Michael Hancher
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michaelhancher.bsky.social
Michael Hancher
@michaelhancher.bsky.social
Sometime English professor, JHU and UMN; past president, Dictionary Society of North America. Victorian literature and art, book illustration, speech acts, interpretation, law.
https://sites.google.com/a/umn.edu/mh/
oed.com is tracking you now
November 10, 2025 at 1:38 AM
Unfortunately (or not) it's true (as AI says) that AI still fails this basic Turing test.
November 3, 2025 at 11:06 PM
SEEN BY PRESERVATION SERVICES
September 8, 2025 at 11:44 PM
ADMINISTRATION (in this case, at the Minnesota State Fair)
August 22, 2025 at 7:57 PM
First day lunch at the Fair.
August 21, 2025 at 6:08 PM
Today, sitting for an hour or so at the reading desk of a library (though admittedly online) I picked up this isolated truth before unknown to me: “He takes himself frequently to _the reading desks of the libraries_,” etc., as at:
August 5, 2025 at 4:51 AM
Daylilies
July 16, 2025 at 1:16 AM
"Speech-Act Jokes: Prologue and Postscript," an old conference paper. hdl.handle.net/11299/273762
July 3, 2025 at 7:17 PM
Part of a great exhibition, “LOCAL ROOTS, GLOBAL REACH: A Century of the University of Minnesota Press, 1925–2025,” Andersen Library, University of Minnesota, June 16–October 3. ‪@uminnpress.bsky.social @noctambulate.bsky.social
June 26, 2025 at 2:40 AM
“This book is confined | to the Library”
z.umn.edu/Cobbett
June 11, 2025 at 11:53 PM
Rosa alba semi-plena
June 7, 2025 at 8:03 PM
Festiva maxima, peony cultivar introduced in 1851 (same year as the Great Exhibition) by Auguste Joseph Miellez (1809–1860). hdl.handle.net/2027/chi.097...
June 6, 2025 at 12:47 AM
Apparently Minneapolis deserves credit for the peony cultivar Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt (shown here on the right), introduced in 1932 by Alonzo Barry Franklin (1858–1944) of Franklin Nursery, 61st and Portland archive.org/details/CAT3... (a later catalogue).
June 5, 2025 at 1:05 AM
Fortunately from the garden: Festiva maxima (1851) and Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt (1932).
June 4, 2025 at 12:15 AM
"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), works.hcommons.org/records/sh36...
June 3, 2025 at 10:51 PM
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
June 1, 2025 at 12:34 AM
Bluesky macaron.
April 25, 2025 at 3:45 PM
Remembering Professor Gordon Hirsch
cla.umn.edu/english/news...
December 20, 2024 at 8:21 PM
Unboxed once more. Imported by Walter Brackelmans & Co., Irvington N.J. U.S.A. 1940s.
December 19, 2024 at 8:14 PM
The Cambridge Handbook of the Dictionary is a material book (as well as online): doi.org/10.1017/9781...
Of special interest (at least to me): ch 10, “Illustrations in Dictionaries,” pp. 189–215
#Dictionaries #Illustration
@lynneguist.bsky.social @benzimmer.bsky.social
@petersokolowski.bsky.social
December 8, 2024 at 7:45 PM
Headline à la Holzer
December 8, 2024 at 1:39 AM