Welcome to this week’s Language Blog Roundup, in which we bring you the highlights from our favorite language blogs and the latest in word news and culture.

In word of the year news, Dictionary.com’s selection for 2013 is privacy; Geoff Nunberg, like Oxford Dictionaries, is going with selfie; and Collins Dictionary has chosen geek. Curious about the origin of geek, dork, and other nerdy words? Check out this post from io9.

Meanwhile twerk is the word TIME readers most want banished from the English language, and bitcoin is the Australian National Dictionary Centre’s wordy pick of the year. And where there’s bitcoin, there are bitcoinaires, as spotted and explained by Barry Popik.

In other language news, in Norway all library books must be digitized by law; a Jane Austen portrait sold for almost 165,000 pounds; and New York Times book reviewer, Michiko Kakutani offered her 10 favorite books of the year.

This week we learned the origin of the word hipster; how to tell statements from questions in Valley Girl talk; and what the heck “the Desolation of Smaug” means. At The Atlantic Megan Garber wondered if delightful is the new cool, Deborah Fallows taught us the language of the skies, and, as reported by the CBC, we discovered that the L’Académie française decided that sexting in French is not sextos but textopornographie.

Ben Zimmer traced the history of the phrase embrace the suck, recently uttered by Nancy Pelosi. Arika Okrent gave us eight beautiful snow scenes from literature and 11 proclitic words such as ‘tis, ‘twas, and ‘twere. Grammar Girl explained why we call people redheads and not orangeheads.

From the OUP blog  is a post on the different shades of gray and grey, and from OxfordWords Blog, the lasting impression of fictional titles. From Barry Popik we got the story behind the phrase Wolf of Wall Street.

In words of the week, Fritinancy selected scrumpy, “rough cider made from dried or withered apples,” and affluenza, “a painful, contagious, socially transmitted condition of overload, debt, anxiety and waste resulting from the dogged pursuit of more.”

The Word Spy spotted attention theft, “the intrusion on a person’s attention by unwanted and unauthorized text, sounds, or images”; participatory Panopticon, “an all-encompassing system of surveillance created by the people being watched through their use of mobile technologies and trackable transactions”; and gift creep, “a gradual increase in the value or extent of one‘s gift-giving.”

The Dialect Blog looked at the changing meaning of nauseous; the “sickness” accent; and young New Zealand English.

Peter Leonard wrote a tender obituary for his father, Elmore. The New Yorker told us about David Foster Wallace’s favorite grammarian and recapped this year’s literary feuds. Maria Popova told us about authors’ sleeping habits versus their literary productivity.

This week we also learned about the origins of the word sheeple and how to talk like a real-life line cook. We loved this round-up of (some NSFW) band names, these Japanese love hotel names that could be band names, and these 20 famous authors as dolls (Ernest Hemingway action figure? yes please!).

Tired of selfies? You’re in luck: now there’s the shelfie.

Wordnik shelfie

Don’t feel like working? You’re in luck again. Check out this OED birthday word generator and find out which words originated the year of your birth.

That’s it for this week! Until next time, happy holidays!

(Photo: CC BY 2.0 by LuChOeDu]

Welcome to this week’s Language Blog Roundup, in which we bring you the highlights from our favorite language blogs and the latest in word news and culture.

We were saddened by the passing of Nelson Mandela. Mandela was a leader in the anti-apartheid movement and served 27 years in prison for “sabotage and conspiracy to overthrow the government.” Upon his release he sought to abolish apartheid, becoming in 1994 South Africa’s first black president. Mandela was 95.

In language news, we learned about millions of people in China who resist speaking Mandarin, preferring their native dialects. U.S. military slang expanded dramatically during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and Code Switch at NPR told us why Chaucer said ax instead of ask, and why some still do.

Teddy Wayne at The New York Times considered the death of the catchphrase. Mark Bowden at The Atlantic praised fancy words and BBC News wants to bring back some fun old words. Meanwhile, Android has a bizarre list of banned words.

In case you didn’t know, it’s almost Christmas, and Arika Okrent rounded up six grammar points to watch out for Christmas songs. Don’t know what to get the bibliophile in your life? Get some ideas from this roundup of Best Books articles from Reverb. Still confused? Try NPR’s Book Concierge, an interactive guide to 2013’s best reads.

Did you know the period is pissed? Yes. It. Is. And using all caps isn’t just about yelling anymore, according to Anne Curzan at Lingua Franca, ALTHOUGH IT SEEMS LIKE IT, DOESN’T IT? At The Week, James Harbeck offered a guide on how to use all caps in a useful and not annoying way.

James also gave us a simple way to remember how to use you and I versus you and me. Constance Hale taught us the difference between careen, career, and carom.

OxfordWords blog listed eight words we need to know for The Hunger Games. Ben Zimmer celebrated the Doctor Who 50th anniversary with the story behind the word dalek.

io9 recounted the experiment that led to the concept of thinking outside of the box. Mental Floss listed 12 words that originated in the funny pages. Barry Popik traced the history of the word gastrocrat, an influential person in the food world, and the chilly phrase colder than a witch’s tit.

Robert Lane Greene discussed the decrease in formality in western languages. Arika Okrent rounded up 15 words etymologically inspired by animals and told us how long crazy German words come to be.

At Lingua Franca, Geoffrey Pullum looked at whether and when, and Anne Curzan considered the freshperson problem. At Macmillan Dictionary blog, Michael Rundell discussed the language of conspiracy and Stan Carey peered into the grumbling heart of the curmudgeon.

On his own blog, Stan examined the colloquial use in Ireland of the word cat to mean “awful, unpleasant, rough, terrible, bad, calamitous, or very disappointing.”

Word Spy spotted street as a verb meaning “to release a dangerous or helpless mentally ill person from a hospital because there are no private or public psychiatric beds available,” and perching, “while in a car in a crowded parking lot, waiting for, and possibly following, a person who is going to exit the lot and thus free up a parking spot.”

Fritinancy’s words of the week included geofencing, “a technology that defines a virtual boundary around a real-world geographical area,” and bitcoin, “a decentralized, open-source, peer-to-peer virtual currency.” Fritinancy also took a look at the annual overuse of ‘tis the season, and a lulu of a naming trend.

In other naming news, the Boston Globe discussed the connection between popular dogs’ names, pop culture, and owners’ tastes. Meanwhile, TV nerds are naming their babies after characters from Breaking Bad and Homeland.

This week we learned about the slang of hobos, English con men, Parisian prostitutes, and German bandits. We loved these beautiful bookshelves of questionable functionality and these posters that turn authors’ words into art. We’ll try to remember these life lessons from Joan Didion, whose birthday it was yesterday.

That’s it for this week!

[Photo via Wikipedia, by Paul Weinberg]

We were saddened by the passing of Doris Lessing. Don’t miss Margaret Atwood’s moving homage to the Nobel prize-winning author.

It’s closing in on the end of the year, which means it’s word of the year time. The Oxford English Dictionary’s selection was selfie. However, Katherine Connor Martin at OUPBlog wasn’t satisfied with just one WOTY and selected 12, one for each month — with graphs!

In other language news, a judge ruled in favor of Google, agreeing “that its scanning of more than 20 million books for an electronic database, and making ‘snippets’ of text available for online searches, constituted fair use.” Publishers Weekly banned a few uniquely compelling and poignant words. The NPR Code Switch blog discussed the origins of the term hoodlum.

Hunger Games fans! Catching Fire is out today, and Slate has a textual analysis and comparison of Hunger Games, Twilight, and the Harry Potter series.

This week we learned how to speak Death Metal English, how we’ll swear in the future, and about 12 mistakes almost everyone makes when writing about grammar mistakes.

We also found out about a universally understood syllable (huh? you heard us). Meanwhile, James Harbeck explained why pain is expressed differently in different languages.

Robert Lane Greene explored the impossibility of being literal and assured us that technology changing language is okay and that “only dead languages never change.”

Ben Zimmer discussed grand bargains, Goldilocks as metaphor, and adjective-ass construction. Arika Okrent told us why defining the is so difficult, and gave us 11 teeny units of measurement, three reasons for syllabically ambiguous words, and 26 of Noah Webster’s spellings that didn’t catch on.

At Language Log, Victor Mair offered some Pekingnese put-downs and Mark Liberman took on Okie uptalk. At Macmillan Dictionary blog, Liz Potter related the story behind the phrase Bob’s your uncle, and Stan Carey wondered if banning slang was counterproductive.

On his own blog, Stan gave us some hair-raising etymology and took a look at because as a preposition (because grammar), which inspired Megan Garber at The Atlantic to take a further look (because awesome).

Fritinancy’s words of the week were petrel, “the English translation of the Chinese word Haiyan, which is the international name of the ‘supertyphoon‘ that has ravaged large areas of the Philippines in recent days,” and Friendsgiving, “a Thanksgiving meal shared with friends rather than family.”

Word Spy spotted pistachio principle, “the tendency to eat less food given certain visual cues, particularly evidence of the amount of food consumed, such as pistachio shells”; vanity height, “unusable space at the top of a tall building created by a spire or similar extension added only to give the building extra height”; and kid credentialing, “having a child participate in activities, programs, and experiences that will look good on the child’s future college application.”

Billy Baker at The Boston Globe compared the accents of Boston mayors, old and new. The Dialect Blog examined Americans imitating Canadians.

Mental Floss gave us haters and lovers, and old-timey sexting acronyms. The Modern Farmer explained why being the black sheep is a bad thing and other ag-idioms. Pacific Standard offered a peek inside the world of competitive laughing, where laughaletes compete in categories such as Diabolical Laugh, the snort laugh, and the Alabama Knee-Slapper.

We agree these 10 terms will help us appreciate fantasy literature, were surprised cheese lexicon could be headache-inducing, and wondered if these new terms for female body parts were necessary.

We love this map showing San Francisco’s literary history and this one that reveals who is saying the F-bomb where. We adore all of these pop culture librarians, but Giles will always be our favorite.

That’s it for this week! Until next time, happy Friendsgiving!

[Photo via NPR]

Welcome to this week’s Language Blog Roundup, in which we bring you the highlights from our favorite language blogs and the latest in word news and culture.

We were saddened by the passings last week of music legend Lou Reed and Marcia Wallace, an actress most known as the voice of The Simpsons’ Mrs. Krabappel.

To Kill a Mockingbird author Harper Lee is suing a local museum in the town that inspired her famous book for “exploiting” her fame “without offering compensation.” In light of plagiarism accusations against junior U.S. Senator Rand Paul, Rick Webb at Medium offered a proposed taxonomy of plagiarism.

To kick off Movember, OxfordWords Blog offered a guide to words for moustaches. Remember remember the fifth of November? Here’s how Guy Fawkes inadvertently created the word guy.

Scientists at Microsoft might have figured out how to “enable the hearing to understand sign language—and vice versa.” The editors of DARE, the Dictionary of American Regional English, are going back into the field to map “tens of thousands of folk terms from sea to shining sea.” Meanwhile, a non-profit group in Washington, D.C. wants to build a science fiction museum.

Michael Rosen at The Guardian told us why H is the most contentious letter of the alphabet. We learned about the strange rise of Denglisch, or English-German hybrid words; the racial history of the “grandfather clause”; what’s so Chinese about a Chinese fire drill; and about the Slants, an Asian-American band that’s trying to trademark its name.

The Atlantic gave us 20 years of dumb new words while The New Statesman traced the 500-year history of trying to make irony more easily understood. In the land of dude, Allan Metcalf examined the origins of the word dude and The Atlantic recounted a brief history of its usage.

Mark Peters did some shaming shaming and mansplained mansplain. Katy Steinmetz dropped hyphens like they were hot.

Arika Okrent rounded up eight things she learned from being corrected by Mental Floss readers; explained why ghost is spelled with an h; and listed 11 suffixes that give us new, often terrible words. James Harbeck gave us a brief history of African click words and told us about the word zarf.

Ben Zimmer explained how sugarcoating moved from the pharmacy to the White House, revealed the hidden history of the word glitch, and told us about Schwa Fire, “a digital publication that will marry language geekery with long-form journalism.”

At Macmillan Dictionary blog, Michael Rundell told us the stories behind the words iconoclast and loophole, while Stan Carey discussed apharesis,“the dropping of an initial sound or sounds of a word.” At Lingua Franca, Anne Curzan related sports in everyday speech and Allan Metcalf considered the rise of hey over hi.

Fritinancy examined the use of urban in brand names and for word of the week selected aril, “a fleshy, usually brightly colored cover of a seed.”

Word Spy spotted Copenhagenization, “the process of making a city safer and more accessible for bicyclists and pedestrians,” presumably like Copenhagen, Denmark; nasty effect, “the polarization of opinions on a particular topic caused by exposure to uncivil commentary about that topic”; and glowing rectangle, “a mocking or satiric reference to a smartphone, tablet, laptop, or computer screen.”

Dialect Blog delved into the Boston pronunciation of the word brother as well as the accents of transplants, in this case that of the Daily Show’s Aasif Mandvi.

From the Poetry Foundation, we learned about the rivalry between literary siblings. Bigstock Blog told us how French toast, Swedish meatballs, and English muffins got their names.

We loved these 19th-century criminal slang terms and these delightful idioms from Victorian times. We drooled over this list of 15 famous authors and their fashion label counterparts (one Edith Wharton please!).

For favorite sites of the week, it’s a 21-way tie between Zombie Ipsum and these 20 literary Tumblrs.

As for this cool bookish place called Bookworm Gardens: we want to go to there.

That’s it for this week!

[Photo: Via WIRED]