linguistic creativity; his influence on modern English;
the second day will be an introduction to original pronunciation, followed by a
workshop in which participants will be trained to use the accent for themselves
(and receive a certificate affirming they have taken such a course).
Cost: per day £150;
Early Bird £125 - includes morning and afternoon refreshment and buffet lunch
Certificates of attendance will be provided if required.
Booking
Because of the limited size and facilities of the venue,
places are limited to 50, so early booking is advised. An Early Bird discount
is available, up to two months before the event. People should book by mail to
the Ucheldre Centre, Millbank, Holyhead LL65 1TE, or directly through
boxoffice@ucheldre.org, or by phone 01407 763361. They will be sent a
registration form (via email or post, as requested) to be returned to the
Centre along with payment.
One- or two-day bespoke courses at mutually convenient times
can be programmed upon request (cost: £5K per diem), with the content decided
by the group (maximum 25 people). Six months notice is usually required.
All events are held in support of the Ucheldre Centre, a
community arts venue in Holyhead, and a registered charity.
Saturday 3 June 2017
English language weekend update
One never knows, with a new idea like this, whether it will appeal, or whether the people who have asked for it will actually come, given all the uncertainties in life that have to be managed. The purpose of the Early Bird registration was to establish whether, as they say, we have a 'goer'. That period is now over, and I'm pleased to report that we do.
I'm told by the Ucheldre Centre that enough people took advantage of Early Bird registration to make the event viable. So it's definitely on, and I'm very much looking forward to it. It looks to be a very mixed group, with attendees coming from as far away as Japan, along with several English-language teachers from the UK. The variety of backgrounds will I think add greatly to the occasion, and I'm really looking forward to it.
Details about the event can be found in the previous post. Places can be reserved by contacting the Ucheldre Centre Box Office: boxoffice@ucheldre.org
phone: (+44) 1407 763361 (10 am - 5 pm weekdays, 2 - 5 pm Sundays)
I'm told by the Ucheldre Centre that enough people took advantage of Early Bird registration to make the event viable. So it's definitely on, and I'm very much looking forward to it. It looks to be a very mixed group, with attendees coming from as far away as Japan, along with several English-language teachers from the UK. The variety of backgrounds will I think add greatly to the occasion, and I'm really looking forward to it.
Details about the event can be found in the previous post. Places can be reserved by contacting the Ucheldre Centre Box Office: boxoffice@ucheldre.org
phone: (+44) 1407 763361 (10 am - 5 pm weekdays, 2 - 5 pm Sundays)
post: David
Crystal Summer Weekend, Ucheldre Centre, Mill Bank, Holyhead, LL65 1TE, UK
Monday 6 March 2017
On an English language weekend
I've frequently been asked to put on a summer course for
people unable to attend the various lectures I give to schools, literary
festivals, and the like, and an opportunity has now arisen to do so. The
Ucheldre community arts centre in Holyhead (the name means 'high town' in Welsh) is
having a fund-raising campaign, and I've agreed to present a weekend in
support. I paste below the flyer that has been produced for the event, which
includes contact details.
David Crystal Summer Weekend on the English
Language
For anyone interested in the English language and how it
works
Saturday and Sunday 19-20 August 2017
David Crystal presents a series of his talks on the
structure, use, and history of the English language in this two-day event, to
be held in the Ucheldre Centre, Holyhead, Anglesey, North Wales. See www.ucheldre.org for the setting.
Day 1, 9.30 - 5.00
Language Structure - talks (including
Q&A) on the structure of English, pronunciation, punctuation, grammar,
spelling, and vocabulary.
Saturday evening is free, with the option of booking for
dinner at the Ucheldre Centre and an evening musical concert.
Day 2, 9.30 - 5.00
Language Variation and Change - talks
(including Q&A) on accents and dialects, the internet and texting, child
language acquisition, the future of Englishes, language play and literature,
and original pronunciation (with particular reference to Shakespeare).
Cost: £150 a day, to include buffet lunch, coffee and tea
Early Bird booking by 1 June 2017, £125 a day
Reserve a place by contacting
boxoffice@ucheldre.org
phone: (+44) 1407 763361 (10 am - 5 pm weekdays, 2 - 5 pm
Sundays)
post: David Crystal Summer Weekend, Ucheldre Centre, Mill
Bank, Holyhead, LL65 1TE, UK
On receipt of your reservation, you will be sent a
registration form which will include a place to inform the Centre of any
dietary/access requirements and whether you want to take up the dinner/concert
options, as well as details of local accommodation, restaurants, and (if you
want to bring family members) a list of Anglesey attractions.
Places are limited, so early booking is advised.
Nearest airports are Liverpool or Manchester; direct train
service (3-4 hours) from London Euston; by road, at the end of the A55; ferry
from Dublin.
The Ucheldre Centre has free wi-fi.
Wednesday 30 November 2016
On myths and the making of the OED
I've been pulled out of blog semi-retirement by a
correspondent who watched the BBC TV show QI last week. It had a sequence on
difficult-to-understand negatives, at which point one of the panellists (Gyles
Brandreth) made a number of assertions about the size of
vocabularies in languages, which my correspondent thought were wrong. She was
right.
How many words in English? He said there were 500,000 in the
OED. Wrong. There are well over 600,000 in the OED.
And of course the OED doesn't claim to include every word in
the language; it has, for example, always avoided including the most arcane
scientific terms (see further below). The new presenter of QI, Sandi Toksvig,
chipped in with 'a million' or more, but the point was drowned out. In fact,
the only correct answer to the question is 'we don't know'. Once all the
abbreviations, slang, regional dialect, global English lexicon, and specialized
scientific vocabulary are added, we are talking about an unknown number of
millions.
He then went on to say that English vocabulary is larger
than that of other languages, which may well be true, given its global reach
and its status as the first language of science, but then asserted that French has
only 200,000 words and German half that. Again, absurd notions, based on the
naive assumption that the words contained in the largest dictionaries equal the
words in the language.
It's sad to see such errors still being trotted out. Still?
See my post back in April 2009, 'On the biggest load of rubbish', when somebody
claimed to have found the millionth word in English.
But to be more positive: the most wonderful book has just
come out. I hate to use the word 'definitive' about any book, but this one justifies
it. It is by Peter Gilliver, and it is called The Making of the Oxford
English Dictionary. In its 625 pages we get a blow-by-blow, at times
even day-by-day account of the way the dictionary was conceived, planned, and
implemented, from its origins in the mid-19th-century to the present day. He
has trawled through all the correspondence in the Press's archives, and manages
to weld everything he found into an engaging story of all those involved - not
just the senior editors, but including everyone associated with the project,
and not forgetting the secretarial assistants. He has actually written two
books in one. Beneath the maintext is a footnote series that at times is a
story in itself.
It is fascinating, because what comes to light is a tale of
such human and dramatic character that it's amazing the dictionary was ever
completed at all. I had no idea, for example, just how much the project was
affected by illness, throughout its development. An attack of flu might cause a
serious delay in the production schedule - and that was just one of the minor
illnesses. Nor was I aware of how many differences of opinion there were
between the editors (eg over how many scientific terms to include), between the
editors and their academic advisors (including the Philological Society), and
between the editors and the managers of the Press (over policy, deadlines, and,
of course, money). Money is a recurring theme - from the Press's point of view,
a hugely expensive project that needed to pay for itself over time, and, from
the editorial point of view, a demanding schedule where salaries were dependent
on productivity - a situation that inevitably took its toll on health and
family life. Add to this concerns about reputation, both within the University
and abroad, and the inevitable personality clashes, and we get a riveting story
that Gilliver writes up brilliantly, even to the extent of giving us
chapter-ending cliffhangers. I can easily imagine a television drama coming out
of it.
Along with John Simpson's equally fascinating memoir, The Word Detective, it has
been a great year for the OED. I'm making my own additional contribution
next May, following up my book on the historical thesaurus, Words in
Time and Place. The new one is to be called The Story of Be
- a writing-up of the amazing amount of information on this tiny word to be
found in the OED entry. Its sub-title: A verb's-eye
view of the English language.
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