Welcome to Brain Stuff, a production of iHeartRadio.

Hey, Brain Stuff, Lauren Volvobom here.

Oxford University Press is the publisher that compiles the Oxford English Dictionary.

This reference work not only updates as new words and meanings into our lexicon.

For example, their word of the year for 2022 was goblin mode, but it's also a historical

guide to how our language has developed over, you know, the past millennia or so.

And now they are teaming up with the Hutchins Center for African and African American

Research at Harvard University for a new project, creating the Oxford Dictionary of African

American English.

It's being spearheaded by the Hutchins Center's director, Henry Lewis Gates Jr.

He's known for lots of stuff, helping people explore their ancestry, writing books,

and hosting documentaries, among other things.

And he's already served as the co-editor of the Dictionary of African Biography.

But this current project is a scholarly initiative meant to be, to quote Oxford's website,

the definitive reference for information about the meaning, pronunciation, spelling, usage,

and history of African American English words.

Entries in the work, in addition to the words their definitions and pronunciations,

will include usage examples, serving to, quote, acknowledge the contributions of African

American writers, thinkers, and artists, as well as everyday African Americans, to the

evolution of the US English lexicon and the English lexicon as a whole.

Perhaps the most exciting part of the project is that the editors are asking the public

to submit words and ideas.

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