Projects to preserve some interesting words attracted some large grants Monday from the National Endowment for the Humanities to the University of Utah and Brigham Young University.

The University of Utah was awarded $262,863 for its Utah Digital Newspaper Project to help digitize 100,000 pages of Utah newspapers, dating from 1870 to 1922, as part of the National Digital Newspaper Program.

BYU was awarded $199,926 for a project to create a 200-million-word, fully searchable, Web-based historical data file of American English. The file will cover a wide range of texts from the 1800s through the early 2000s to study linguistic and stylistic changes over past centuries.

The two projects were among 154 national grant winners announced on Monday that will split $21.4 million in NEH grants.

"From libraries, historical societies and museums to colleges, universities and state humanities councils, these NEH grants will reach deeply into communities across the nation," said NEH Acting Chairman Carole M. Watson.

She added, "Whether it is a large-scale research project undertaken by colleagues across disciplines and continents, or members of a small town or rural community discussing a local exhibit, these important projects encourage the exchange of ideas and represent the best of humanities scholarship."

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