Stripper's Guide

Thursday, August 12 1908 -- Hot-tempered local librarian Charles Lummis has reviewed the Century Dictionary, a monstrous multi-volume American dictionary, and found it wanting, primarily in relation to many words associated with California, Latin American culture, and the West in general.

Lummis originally merely made some less than favorable remarks about the dictionary at an NEA convention, and two of the compilers, Benjamin Smith and Brander Matthews, made the mistake of accepting his remarks with some disdain. Lummis then started raising some very public hell about an entry about 'chili pepper trees', an entry claiming the Salton Sea had disappeared, less than complete definitions for rurales, chilacayote, the etymology of caballero, and more of the like.

I don't know if anything ever came of Lummis' objections, other than giving Herriman the raw material for a fun cartoon. However, no new editions were produced of the Century, so maybe Lummis did have his revenge.

Labels: Herriman's LA Examiner Cartoons

Hello All --
First and foremost, thanks so much for all the wonderful feedback already received about the book. Your public and private comments have been enormously gratifying. I could not have asked for a better, warmer reception!

I apologize for the ever-changing pricing and availability of the book on Amazon. That's beyond my and the publisher's control. However, keep in mind that my publisher is offering that 40% off deal, so if Amazon can't get their act together, it's their loss. On the other hand, I'd like to encourage anyone who has purchased the book, from Amazon or otherwise, to please post reviews on Amazon. In this strange modern world, your book isn't counted as a success until it is well-reviewed there!

I have been asked about reader submitted revisions and corrections. As I state in the book, I am always enthusiastic to hear from anyone who has additional or correcting information.You may contact me by posting a comment on the blog, or sending me email directly (to strippersguide@gmail.com). One thing to keep in mind -- the data for the book was submitted to the publisher three years ago, so if it happened since then, it isn't in the book, but not because I missed it.

Barring massive indifference, my hope is that new editions of the book will be issued eventually, so submitting your data is worthwhile; eventually it should be made public. I've already heard from some folks with some great additions and corrections. Of course, during the past three years my research has certainly not been at a standstill either, and I have loads of new information, too.

Finally, you may be wondering why the blog has been idle for a few weeks. Naturally I wanted to keep the book at the top of the page for awhile, and in a basic blog like this, the only way to continue to highlight something is to stop posting!

Although it may appear as if I took a vacation from the blog, I have by no means been vacationing. What I've been up to these past weeks is trying to build a new Stripper's Guide blogsite, one where I can implement all the neat features I've been dreaming about for years. On my break from blogging here, I've been learning Wordpress, which is a more high-end blog-builder, and trying to set up the new website with it.

Unfortunately all has come to naught. I've been with Earthlink as my web host for years, and rarely had anything but praise for them. But trying to set up a Wordpress site with them turned out to be useful only for seeing how high my blood pressure could rise. They say they support Wordpress, but only in the sense that they will let you install the basics of it -- if you actually want to use it as more than a toy, forget it. The amount of time they made me waste, troubleshooting mysterious problems and trying to get a straight answer out of their support staff, verges on the criminal.

So now I'm back to square one, and shopping around for a good web host that supports Wordpress 100%. If anyone has recommendations, I'd love to hear from you. Until I get all that straightened out, and get back on the horse of website building, I'm back to blogging here. I'm going to need a little time to get back up to speed, so first new post will come this Saturday.