[Ads-l] Barry Popik?

[Shapiro, Fred]

I thought Barry's dropping off of ADS-L had more to do with his being offended by something I and two other "complete assholes" (Barry's terminology) did, rather than his politics.  But perhaps I am misremembering the situation.

The history of historical-lexicological research is full of unusual people, myself being one of them.  I believe Barry has contributed more to such research than anyone else besides myself.  His departure from ADS-L was a significant loss to the study of the English language, although it may be that much of the same material he would have contributed is on his impressive website.

Fred Shapiro



________________________________
From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of victor steinbok <aardvark66 at GMAIL.COM>
Sent: Friday, October 22, 2021 10:09 AM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Subject: Re: Barry Popik?

LinkedIn does not generate connection requests automatically. It does
*offer* you to request a connection with someone you think you should know.
If you have a request, it comes from the owner of the profile. If you have
a suggestion, it's likely from you email connections, generated by
LinkedIn. There's a difference in how these are processed by LinkedIn. When
you request a connection, it prompts you for some information on how you're
connected. If it's a suggested connection, there's less prompting. If it's
a requested connection, you're connected with one click.

Yes, it seems to be the same Barry Popik. I routinely see a suggested
connection on Facebook but not on LinkedIn. In case people forgot, he's
been staying off the list because of (his) politics. I'm not sure how his
political leanings have evolved in the past 5 years. But he's been
perfectly charming and extremely knowledgeable as long as politics isn't
implicated.

VS

On Wed, Sep 22, 2021, 09:20 Jesse Sheidlower <jester at panix.com> wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jesse Sheidlower <jester at PANIX.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Barry Popik?
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I'm not sure what's so unusual about this. There are different forms of
> requests, but whether it came from Barry directly or was generated
> automatically by LinkedIn, why wouldn't you assume that this is accurate?
>
> I am a first-degree connection with Barry on LinkedIn (a site that I find
> almost totally useless, for what it's worth), and his identifying info on
> the site is exactly what's being reported here--RPI degrees, JD from Truro,
> lives in Goshen--and what I know to be true because I know him. The picture
> is a picture of Barry. If the Barry-like person contacting you is also
> friends with me (and other language types like Ben Zimmer), you should be
> extremely sure that it's really our Barry. Whether you want to connect with
> him there is a separate thing, of course.
>
> Jesse Sheidlower
>
> On Tue, Sep 21, 2021 at 09:24:23PM -0400, Wilson Gray wrote:
> > > I doubt that he
> > > initiated the Linked-in message Jim Landau received.
> >
> > I've fallen for that one, myself. I was suckered into joining Facebook by
> > an invite supposedly from someone else who went to MIT, subsequently
> > becoming famous in the field, as this writer, sadly, has not. I'm still
> > cringing.
> >
> > On Tue, Sep 21, 2021 at 8:56 PM Cohen, Gerald Leonard <gcohen at mst.edu>
> > wrote:
> >
> > > The main news about Barry Popik is that he is continuing
> > > work on his extraordinary blog about words and expressions (
> barrypopik.com
> > > ).
> > > Barry was trained as an attorney ( don't know at which university), but
> > > Wikipedia mentions only his work on
> > > etymology:
> > > 'Barry Popik (born 1961) is an American etymologist.
> > > Popik is a consulting editor of the Oxford Encyclopedia
> > > of Food and Drink in America and was described in The Wall Street
> Journal
> > > as "the restless genius of American etymology".'
> > > Btw, he does live in Goshen, NY, and I doubt that he
> > > initiated the Linked-in message Jim Landau received.
> > >
> > > Gerald Cohen
> > > (who has co-authored several books with
> > > Barry)
> > > bcc: Barry Popik
> > >
> > > ________________________________
> > > From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of
> > > James Landau, jjjrlandau at NETSCAPE.COM
> > > Sent: Tuesday, September 21, 2021 7:00 PM
> > > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > > Subject: Barry Popik?
> > >
> > > I thought Barry Popik was living in Arizona, but I just got a
> mysterious
> > > LinkedIn connection request from "Barry Popik, BS Rensselaer
> Polytechnic,
> > > Doctor of Law Touro College". According to the LinkedIn request,
> > > Dr. Popik is living in Goshen, Orange County, New York.
> > > If this is our old ADS-L colleague, then the BS from Renssalaer implies
> > > a technical degree. Perhaps in nuclear physics, which could use an
> > > etymologist before it gets totally swamped by terminology like "quark",
> > > "muon", "Higgs boson", "collapse of the wave function", and "dark
> energy".
> > >
> > > James Landau
> > > jjjrlandau at netscape.com
> > >
> > > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > > The American Dialect Society -
> > >
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> >
> >
> > --
> > - Wilson
> > -----
> > All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint to
> > come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
> > -Mark Twain
> >
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