Neological Research

My last year and a half as an undergraduate saw me conducting research for the professor of English whose "History of the English Language" classes I'd attended for my senior seminar. My professor's speciality was following the development of new words, or neology; he also had a hand in the compilation of several dictionaries.

When I knew him one of his projects was creating a catalog of words used in American English that have British derivations. My job was to take yellow high-lighter in hand, work my way through the three sets of dictionaries that I was provided, and highlight entries that were designated as British (as opposed to French, German, etc.). In short, my job was reading dictionaries.