Just got news that the Eat More Words project has been defeated:
Hello Eat More Words subscribers.
Alas. After months of delays and elaborate plans and hopes for the future and dreams of words, words, and more words, we have some sad news. The powers that be in the land of the OED Online have decided that EMW does not qualify for access to their services. Despite our non-profit status through the Apicule Foundation. Despite the fact that other organizations provide online access to the OED to their members in very similar ways to what we proposed. We've tried to appeal the decision, but have had no luck, and unfortunately have to abandon the plans to provide OED access.
So now we have some of your money and we need to figure out what to do with that. We'd like to offer you a few choices - please select one and let us know.
1) Refund the full amount of my subscription/donation (in most cases, $10)
2) Refund my subscription/donation minus the Paypal fees we incurred (in most cases, $9.41)
3) Donate my subscription/donation funds to the National Center For Family Literacy (www.ncfl.org) or PEN (http://www.pen.org/)
We're sorry this didn't work out as we'd hoped.
There are other ways to access the OED online, if you're interested. In the US, you might see if your library offers online access. If it doesn't, you can join the Multnomah County library online (http://www.multcolib.org/card/cardnew.html) for $70, which gives you access to various other online databases as well (http://www.multcolib.org/ref/remote.html).
We're really sad that we couldn't bring you the heaps of words we'd hoped to, and we hope that you will still be our friends and still send us interesting word-related things when you find them.
Best,
Caterina & Judith
ps. Want to use the EMW site for something spectacular? Let us know. The best idea (with a demonstrated commitment to actually get something going there, unlike what we did) can have the domain name.
Our menagerie is two animals smaller this evening, after our parakeets, Ozzie and Harriet, passed away suddenly.
Their near-simultaneous deaths come as rather a shock; both had seemed hale and hardy, even though they were somewhat old in bird-years. But I think they may be victims of this week's heat wave. We had been keeping their cage outside on the back porch, which they loved, because they could chirp at the other birds. We figured they would be okay in the heat -- parakeets being tropical birds and all -- but I think we may have underestimated the difference between tropical heat and dry desert heat. Unfortunately, we didn't have any warning of their distress; we had no idea anything was wrong until we realized that the regular chirping from the porch had ceased. When I went outside to check on them, they had already passed on to bird heaven. Heat stroke, I guess.
Although I didn't have the same degree of emotional bond with these parakeets as I did with the old Loomer-Loy family pets (Birdy-Bird, Yellow Bird and Birdy Tom), I feel just terrible about this, since it was probably entirely preventable. The whole thing makes me feel rather neglectful. But I guess it's one of life's lessons. I just hope they didn't suffer too much.