So far I’m the only entrant. I guess that means I’ll just have to keep the prizes…
Posts Tagged 'oxford university press spring sale'
Dead Language Geek Photo Contest ends at midnight tonight
Published 22 May 2009 Uncategorized 5 CommentsTags: BDAG, big liddell, competitions for geeks, dead language contest, e. a. sophocles, fun photos, great scott, Greek, Latin, little liddell, middle liddell, my kids will latin and greek when they're newborns, my kids will learn latin and greek when they're newborns, oxford latin dictionary, oxford university press spring sale, payne smith, photo contest for language geeks, Syriac, the only good language is a dead language
Official “Dead Language Geek Photo Contest” entry post
Published 7 May 2009 Academia , General 2 CommentsTags: BDAG, big liddell, competitions for geeks, dead language contest, e. a. sophocles, fun photos, great scott, Greek, Latin, little liddell, middle liddell, my kids will latin and greek when they're newborns, my kids will learn latin and greek when they're newborns, oxford latin dictionary, oxford university press spring sale, payne smith, photo contest for language geeks, Syriac, the only good language is a dead language
And here… we… go.
From top to bottom:
Bantam New College Latin & English Dictionary, Smythe Greek Grammar, Middle Liddell, Payne Smith Compendious Syriac Dictionary, BDAG, Sophocles Glossary of Later and Byzantine Greek, Great Scott, OLD.
Refresher on the plan:
Find a creative way to picture yourselves with your ginormous dead language reference materials. If that’s a photo, great. If that’s a video, great. Just come up with something. Mine’s pretty obvious; you can do better than that.
Post it on Flickr or Twitpic or YouTube or wherever, and then leave a link as a comment on this post.
You have until 22 May 2009 to take your picture and post your link (which means I also have that long to come up with a prize or prizes).
Multiple entries are fine.
Tweet this, Facebook it, e-mail it around, put it up in skywriting — but I want to see as many entries as possible. I’m quite serious about this. Let’s show the world we’ve got big, heavy, obscure books, and we’re not ashamed of that.
Get ready, get set — go! Have fun!
“It’s the Oxford Latin Dictionary!” “Great Scott!” “Yes, that too!”
Published 7 May 2009 Academia , General 1 CommentTags: BDAG, big liddell, competitions for geeks, dead language contest, fun photos, great scott, Greek, Latin, little liddell, middle liddell, my kids will latin and greek when they're newborns, my kids will learn latin and greek when they're newborns, oxford latin dictionary, oxford university press spring sale, photo contest for language geeks, the only good language is a dead language
Of course, I caved. I mean, I can actually sort of justify buying them now that I’m going to be a real grad student and stuff.
Besides, Megan and I can both use the OLD. At what comes to a 60% net discount, it just makes sense, right?
On top of that — who needs weights when you have multiple 10lb dictionaries you can lift? Really, somebody should come up with a routine for six-pack abs that involves these things. Then we people who do obscure languages could argue that there are health benefits.
And, as you see, they’re so shiny and new, they’re reflecting each other in their jackets.
For purposes of scale:
From bottom to top, that’s the Big Liddell/Great Scott, the Oxford Latin Dictionary, the BDAG, the Middle Liddell, and then the Bantam New College Latin & English Dictionary.
When I posted the link to the sale, I said to send me pictures of you with your purchases, but let’s expand that, because I don’t think that’s geeky enough.
No, not by half.
Here’s what I want you to do:
Take all of your scholarly dictionaries — grammars are okay too, I suppose — and find a way to arrange them creatively and photograph yourself with them. Creatively edit the photo if you want, too. When I say creative, that gives you very broad license. Let your dead language nerd freak flag fly. Heck, if you even want to figure out a way to do a video, I’d love to see it.
Post your own result on Flickr or Twitpic or YouTube or somewhere, and then post the link as a comment on a post I will put up tonight. Let’s say you have till Friday, 22 May — that gives time to get the word out that somebody really is crazy enough to ask for this, and it will be between Star Trek and Terminator: Salvation for movie releases. Do it on Friday, 15 May instead of going to see Angels and Demons (what’s sad is, I’ve never read the book and don’t plan to, have no idea what the story actually is from the trailers and have zero intention of seeing the film, but it is patently obvious who the real bad guy is the way the trailer is edited, much as was the case with Mel Gibson’s Payback).
Do I have a prize? I don’t know. I’ll try to come up with something.
So, forward this around to other language geeks. Tweet it. Put it on Facebook, MySpace, Craigslist, whatever.
I’m serious about this. An academic year has come and gone; something insane is called for.
Get to it.
In case you’ve been wondering what to get me as a gift…
Published 1 May 2009 Academia , General 3 CommentsTags: big liddell, gift ideas for richard, great scott, Greek, Latin, oxford latin dictionary, oxford university press spring sale, please stop laughing, Tip Jar, tip jars
(…since I know that’s a question keeping all of you up nights…)
Oxford University Press is having a rather amazing spring sale right now. Two items of particular interest:
Oxford Latin Dictionary, $120.75 (regular price: $345)
A Greek-English Lexicon (a/k/a “The Big Liddell” or “The Great Scott”), $85.00 (regular price: $170)
Either of these would be perfectly acceptable “Hey, congratulations on leaving a halfway-decent job to go be a professional student for the next six years” presents. Alternately, you could use the TipJoy Tip Jar link the Tip Jar page with the PayPal button to help pay for my side trip to Istanbul while I’m in Greece.
Or, when you’re all done laughing yourselves to tears over the very idea proposed here, you could take advantage of the sale to order these fine items for yourself and then e-mail me a picture of yourself with them, if that’s your taste and times being what they are.
Leitourgeia kai Qurbana: Contra den Zeitgeist 