June 13, 2007

Calling all Chicagoland neologizers

I'm off to the sixteenth biennial conference of the Dictionary Society of North America, which gets underway tomorrow on the campus of the University of Chicago. The program for the conference proper (schedule HTML, PDF) would likely interest only the most diehard lexico-fiends, but there's a new event this year that's open to the public and should be a lot of fun. If you're in the Chicago area and you've coined a word that you think deserves a place in the English lexicon, come to the first-ever New Word Open Mic, where a panel of distinguished judges will select the best neologism. It's all happening Saturday, June 16th, from 4:30 to 5:45 in Breasted Hall at the U of C's Oriental Institute. Erin McKean, organizer of this year's conference, has more details on her Dictionary Evangelist blog.

Posted by Benjamin Zimmer at June 13, 2007 08:50 AM