2025 Life Review

My resolutions from last year were pretty useless and boring, so I'm not even going to review them here (though things related to them might come up under the following categories).

It was a year of important birthdays for everyone in the house. I threw Phil a party in a pub, organised a couple of nice days for G's, and for mine, I have a series of new experiences to have before my next birthday. I've had 11 so far...

Eating and exercising: Not having bread in the house is continuing to work for us. I have not lost weight, but I've kept it at the slightly lower place that it got to after starting Zoe. 

Like last year, I'm doing two online classes on Saturday mornings (which has miraculously lasted, even though there is almost never more than two of us in each of the classes). Phil and I are still going to a trainer once a week and we're getting some use out of the dumbbells we got last year for Christmas. My 'get on the floor' every day resolution from two years ago remains, but now I've added a couple of exercises while I'm down there...  I walked 500 steps/day more than last year. I'd like to increase that again for next year.

Making: not a lot of making going on...just alumin(i)um stars and dictionary badges toward the end of the year.



Travel: a lot of it this year

  • Maybe this shouldn't count as 'travel', but Phil and I a nice overnight above a pub in St Leonard's in January.

  • Three nights in Dublin with Phil in March (a hotel room we needed to use after cancelling a trip last year). Highlights: distillery tour, emigration museum, and the best grilled/toasted cheese and soup ever.

  • Three weeks in upstate NY in May-June, including a week in fancy B&Bs in Buffalo, a very fun weekend with Nancy (following the trail of the Buffalo Pothole Bandit) and the rest with Dad and family (and a nice visit from Celeste).


  • Four nights in lovely lovely Lisbon for a conference in June. Highlight = Casa Fernando Pessoa—the best literary museum I think I've been to. 

  • Three nights in Cardiff (whole nuclear family) to meet up with Celeste & Andy (highlight: Cardiff Castle). Then the nuclears had two nights in Bath (highlights: American Museum, Thermae Spa, and a fantastic Italian meal), then three nights at Matt & Juliet's in Shropshire (highlights: the Poetry Pharmacy in Bishop's Castle and sitting round a bonfire).  

  • The BIGGIE: two weeks in Guangzhou in September, my first trip to China. Highlights: just experiencing China, boat trip down the Pearl River (watching the LED covered buildings), and THE FOOD. Oh my goodness, the food.


  • And if I counted the night in St Leonards, then I have to count the night in London (Waterloo) with the nuclears for my birthday in October.  Highlights: Grayson Perry at the Wallace Collection, Gary Gulman at the Soho Theatre, and Gilbert + George at the Hayward Gallery. 


Work life

Based on a 5-day week (excluding holidays), I worked 8.97 hours/day in 2025, which was up on last year. However, if we take out public (Lynneguist) activities and editing the journal, that goes down to 7.62 hours—i.e. just about right for university work. 

I was on leave in spring, and worked some on the 'small words' book, but I became despondent over the state of book publishing, and turned my efforts to work that is more likely to be ready for the 2029 REF exercise.

When I returned from research leave, I took on a new admin post: Assessment Lead for Media, Arts and Humanities. Much of the role is related to the bureaucracy that comes with the English degree-classification system, but I'm enjoying thinking about assessment and learning about how other degrees in MAH work.  

Publications:
New research (conference papers, grant application):
  • Started a new project on definiteness in dictionary definitions and gave a seminar (Sussex) and two conference papers on it at the Dictionary Society of North America and the International Conference for Historical Lexicology and Lexicography conferences. 
  • Applied for a British Academy Small Grant for a new project on function word lexicography. Made the cut, but was not chosen in the lottery the first time. Waiting for the second lottery—and if it doesn't get funded then, it'll die.

Teaching/supervision:
  • I am in MOURNING, because I have taught the first-year module for which I developed the adopt-a-word assessment for the last time. It went well, which makes it all the harder to give it up for the new curriculum. *sob*
  • Other teaching went fine, and I got funding to take a group of students to Dr Johnson's House in London, where one of the students drew this with a quill.


  • I got to supervise two University of Chicago students as International Junior Research Associates in the summer.
  • In addition to my continuing PhD students, I had a visiting student from Guangdong UFS for the year. I've just learned that she's passed her viva back in China and has got a postdoc. (Yay!)
Invited talks:
  • Academic:
    • on please at UCL
    • as Distinguished Overseas Scholar at the Center for Lexicographical Studies, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, four 80-minute talks on various current and past work
  • Professional:
    • on editors and changing English (via Zoom): Association of Freelance Editors, Proofreaders and Indexers of Ireland
  • Public:
    • [not work-related]  two more outings for Undertakings in Brighton & Shoreham
    • one more outing of (an abbreviated version of) my Wordle talk
    • (I wrote no new talks this year!)
Some media highlights:
  • On on British childrens' use of Americanisms: interviewed for The Sunday Times (which was then quoted in lots of other newspaper's articles), USA Today, Radio 4's The World at One (Boxing Day) and the Lexis podcast (which was the most satisfying of the bunch)
  • On general British–American differences, the Anglotopia podcast. 
  • On please US–UK difference, interviewed for Newsweek.
  • On the 'most American' and 'most British' words, interviewed for Washington Post.
  • Commenting on a study on lexical elaboration across languages, in Scientific American.
Plus: