Sterling Martin was in grad school, studying C. elegans worms, when COVID19 hit and suddenly he found himself in lexicography, as part of a team creating a Navajo-English dictionary of science terms. Browse the dictionary at EnableNavajo.org, and donate to help the project add more educational materials at navajobiology.square.site. Find out more about this episode and the topics therein, and obtain the transcript, at theallusionist.org/projectenable. Become a member of the Allusioverse at theallusionist.org/donate and as well as keeping this independent podcast going, you get regular livestreams and watchalong parties - AND to hang out with your fellow Allusionauts in our delightful Discord community. Support the show: http://patreon.com/allusionist See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
This is the illusionist, in which I, Helen Zaltzman, take a photo of language pretending to hold up the leaning Tower of Pisa.
But what language doesn't know until too late is that I deliberately framed it wrong so it just looks like language is standing in front of the leaning tower of Pisa, holding its arm out like a little teapot.
Earlier this year, I attended a dictionary conference.
Yes, heaven is a place on earth.
Belinda Carlyle must also have been to the Dictionary Society of North America's biennial conference.
I learned a lot and met some very interesting people working in lexicography, and over this episode and the next couple, you'll hear from some of them.
Content note this episode contains fleeting references to medical conditions, including cancer and Covid, but not any descriptions or experiences thereof.
It's an upbeat episode about a great project combining science and lexicography.
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My PhD thesis was looking at embryonic development using C.
Elegans, which is a type of wormhood.
Cool.
Basically, we studied worms as a way of teasing apart different genetic networks to figure out what can help an embryo develop and then apply what we learn into, like other organisms, such as mice and humans and fish.
So how did you go from worms to lexicography?