NEaT

It’s that time of year again: the OED has announced some of its new words.

You’ll have seen gigil in the news: an intense feeling caused by anger, eagerness, or the pleasure of seeing someone or something cute or adorable. There is usually a photo of a kitten doing its gigil-inspiring best. Though IMHO it would have been even better if the OED had linked it to squee in their historical thesaurus.

The historical thesaurus? It’s one of the glories of the OED and a useful resource for translators and editors. Off the record, it’s hours of endless fun. Like most entries in the OED, gigil ends with a link to all the similar terms from centuries of English (though not squee). Many entries also have a link to other types of English too, alongside the historical thesaurus. The new entry for class, complete with quote from Derry Girls, will carry you off to the early thirteenth century.

Now that’s gilden, prime, rare, and grand, isn’t it?

We’ve been spring-cleaning NEaT’s website recently. It’s work in progress, but the plan is to make it easier to find information about events and things like the agenda for the AGM. Talking of which, see you at the AGM in Helsinki or online on 10 April.

We’ll also be sending out reminders about membership fees. Keeping your membership up to date ensures you continue to enjoy the benefits of being part of our association. Uncertain how to go about it? There’s now a How to Pay page too.

If you haven’t visited the website recently, take a look and let us know what you think!

Library Genesis: no one can do everything, but everyone can do something. And you’d like to do something, then
(1) Search LibGen for your pirated work.
(2) Write to Meta telling them they don’t have the right to use it.

⌘ LibGen is an illegal pirate site used by Meta (Facebook, Insta) and other companies to train their generative AI. It has millions of stolen publications.

⌘ The Atlantic have a public search tool for LibGen where you can see if you’ve been pirated.

⌘ The Authors Guild have a template so you can write to the companies that have used your pirated work.

⌘ The Authors Guild have put together one of the clearest accounts of what is going on.

Respect to the Authors Guild and the Atlantic for their work on the LibGen scandal. Credit to the Authors Guild for the picture.