Author: Tyler Hughes

OED Adds LOL and OMG to its Online Dictionary

Tyler Hughes

In its last update, the Oxford English Dictionary included several initialisms – or abbreviations that are made up of the first letter in a series of words and spoken like a word – to its online dictionary. Included in this update are the initialisms LOL, OMG and Wag (that’s Laugh Out Loud, Oh My Gosh and Wives and Girlfriends, usually of athletes). Some of you might be saying, Wait aren’t those just acronyms? Well, yes and no. Technically an acronym is just an initialism that is sounded out letter by letter, like FBI or CEO. An initialism is spoken as if it were a plain word, like Wag or Scuba.

Much like we did when we first read this, some of you out there may be bemoaning the fall of the English language. If we start accepting words created by the Twitterati to limbo under the 140-character limit then where will it stop? Will we soon see words like “strategery” and “refudiate” ushered in to the hallowed pages of the Oxford English Dictionary? The OED doesn’t seem to think so.

The OED has a certain criteria for admitting words to the dictionary. Some of the criteria include how long the word has been around, independent instance of the word being used and a general level of social understanding of the word.

So, for example, if we take the acronym LOL and hold it up to the test. It has been around for a decent amount of time (the OED cites that LOL goes back as far as 1960 to refer to a Little Old Lady), the word gets used all the time by media outlets and individuals and everyone knows exactly what it means. According to these criteria LOL deserves to be included in the OED.

What do you think? Do words like LOL, OMG or Wag deserve to be included in the official tome of the English language? Sound off in our comment section below.

 

Local Favorites to Check Out Before the Alison Hawthorne Deming Reading Tomorrow

Tyler Hughes

For a literary mind there’s not much that can top good reads, except maybe good eats, and if you’re going to be in town for tomorrow’s Alison Hawthorne Deming reading you’re probably going to want a little of both. We’ve put together the short, short list of local favorites around ASU for you to check out while you’re in Tempe.

Four Peaks Brewery is less than a mile from campus and boasts great craft brews and really good food. Originally built in 1892, the building that Four Peaks occupies used to be Pacific Creamery and then later Bordens Creamery. Despite the fact that cows used to live there, the exposed red brick, wooden beams and a thirty five foot high glass clerestory is a very appealing place to hang out with friends. Try the Italian Beef Beer Bread or the Salmon BLT, both local favorites. Map here.

1340 East 8th Street #104, Tempe, AZ 85281, (480) 303-9967 ‎

 

photo by metromix.com

The Cartel Coffee Lab is a favorite local hangout for ASU students. Located just a half mile West of ASU’s Tempe campus, you can sometimes smell the aroma of roasting coffee, roasted in house, wafting down the streets. Cartel offers a great cup of coffee or a light snack, if you’re not hungry enough for a full meal. It can be a little bit hard to find though. It’s on the Southwest side of Ash Ave behind Buffalo Exchange. Don’t worry if you can’t find it at first, just follow your nose. Map here.

225 West University Drive, Tempe, AZ 85281, (480) 225-3899

House of Tricks is just a block away from campus. In fact, you can sit on their spacious

photo by domesticbliss

patio and watch ASU students come and go. They have a great lunch and dinner menu that you can enjoy from one of the two converted houses on the property, or on their comfortably shaded patio, the highlight being the bar constructed around an old tree between the houses . And when you’re done with you’re meal you’ll only have to walk about a block to campus. Map here.

114 East 7th Street, Tempe, AZ 85281-3711, (480) 968-1114

 

If none of these places entice you there is always Mill Ave just two blocks from campus. Mill is home to numerous restaurants and eateries, such as RA Sushi, Corleone’s for Philly Cheesesteaks, Irish pub Rula Bula, Gordon Biersch, La Boca pizzeria, My Big Fat Greek Restaurant, P.F. Chang’s, Z-Tejas Southwestern Grill and Robbie Fox’s Public House. Map them all here.

Don’t forget to check out the Facebook page for the Alison Hawthorne Deming reading tomorrow on the Tempe campus at 7 p.m.

Reminder: Alison Hawthorne Deming Reading This Wednesday

Tyler Hughes

This coming Wednesday ASU will be hosting a reading by author, poet and professor of Creative Writing at the University of Arizona, Alison Hawthorne Deming. The reading will take place at Arizona State University on the Tempe Campus in the Education Lecture Hall EDC Room 117 from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.  Check out the Superstition Review Facebook page for full details.

Alison Hawthorne Deming is author of four poetry books, most recently Rope (Penguin Poets, 2009). This was preceded by Science and Other Poems, which won the Walt Whitman Award, The Monarchs: A Poem Sequence, and Genius Loci. She has published three nonfiction books, Temporary Homelands, The Edges of the Civilized World, and Writing the Sacred Into the Real. Among her awards are two NEA Fellowships, a Wallace Stegner Fellowship, Fine Arts Work Center Fellowship, Bayer Award in Science Writing from Creative Nonfiction, Pablo Neruda Prize from Nimrod, and the Best Essay Gold GAMMA Award from the Magazine Association of the Southeast. She is Professor in Creative Writing at the University of Arizona.

 

Alison Hawthorne Deming Reading

Tyler Hughes

This coming Wednesday, April 13, ASU will be hosting a reading by Alison Hawthorne Deming. She will be reading a selection of poems and short prose pieces from her new manuscript, ZOOLOGIES. The reading will take place at Arizona State University on the Tempe Campus in the Education Lecture Hall EDC Room 117. It will take place from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.  Check out the Superstition Review Facebook page for full details.

Alison Hawthorne Deming is author of four poetry books, most recently Rope (Penguin Poets, 2009). This was preceded by Science and Other Poems, which won the Walt Whitman Award, The Monarchs: A Poem Sequence, and Genius Loci. She has published three nonfiction books, Temporary Homelands, The Edges of the Civilized World, and Writing the Sacred Into the Real. She co-edited with Lauret Savoy The Colors of Nature: Essays on Culture, Identity, and the Natural World, just out in a new expanded edition. Her work has been widely published and anthologized, including in The Norton Book of Nature Writing and Best American Science and Nature Writing. Among her awards are two NEA Fellowships, a Wallace Stegner Fellowship, Fine Arts Work Center Fellowship, Bayer Award in Science Writing from Creative Nonfiction, Pablo Neruda Prize from Nimrod, and the Best Essay Gold GAMMA Award from the Magazine Association of the Southeast. She is Professor in Creative Writing at the University of Arizona.

 

Submissions Period For Issue 7 Now Closed

Tyler Hughes

The submission period for Superstition Review Issue 7 is now closed. Thank you to everyone who submitted. Keep an eye out for the launch of Issue 7, sometime in May. Also keep in mind that Alison Hawthorne Deming will be reading at ASU on April 13th. Check out the Superstition Review Facebook page for full details.

We look forward to seeing more of your submissions this fall for Superstition Review’s 8th Issue. Happy writing.

 

Submission Period Ending March 31st and Alison Hawthorne Deming Reading

Tyler Hughes

The Superstition Review submission period for Issue 7 ends tomorrow March 31st. There is still time to submit for publication. Just make sure you get your submission in on the 31st.  Any later and you will have to wait till Fall to submit.

This has been a great year for literature and our fiction, nonfiction, poetry and art editors have been busy all semester viewing your submissions. With our reading period ending they will soon be turning their attention to making those submissions ready to go print.

In other literary news the upcoming Alison Hawthorne Deming reading at Arizona State University’s Tempe campus is coming up in just about three weeks. The reading will take place in the Education Lecture Hall EDC Room 117. It will take place on Wednesday, April 13th from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. Check out the Superstition Review Facebook page for full details.