Author Archives: Angela Tung

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Language Blog Roundup: Oscar Hijuelos, Alice Munro, an open letter

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 this week by the passing of Oscar Hijuelos, author of The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love and Our House in the Last World. Hijuelos won the Pulitzer Prize in 1989 for The Mambo Kings, which was made into film starring Antonio Banderas and Armand Assante. Hijuelos was 62.

In happier news, the Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to Alice Munro, a short-story writer and the first Canadian woman to win the prize.

Oxford Words gave us 20 wonderful words for wafflers and some Beltway buzzwords. At Lingua Franca, Allan Metcalf suggested Obamacare for word of the year; Geoffrey Pullum looked at zombie rules and The Guardian; and Anne Curzan discussed the surprisingly naughty origins of the idiom old hat.

At Language Log, Mark Liberman examined a new non-projective flavor at Starbucks and tried to figure out what Justice Scalia meant when he said “words have meaning” and “their meaning doesn’t change,” while Victor Mair examined the unfortunately named new mascot of Fukushima Industries Corporation.

At Macmillan Dictionary blog, Liz Potter revealed the stories behind kith and kin; Jonathan Marks explored the roots (and routes) of curr- and curs–; and Stan Carey got with spelling program (or is it programme?). On his own blog, Stan added his thoughts about plus usage.

Salon discussed five ways Noah Webster Americanized the English language. Ben Zimmer spoke with the Chicago Manual of Style about “the transformation and technologization of language,” and at Slate traced the history of the grawlix. Meanwhile, also at Slate, Mike Vuolo looked back at how long we’ve been verbing our body parts off, and Neal Whitman parsed the dickhead compound.

At The Wall Street Journal, Elizabeth Bernstein told us what saying I says about us. Mark Allen examined contractions, y’all. James Harbeck sounded off on the names of animals and wondered about the point of baby talk.

Arika Okrent celebrated Hangul, the Korean writing system and “world’s greatest alphabet,” and wrote an open letter to Sufjan Stevens about his open letter to Miley Cyrus correcting her grammar.

Fritinancy, professional namer, delved into the five types of names, from generic to fanciful, and for words of the week, selected whisper listing, “an off-market real-estate deal marketed through word of mouth alone,” and slow-rolling, “delaying a response, postponing an action, or obstructing a process” (not to be confused with rickrolling).

Word Spy spotted poopetrator, “a person who defecates in a public place”; phoneur, “a person, especially a pedestrian, who interacts with or engages the world mostly through a mobile phone”; malprescription, “the dangerous, mistaken, or unethical prescription of a drug or other remedy”; and Borg complex, “the belief that a particular kind of technological progress or the universal adoption of a specific technology product is inevitable and that to resist it is therefore futile.”

As always Mental Floss had lots of listicle goodness with 10 old English (not Old English) words we should be using; 12 really forced portmanteaux; and 12 things made collectible due to spelling errors. Mental Floss also had an exclusive interview with Bill Watterson, the creator of Calvin & Hobbes.

BuzzFeed gave us flashbacks with these books that traumatized us as kids while Flavorwire scared us with the 50 scariest books of all time. Meanwhile, at The Weeklings Greg Olear rounded up the 50 greatest character names in literature.

We learned that the great library of Alexandria was destroyed not by fire but budget cuts; how Tom Clancy changed video games; and about the beastly best friends of literary greats.

We love this literary map of the Bay Area and this amazing one of all the languages and races of South Africa. We’re excited that Jason Bateman will be directing and starring in a movie about an adult obsessed with winning a pre-teen spelling bee.

We agree with Mighty Red Pen that this typo is of “bqhatevwr proportions,” but we’re not sure how to feel about the newest holiday portmanteau, Thanksgivukkah.

That’s it for this week!

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Celebrating Ada Lovelace: Our Favorite Hacker Slang

Today is Ada Lovelace Day, which honors 19th century English mathematician and writer, Ada Lovelace.

While Lovelace is “chiefly known for her work on Charles Babbage‘s early mechanical general-purpose computer, the Analytical Engine,” she is also credited with developing the “first algorithm ever specifically tailored for implementation on a computer,” and thus is often considered the world’s first computer programmer.

To celebrate this pioneer hacker, we’ve rounded up 10 of our favorite hacking terms.

bikeshedding

“Development moved slowly because endless bikeshedding impaired efforts to reconcile technical differences between the disparate Nokia and Intel software components.”

Ryan Paul, “Intel Denies Giving up on MeeGo, But That Doesn’t Mean Much,” Ars Technica, September 9, 2011

Bikeshedding refers to the “futile investment of time and energy in marginal technical issues,” and “implies technical disputes over minor, marginal issues conducted while more serious ones are being overlooked.”

The term originated in Berkeley Software Distribution culture and is an example of Parkinson’s law of triviality, a 1957 argument from British historian C. Northcote Parkinson which says that “organizations give disproportionate weight to trivial issues.” The term bikeshedding comes from the idea of “people arguing over what color to paint the bicycle shed while the house is not finished.”

gunslinger

black hat

“But by the end, I felt Bruce Sterling the fiction writer’s presence was too strong in painting a problematic, one-dimensional and static picture of the role of hacker culture in the WikiLeaks saga; the gist is that once a black hat hacker, always a black hat hacker.”

Gabriella Coleman, “Hacker Culture: A Response to Bruce Sterling on WikiLeaks,” The Atlantic, December 23, 2010

A black hat is “a malicious hacker who commits illegal acts.” The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) cites the phrase’s earliest usage as 1990: “The idea of the ‘pick one from three’ is so the black hats can’t tell which challenge you’re responding to, and thus can’t build a table from observation.”

Black hat hacker comes from an earlier meaning of black hat, “a villain or bad guy in a story, especially in a Western,” which the OED says is from the late 1950s: “Once it was easy to tell the heroes from the villains in the television Westerns: The white hats were the good guys and the black hats were the bad guys.”

By that token, a white hat is “a well-meaning hacker who hacks for a good cause or to aid a company, organization, or government without causing harm.”

dogfooding

“Google, like just about every technology company, employs a bevy of eager and captive testers–employees–when getting ready to roll out a new product. However, there are clear limits to what ‘dogfooding’ (as the process is known) can predict about how the general public will receive a product.”

Tom Krazit, “How Google Tested Google Instant,” CNET, October 18, 2010

Dogfooding, or eating your own dog food, is when a company uses “its own product to demonstrate the quality and capabilities of the product.”

The origin has a couple of possibilities: 1980s Alpo dog food commercials in which spokesman Lorne Greene claimed that he fed Alpo to his own dogs, and the story of the president of Kal Kan Pet Food supposedly eating a can of his dog food at shareholders’ meeting.

doxing

“Translated from Anonymous-speak, ‘dox’ are documents, and ‘doxing’ is the practice of revealing someone’s real-life details, usually for the purposes of harassment.”

Andy Greenberg, “Anonymous and Ex-Anonymous Hackers Wage a War of Identification,” Forbes, March 22, 2011

Doxing, or sometimes doxxing, refers to publishing “an individual’s personal information on the Internet,” often “outing” the person from a pseudonymous persona. Dox comes from documents since personal documents, such as credit card statements, are often used to obtain the target’s real identity.

In her post on doxing back in February, Nancy Friedman wrote that according to Know Your Meme, the term has been in use since the early to mid-2000s. A recent, and controversial, example of doxing was the unmasking of Violentacraz, a notorious Reddit troll.

hacker

“A convicted computer ‘hacker‘ who is apparently under FBI investigation claims that he has gained access to a Defense Department computer network about 100 times, once learning of military plans to monitor earthquakes in communist countries.”

“‘Hacker’ Says He Entered Pentagon’s Computer,” The Milwaukee Journal, November 26, 1984

The computer sense of hacker originated in the mid-1970s, says the OED, with the meanings of “a person with an enthusiasm for programming or using computers as an end in itself” and “a person who uses his skill with computers to try to gain unauthorized access to computer files or networks.”

According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, the usage may have evolved from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where by the late 1960s a hack had the general sense of a “creative prank.” This sense of hack may somehow be related to the “writing for hire” meaning of the word, or else the physical act of chopping or cutting.

The term hacktivist, a blend of hack and activist, originated in the mid-1990s, says the OED.

heisenbug

“The term ‘Heisenbug’ may as well have been invented for multithreaded programming.”

John Siracusa, “Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard: the Ars Technica review,” Ars Technica, August 31, 2009

A heisenbug is “a software bug which fails to manifest itself during debugging.” The word is a play on Werner Heisenberg, a German theoretical physicist who devised the uncertainty principle, which states “that any attempt to measure the position of a subatomic particle will disrupt its movement, making it harder to predict.” Heisenbug seems to have originated in the mid-1980s.

Heisenberg is also the pseudonym of chemistry teacher turned drug kingpin, Walter White, in the television show, Breaking Bad. The behavior of Walter White, aka Heisenberg, could be likened to both the subatomic particle in the uncertainty principle and the elusive heisenbug.

Ants marching

marching ants

“Even the now-ubiquitous moving dotted line that indicates a selection — called ‘marching ants’ by MacPaint developer Bill Atkinson after a suggestion by Rod Perkins of Apple’s Lisa team — originated in MacPaint.”

Rik Myslewski, “1984’s MacPaint Source Code Hits Web,” The Register, July 21, 2010

Marching ants refer to “an animated dotted line indicating which portion of an image is currently selected.” The idea is credited to Bill Atkinson, the creator of MacPaint, while Rod Perkins of the Apple Lisa team is the one who said the effect reminded him of “marching ants.”

munge

“The state of BI dashboards today is that you start with your data in text form, and then you munge it and mash it until you’ve gotten your answer, and then you go and launch some chart wizard that asks you what template you want.”

Eric Lai, “New Free Online Tool Makes Creating Infographics from Data Easier,” Digital Arts, February 12, 2010

Munge, also mung, refers to transforming “data in an undefined or unexplained manner”; adding a spamblock; or corrupting “a record about an individual by erroneously merging in information about another individual.”

One theory of this word’s origin is that it was “coined in 1958 in the Tech Model Railroad Club at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology,” with the backronym “Mash Until No Good” created in 1960.

However, the word munge has been in use since 1600, according to the OED, when it meant to wipe someone’s nose or to cheat someone. In 1770, it came to mean “to eat greedily and noisily; to much; to chew,” which could easily be extended to the idea data being chewed up. In 1790, munge gained the meaning of “to mutter, grumble; to mope.”

The Smurfs

smurf attack

“The second type, known as a smurf attack, again involves the use of compromised machines, but it also employs a large third-party network of computers to ‘amplify’ the data used in the attack and greatly increases the effectiveness of the assault. It is believed that Stanford’s network of computers may have been used in this way in the attack on Yahoo.”

Matt Richtel and Sara Robinson, “Web Attacks Might Have Many Sources,” The New York Times, February 11, 2000

A smurf attack, according to Technopedia, is “a type of denial of service attack in which a system is flooded with spoofed ping messages.” The attack “creates high computer network traffic on the victim’s network, which often renders it unresponsive.”

The term seems to come from the online gaming world, in which smurfing refers to an experienced player creating “a new account for the purposes of being matched against inexperienced players for easy wins.” Smurfing, which could be considered a type of hustling, seems to have originated in the mid-1990s in the game Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness, in which “certain well-known players,” using names such as PapaSmurf and Smurfette, pretended to play badly only to eventually beat the other players.

A variation of the smurf attack is the fraggle attack, named for its sourcecode, Fraggle.c. The name may come from Fraggle Rock, a Jim Henson show from the mid-1980s, or the word frag, which means “to wound or kill (a fellow soldier) by throwing a grenade or similar explosive at the victim,” and “a successful kill in a deathmatch game.” Frag is short for fragmentation grenade.

The word smurf, in case you were wondering, comes from De Smurfen, the Dutch translation of the Belgian Les Schtroumpfs, a word invented by Smurfs creator Peyo when he couldn’t remember the word for salt.

Yaks!

yak shaving

“Leopard makes it super easy to create your own widgets but, thanks to the efforts of thousands of Mac users, there are tons of widgets available for free download on just about any topic and use you can think of. Well, maybe not yak shaving. At least not yet.”

Lisa Hoover, “Mac 101: Whip Your Widgets into Shape,” Tuaw, November 1, 2007

Yak shaving refers to tedious tasks that must be done before productive work can begin, and may also refer to useless activity one engages in to avoid real work.

This term seems to have originated around the year 2000 at MIT by way of “Yak Shaving Day,” an early-1990s segment from the animated series, Ren & Stimpy.

Not enough computer lingo for you? Check out this extensive list of computer terms and their etymologies, this io9 piece on the “bizarre” evolution of the word cyber, and of course the Hacker’s Dictionary. For more on Ada Lovelace, check out The Mary Sue and Mental Floss.

[Photo: “Ada Lovelace, 1840,” Public Domain]
[Photo: “gunslinger,” CC BY 2.0 by striatic]
[Photo: “Ants marching,” CC BY 2.0 by L Church]
[Photo: “The Smurfs,” CC BY 2.0 by magoexperto]
[Photo: “Yaks!” CC BY 2.0 by Brian]

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Witchy Words

The Salem Witch, Salem, Mass.

A coven, if you didn’t already know, is an assembly of witches, often 13. The word is a variant of covent, which is another word for convent, a community especially of nuns, which some might say is the opposite of a coven of witches.

The Online Etymology Dictionary says that the association between coven and witches arose in Scotland and was popularized by Sir Walter Scott:

The witches of Auldearne, according to this penitent, were so numerous, that they were told off into squads, or covines, as they were termed to each which were appointed two officers.

What about witch? It’s an old word – circa 800 AD – that ultimately comes from the Old English wiccian, “to practice witchcraft,” and originally referred to “a man who practises witchcraft or magic,” says the Oxford English Dictionary (OED).

About 200 years later, the word meant “a female magician, sorceress,” and still later “a woman supposed to have dealings with the devil or evil spirits and to be able by their co-operation to perform supernatural acts.”

The Online Etymology Dictionary says the term witch-hunt originated in the 1630s — European witch trials peaked between 1580 and 1630 while the American Salem witch trials were a bit later, from 1692 to 1693.  However, the OED’s earliest citation is from 1885 in H. Rider Haggard’s King Solomon’s Mines: “It is the great witch-hunt, and many will be smelt out as wizards and slain.” If anyone has any additional information on witch-hunt, please let us know.

Witch-hunt gained its figurative meaning, “an investigation carried out ostensibly to uncover subversive activities but actually used to harass and undermine those with differing views,” in the early 1930s, says the Online Etymology Dictionary. However, we found this citation from 1927 in The Boston Globe (partial due to paywall): “. . .by showing that the prisoner refused to ‘commit murder’ in the name of his Government is reminding the world of the days of witch-hunting at its worst.”

witch hazel

witch hazel

The witch of witch hazel has nothing to do with magic or spells, and is even older than the sorcerer meaning of witch. It comes from the Old English wice, “wych-elm,” which comes from wican, “to bend.” Wican also gives us weak.

To witch meaning “to use a divining rod to find underground water or minerals” is fairly new, originating in the 1960s, says the OED. It comes from “the fact that it was usually done with a witch-hazel wand.”

The earliest sense of the word hag, “a repulsive, vicious, or malicious old woman,” is from the 14th century, says the OED. By the 1550s, it came to mean “an evil spirit, dæmon, or infernal being, in female form,” and by the 1580s, “a woman supposed to have dealings with Satan and the infernal world; a witch.”

One of our favorite words is hag-ridden, “ridden by hags or witches, as a horse,” and thus “afflicted with nightmare,” and is from the late 1600s.

The word hag is probably a shortening of the Old English hægtesse, “witch, fury,” says the Online Etymology Dictionary. The first part of hægtesse may be related to the Old English haga, “enclosure, portion of woodland marked off for cutting.” The Old Norse tunriða and Old High German zunritha, both literally “hedge-rider,” referred to witches and ghosts. The second part of hægtesse may be connected to the Norwegian tysja, “fairy; crippled woman.”

Hex, now more commonly referring to “an evil spell; a curse,” is also another word for witch. The witch meaning is earlier, coming from around the 1850s or earlier, while the curse meaning is from around 1909. Hex, surprisingly (or at least to us) originated in the United States, coming from the Pennsylvania German hexe, “to practice witchcraft,” which comes from the German Hexe, “witch.”

Most of us know that to badmouth someone means to criticize or malign, but the word’s origins lie in hexes and curse. While the word gained its verbal abuse meaning in the early 1940s, it originated in the 1830s, or probably much earlier, in African American English as a translation of “an idiom found in African and West Indian languages” meaning “a curse, spell.”

Ever wonder why witches are often portrayed as riding on broomsticks? The idea may have been popularized by “engravings from a famous Lancashire witch trial of 1612,” according to the Online Etymology Dictionary. The “sweeping with broom twigs were considered unlucky in May,” hence a possible connection with witches.

Speaking of flying, the term fly-by-night has witchy origins as well. The term we know to mean “an unscrupulous or undependable person, especially one who leaves secretly without paying creditors,” as well as “of an impermanent or insubstantial nature,” originated around 1796 as an “old term of reproach to a woman signifying that she was a witch.”

What are some of your favorite witchy words?

[Photo: “The Salem Witch, Salem, Mass.,” CC BY 2.0 by The Boston Public Library]
[Photo: “witch hazel,” CC BY 2.0 by Jesse Hirsch]
[Photo: Woodcut of witches flying via Public Domain Review]

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Language Blog Roundup: Tom Clancy, fauxlibuster, Banned Books Week

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 this week by the passing of Tom Clancy, best-selling author of books such as The Hunt for Red October and Patriot Games. He was 66.

The Atlantic explained the “double absurdity” of Ted Cruz’s filibuster, or fauxlibuster. Meanwhile Mayor Emanuel Rahm of Chicago is experimenting with librarian-less libraries (which remind us of a creepy Doctor Who episode).

For Banned Books Week, HuffPost Books gave seven reasons why some of our favorite book are banned and 11 of the most surprising banned books, including the dictionary. In good news, after much furor and ridicule, a North Carolina school board lifted a ban on the classic Ralph Ellison novel, The Invisible Man.

For Punctuation Day, Mark Allen lauded the most elegant of marks, the semicolon. Slate gave us the history of the pilcrow while The Daily Beast took a look at the SarcMark, used to indicate sarcasm. Fritinancy celebrated with a roundup of brand names that use punctuation in interesting, and not so interesting, ways.

The Guardian told us 10 grammar rules that we can forget. The OxfordWords Blog rounded up some English words of Dutch origin. At Language Log, Victor Mair discussed the various pronunciations of the word for brothers in Mandarin, and the problem with calling Uyghur a Chinese dialect.

At Macmillan Dictionary blog, Liz Potter told the stories behind the words unfriend and keirin, Japanese for “racing wheels”; and Stan Carey took a bite out of the idiom, have your cake and eat it (too).

Ben Zimmer examined how “Fed-watchers” are remaking the calendar and looked at the origin of the word desi with the crowning of the first Miss America of South Asian heritage.

James Harbeck looked at six quests to fix the messed-up spelling of English. Arika Okrent examined the post-military taxonomy of don’t ask, don’t tell.

Fritinancy’s words of the week were 909er, “a resident of Southern California’s Inland Empire,” and the Breaking Bad-inspired chirality. Speaking of Breaking Bad, Time told us the meaning behind the phrase.

World Wide Words delved into the history of a rare word, gargalesis, forced tickling. Hanna Rosin examined a new meaning of fiance.

Word Spy spotted throuple, three people in a romantic relationship; empathy game, “a video game genre that uses intense, personal stories to create an emotional connection with the player”; backfire effect, “the strengthening of a person’s belief in a false idea by presenting evidence against that idea”; and screen sightedness, “myopia caused by too much time spent indoors staring at small screens.”

Scientific American investigated how language may shape the perception of genetically modified foods while Gizmodo revealed the origins of 11 common drinking phrases.

We learned that on Facebook women talk about shopping and men curse, a thing or two about the double-is, and the etymology of cool. We found out about the language of signs and that Drew Barrymore has a giant dictionary collection.

We loved this map of most popular baby names in each state, these lost “slumgullions” of English and these lovely untranslatable words from other cultures. We want to own all these coffee mugs for book lovers.

Enjoy our word nerd discoveries? Be sure to check out more weird and wonderful favorite finds in our weekly roundup over on our sister site, Reverb, Favorite Finds Roundup: Stephen Hawking, mac ‘n’ cheese burger, beaver butts (you heard us: beaver butts).

Until next time!

[Photo via CNN]

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Have an A1 day!: Our Favorite Words from Breaking Bad

We’re just days away from the series finale of the brilliant Breaking Bad. While we’ve been on the edges of our seats all season, we’ve also been listening for interesting terms. We’ve collected them right here, from euphemisms to legal terms to the changing meaning of a devil of a word.

Also be sure to check out our roundup of words that broke bad in the first half of the season.

A1

Walt [to Lydia]: “Give this to your car wash professional and have an A1 day.”

“Blood Money,” August 11, 2013

A1 is slang for first-class or outstanding. It originally referred to a wooden ship, says the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), “in respect of both hull and fittings.” Charles Dickens was one of the first to use A1 to mean anything excellent. From The Pickwick Papers: “‘He must be a first-rater,’ said Sam. ‘A1,’ replied Mr. Roker.”

In order to appear first in the phone book, a company may place multiple As and 1s before its name. But whether or not this actually improves business is questionable. A1 is also the brand name of a steak sauce.

change in management

Todd [to Walt]: “Me and Declan had some differences of opinion, and it got a little messy. It’s all straightened out now, but just a heads up that there’s been a kind of change in management.”

“Confessions,” August 25, 2013

Change in management is a euphemism for “a bunch of people quit or got fired and now there are new people in charge.” In this case, the former management was killed.

Todd’s dialogue is filled with euphemisms and biz speak, which are often one in the same: he and Declan had some “differences of opinion” rather than a murderous rivalry; the deadly shootout “got a little messy”; and Todd wants to make give Walt a “heads up” about the murder of Declan and his men.

dead to rights

Marie: “I got a call from Hank. He arrested Walt three hours ago. Dead to rights, I believe is the expression.”

“Ozymandias,” September 15, 2013

Dead to rights means “with sufficient evidence to establish responsibility definitively,” or as the OED puts it, caught “red-handed, in the act.” The phrase is also known as bang to rights. Dead to rights and bang to rights may come from the phrase deadbang meaning “open-and-shut; irrefutable.”

The phrase caught red-handed comes from the idea of a murderer being caught with blood on his hands.

Devil, the

Jesse [to Hank and Gomez]: “You two guys are just guys. Mr. White, he’s the Devil. He is smarter than you, he’s luckier than you. Whatever you think is supposed to happen, the exact reverse opposite of that is going to happen.”

“Rabid Dog,” September 1, 2013

The word devil comes from the Greek diabolos by way of Middle English, Old English, and Latin. In general use, diabolos means “accuser, slanderer,” according to the Online Etymology Dictionary.

The Devil was first known as “the proper appellation of the supreme spirit of evil” in Jewish and Christian theology, says the OED, and later was a “wicked or malevolent person.” The word gained the playful meaning of a “clever rogue” around 1600.

In “Blood Money,” the first episode of this last half of the season, Marie says jokingly to Walt, “You are the Devil!” A few episodes later Jesse refers to him as the Devil incarnate.

hat trick

Saul [to Jesse]: “The Feds have already taken Kaylee’s money twice. You’re going for a hat trick?”

“Blood Money,” August 11, 2013

A hat trick is three consecutive wins. The phrase comes from the game of cricket where it means “three wickets taken in cricket by a bowler in three consecutive balls.” It originated with the idea that such a bowler would be rewarded with a new hat.

rat patrol

Jack: “What are we talking? Rat patrol?”
Walt: “No, no. [Jesse’s] not a rat. He’s just angry.”

“To’hajiilee,” September 8, 2013

The rat in this case is “a despicable person, especially one who betrays or informs upon associates.” A rat patrol would exterminate such individuals.

The Rat Patrol was also an American TV show from the mid-1960s about four Allied soldiers “who are part of a long-range desert patrol group in the North African campaign during World War II.” Rat is the disparaging nickname given to “some of the British Commonwealth forces in the North African campaign.” Also called Desert Rats.

send someone on a trip to Belize

Walt: “Hank knows. That’s not nothing.”
Saul: “Yeah, I can’t exactly see him turning the other cheek. . . .Have you given any thought to sending him on a trip to Belize?”

“Buried,” August 18, 2013

To send someone on a trip to Belize is a euphemism for having someone killed. To sleep with the fishes, which comes from The Godfather, is another euphemism that means the individual is dead, most likely murdered and the corpse deposited in a body of water.

For more ways to say dead without saying dead, check out this list.

term of art

Saul: “It’s an actual store. I guess I figured ‘vacuum cleaner repair’ was a term of art.”

“Granite State,” September 22, 2013

A term of art is “a term whose use or meaning is specific to a particular field of endeavor.” These terms “have one or more specific meanings that are not necessarily the same as those in common use.”

“Vacuum cleaner repair” is the guise used by a man whose expertise lies in erasing people’s identities. Saul is surprised when the man appears to own an actual shop full of vacuums.

tweaker

Declan: “Heisenberg’s standards don’t matter anymore.”
Lydia: “To whom? A bunch of scabby Arizona tweakers?

“Buried,” August 18, 2013

A tweaker is someone addicted to methamphetamines, otherwise known as crystal meth. This meaning of tweaker has been around since the 1980s, says the OED, and comes from tweak meaning “to become agitated or excited” or “twitchy,” especially from drug use. Tweak could be a blend of freak out and twitch.

[Photo: via Celebuzz]

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WotD Perfect Tweet Challenge – Week of September 16, 2013

Welcome to the very last round-up of the winners of the Word of the Day Perfect Tweet Challenge!

You may have heard that we’ll be discontinuing the contest to make room for some new fun challenges in the future. Until then here are the final winners:


In honor of this last challenge, we’ve randomly picked one lucky twoosher to win a newly redesigned Wordnik T-shirt: congratulations to Simon Lancaster, a faithful and long-time player. Very well-deserved!

Keep following us on Twitter to find out about upcoming new contests as well as keeping up with the words of the day and other language fun.

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Language Blog Roundup: Friends, kill the apostrophe, James Franco

oh for the love of ...

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.

Ben Zimmer told us about the rhetoric of the Syrian conflict. Joshua Friedman at The Boston Globe claimed biz-speak is not the business world’s fault but rather is simply the “slang of the moment.”

At The American Scholar, Ralph Keyes explained why some neologisms stick and some don’t. We learned some new slang that those crazy kids online are using today, and about how rhythm may help with language learning.

At Language Log, Victor Mair reflected on the languages on Chinese banknotes, and Mark Liberman investigated a Dutch to English mistranslation.

The OxfordWords blog gave us some fun German idioms (they’re going like warm rolls!), and we as television addicts particularly enjoyed their post on the language of Friends. Meanwhile, io9 relayed the bizarre evolution of the word cyber.

At Lingua Franca, Lucy Ferriss discussed disruptive language; Alllan Metcalf revealed the story behind wah lah; Geoff Pullum looked at hostility over multilingualism; Anne Curzan recounted the history of the idiom, in one’s wheelhouse; and Ben Yagoda examined zeugmas at The New York Times.

Ben Zimmer traced the etymology of meh and WTF. James Harbeck taught us how to use the dash and stirred up some controversy by suggesting we kill off the apostrophe. Arika Okrent rounded up 11 common words with very specific meanings on food labels and 11 nouns that only have a plural form.

Kory Stamper delved into folk etymology. Mark Allen explained why there’s no such thing as “the dictionary.” Roy Peter Clark sang the praises of the short sentence. Neal Whitman gave us a linguistic tour of the best libfixes. Ben Schott and Mark Leibovich offered a fun glossary on Washington Words.

In naming news, a woman in Hawaii was told her name was too long for her ID, and GQ gave some advice on what not to name your offspring. Fritinancy looked at naming with numbers, and for Talk Like a Pirate Day, went on a treasure hunt for pirate-type brand names.

Fritinancy’s word of the week was BYOD, bring your own device, “a corporate policy that encourages or requires employees to bring their own mobile devices to the workplace and to use them to access company information.”

Word Spy spotted sharent, “a parent who shares too much information about his or her children”; kleptography, “the secret theft of information using a security hole deliberately built into a cryptographic system”; and vulgarity gap, “a disparity in the tolerance for vulgarity between generations or communities.”

The Dialect Blog expounded on the pronunciation of R in various languages and examined the semi-slur, Oriental.

The Wheel of Fortune became the Wheel of Misfortune with a contestant’s mispronunciation. In response to the hubbub surrounding James Franco on the cover of William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying, BookRiot suggested putting the actor on all book covers, much to our hilarity.

That’s it for this week!

[Photo: CC BY 2.0 by Darrren Foreman]