One of the great things about working at RCI is that it gives me the opportunity to meet really smart people.
Sali Tagliamonte is one of them
Tagliamonte, who loves words, has visited 16 communities in her native province in pursuit of individual cultural flavours. (Courtesy: University of Toronto)
She’s a linguistics professor at the University of Toronto who takes her study of language to the streets, finding out how people actually talk, before proceeding to document it.
One of Tagliamonte’s missions is to bring new Canadian words, or new definitions of already-included words, to the Oxford English Dictionary. (What was it someone one said about ‘coals to Newcastle?’)
So far, as you will hear in our interview, we–as Canadians–are not doing all that hot in adding words to OED’s hallowed pages.
Tagliamonte, who wonders why there are under 300 ‘Canadian’ words in the Oxford English Dictionary, is always looking for more. (CBC)
According to a CBC story about her published today, out of 600,000 words in the OED, only around 700 entries are dubbed “Canadian.”
Pretty paltry, eh?
(Actually, it’s less than that, as I found out when I spoke by phone this morning with Tagliamonte in Toronto.)
Listen
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