Month: October 2017
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Halloween word-play
Ghost We all know the most commonly-used meaning of the noun ‘ghost’. According to Oxford Dictionaries, a ghost is ‘an apparition of a dead person which is believed to appear or become manifest to the living, typically as a nebulous image’. But are you as familiar with the verb, used in a relationship sense? To…
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The lighter side of the Oxford Children’s Word of the Year
The word ‘equality’ might have been the Oxford Word of the Year, but not all entries tackled the big issues of our time. Many of the entries from primary school students across Australia were funny and imaginative, bringing a smile to our faces as we read through the stories to put together our shortlist of…
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‘Equality’ named the Oxford Children’s Word of the Year
After countless hours reviewing hundreds of entries, Oxford University Press Australia and New Zealand has announced its 2017 Children’s Word of the Year: equality. The word is a result of an Australia-wide writing competition in which students from Grade Prep to Grade 6 submitted a piece of free writing up to 500 words based on…
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Thirty years of Winnie and Wilbur: author Q&A
The much-loved duo of Winnie the witch and Wilbur her cat have celebrated their 30th year. Friday the 13th of October marked three decades since Oxford University Press published the book series. Winnie and Wilbur are popular around the world, including in the UK, where they stared in a stage show in Birmingham and debuted…
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What makes a word an Australian Law Dictionary word?
By General editor of the Australian Law Dictionary, Trischa Mann Legal language is rich and diverse. It’s no exaggeration to say there are tens of thousands of legal words. Some are specially defined in legislation, others are refined over time by judges, but most are given their ‘natural meaning’. To find that meaning, lawyers uses…
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Bogans are not what they used to be, according to the latest dictionary update
If you thought you knew the definition of a bogan, think again. Language is a continuously changing landscape, in which new words appear, others fade out of general usage and some evolve and take on different meanings. Bogan is one of the evolving terms that attracted the attention of the team at the Australian National…
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What do selfie stick, paleo diet and whatevs have in common?
Oxford University Press Australia & New Zealand today launched the sixth edition of its renowned Australian Concise Oxford Dictionary, which includes more than 2000 new entries and over 3000 updates to existing words. Edited by Mark Gwynn and Amanda Laugesen from the Australian National Dictionary Centre (ANDC) at The Australian National University, the sixth edition…
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Child voice and participation in decision-making relating to research, policy and practice
By Rebekah Grace In the late 1990s I was working on my PhD research, which focused on the experiences of children and adolescents with Tourette’s syndrome. I came to know an insightful young man—let’s call him Jared—who drew a picture to describe what it’s like to be a nine-year-old boy who has a lot of…