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Interests include Victorian studies; book history; lexicography; pragmatics, literature, and the law; and digital humanities. Past president of Dictionary Society of North America (http://www.dictionarysociety.com/).

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Unfortunately (or not) it's true (as AI says) that AI still fails this basic Turing test. (2025-11-04 ↗)


Just announced: Macaulay and English in India https://www.routledge.com/Macaulay-and-English-in-India/Hancher/p/book/9781032454849 (2025-10-28 ↗)


"Physical books are also being threatened in what used to be their citadel: the library." Aiden and Michel, Uncharted (2014). For details, pro and con, see Duplicate Books, Facsimiles, and Weeds: A Bibliography with Excerpts, for Scholars and Librarians (2021), https://hcommons.org/deposits/item/hc:33963/ (2025-06-04 ↗)


"for now" https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=for+now&year_start=1800&year_end=2022&corpus=en&smoothing=3 (2025-06-03 ↗)


New English Dictionary on Historical Principles (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1888-1928). Recent acquisition by Buffalo & Erie County Public Library (more volumes in another display case). #DSNA25 (2025-06-01 ↗)


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    Michael Hancher

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    Active 2 years, 4 months ago