Author Archives: Angela Tung

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Throne Soup: Our Favorite Words from ‘Game of Thrones’

SPOILERS GALORE TO FOLLOW.

Have you recovered from Sunday’s episode of Game of Thrones? We have, just barely, but not before losing our collective minds. We’ve recouped enough now to bring you our favorite words from this latest season of the show, just in time for this weekend’s season finale.

Special thanks to the excellent Game of Thrones wiki.

crow

Ygritte: “In your hearts all you crows want to fly free.”

“Valar Dohaeris,” March 31, 2013

Crow is a derogatory nickname given to the Night’s Watch by the Free Folk, those who live beyond the Wall, thought to be the northernmost edge of civilization on Westeros, the continent where the most action of Game of Thrones takes place.

The Night’s Watch is “a military order which holds and guards the Wall.” Night’s Watch members “swear an oath of duty that is binding for life and prohibits marriage, family, and land ownership,” and dress entirely in black, giving rise to the nicknames crow and black brothers.

Other military nicknames that have to do with uniform color include greyback, redcoat, lobsterback, and blackcoat.

khaleesi

“She was Daenerys Stormborn, the Unburnt, khaleesi and queen, Mother of Dragons, slayer of warlocks, breaker of chains, and there was no one in the world that she could trust.”

George R. R. Martin, A Storm of Swords

Khaleesi is a Dothraki word referring to the wife of the khal, or warlord of a khalasar, a Dothraki clan or tribe. The Dothraki are a nomadic horse-riding people, similar to Eurasian nomads or the Native Americans of the Great Plains.

We learned recently that we’ve been pronouncing khaleesi wrong this whole time. While the word is popularly pronounced ka-LEE-see, it should be KHAH-lay-see, according to the show’s language creator, David J. Peterson.

maester

Jaime Lannister: “You’re no maester. Where’s your chain?”

“Kissed By Fire,” April 28, 2013

A maester is one of “an order of scholars, healers, and learned men” who focus on scientific knowledge and have only a “disdaining belief in magic.” They wear a chain around their necks of varying substances to indicate their expertise in various fields of study, such as medicine and healing, money and accounting, warcraft, and “the higher mysteries,” or magic.

The Middle English word for master is mæstere.

Meereenese knot

Tyrion Lannister: “Kayla is famous from here to Volantis, one of the four women in the world who can perform a proper Meereenese knot.”

“Walk of Punishment,” April 14, 2013

The Meereenese knot is “a difficult-to-perform act of contortion or sexual gymnastics, named after the city of Meereen in Slaver’s Bay.” It also refers to “a complex series of plot problems author George R.R. Martin encountered” while writing the fifth novel in the series, A Dance with Dragons. Martin often blogged about this Meereenese knot, a play on Gordian knot, “an exceedingly complicated problem or deadlock.”

milk of the poppy

Qyburn: “You’ll need milk of the poppy.”
Jaime: “No milk of the poppy.”
Qyburn: “There will be pain.”
Jaime: “I’ll scream.”

“Kissed By Fire,” April 28, 2013

Milk of the poppy is an anesthetic or painkiller with addictive properties. It’s probably a play on opium, which is “prepared from the dried juice of unripe pods of the opium poppy,” and is also known as poppy tears.

pyromancer

Jaime: “He had his pyromancer place caches of wildfire all over the city.”

“Kissed By Fire,” April 28, 2013

A pyromancer is one who practices divination by fire or has “a magical ability to conjure or control fire.” This word comes from the Greek pyr, “fire, funeral fire,” and manteia, “oracle, divination.”

More pyr– words and –mancy words.

raven

Jeor Mormont [to Samwell]: “Did you send the ravens?”

“Valar Dohaeris,” March 31, 2013

Ravens are used to send messages across far distances, much like carrier pigeons in real life and owls in the Harry Potter universe.

The three-eyed raven is a supernatural messenger that appears in the dreams of Bran Stark.

Red Wedding

“The Red Wedding, the smallfolk are calling it. They swear Lord Frey had the boy’s head hacked off, sewed the head of his direwolf in its place, and nailed a crown about the ears.”

George R. R. Martin, A Storm of Swords

The Red Wedding is a massacre that takes place at the wedding that was intended to make peace between the Starks and the Freys. Game of Thrones fans (at least those who hadn’t read the books) were shocked, upset, and horrified.

The Red Wedding was inspired by two real-life events.

Second Sons, the

Jorah Mormont: “They’re called the Second Sons, a company led by a Braavosi named Mero, the Titan’s Bastard.”

“Second Sons,” May 19, 2013

The Second Sons are a company of mercenaries, soldiers for hire known for “their professionalism and ruthlessness in pursuit of a contract.” They’re so-called because the company is commonly made up of “second sons of lords and merchants” who as second-born males would inherit nothing from their fathers, everything going to the first-born sons.

Primogeniture is “the right of the eldest child, especially the eldest son, to inherit the entire estate of one or both parents,” as opposed to ultimogeniture, “by which the youngest son succeeds to the estate.”

Seven, the

Priest: “By the faith of the Seven, I hereby seal these two souls, binding them as one for eternity.”

“The Rains of Castamere,” June 2, 2013

The Seven, also known as God of Seven, the Seven-Faced God, or the New Gods, are the gods most dominantly worshipped by the Seven Kingdoms. The Seven have seven aspects: the Father, the Mother, the Maiden, the Crone, the Warrior, the Smith, and the Stranger.

Battlestar Galactica was another popular show with a polytheistic religion.

Unsullied, the

Ser Jorah Mormont: “Some say the Unsullied are the greatest soldiers in the world.”

 “Valar Dohaeris,” March 31, 2013

 The Unsullied are eunuch slave soldiers “famed for their skills and discipline in battle.” Presumably they’re called the Unsullied as they’ve never had sexual relations.

 Valyrian

 Robb Stark [to his wife Talisa]: “Is that Valyrian?”

 “The Bear and the Maiden Fair,” May 12, 2013

Valyrian, divided into Low and High, is the language of the Valyrian Freehold, an empire that reigned uncontested for 5,000 years until “a cataclysmic event known as ‘The Doom’ laid waste to the Valyrian capital, its people, and the surrounding lands.” As a result, “Valyrian recorded history, spells, and knowledge were lost,” as well as its dragons. Only one of the “mighty families of dragonlords” survived, House Targaryen.

Valyrian steel is “a form of metal that was forged in the days of the mighty Valyrian Freehold,” and is extraordinarily sharp, strong, and expensive. Maesters trained in magic wear a Valyrian steel link in their maester chains.

Wall, the

Gilly: “Is the Wall as big as they say?”
Samwell Tarly: “Bigger. So big you can’t even see the top sometimes.”

“The Climb,” May 5, 2013

The Wall is a fortification that defends the Seven Kingdoms against the wildings who live beyond it. The Wall “stretches for 300 miles along the northern border,” is reportedly 700 feet high and made of ice, and is defended by the Night’s Watch (see crow).

Real-life fortifications include the Maginot Line, the Great Wall of China, and more.

warg

Mance Rayder: “He’s a warg. He can enter the minds of animals and see through their eyes.”

“Dark Wings, Dark Words,” April 7, 2013

A warg is a person with the ability to enter the minds of animals and control them. In the stories of J.R.R. Tolkien, a warg is a “particularly evil” kind of wolf, says the Oxford English Dictionary. The word comes from the Old Norse word for wolf, vargr.

Bran Stark, who is a warg, first encounters his abilities in dreams in which he sees through the eyes of his pet direwolf, Summer.

White Walkers

Jon Snow: “Thousands of years ago, the First Men battled the White Walkers and defeated them. I want to fight on the side that’s for the living.”

“Valar Dohaeris,” March 31, 2013

The White Walkers are mythological “creatures of ice and cold who, more than eight thousand years ago, came from the uttermost north.” They have the ability “to reanimate the dead as their servants, known as Wights.” A wight is also any “preternatural, unearthly, or uncanny creature.”

The First Men were “the original human inhabitants of Westeros.”

wildfire

Jaime: “You heard of wildfire? The Mad King was obsessed with it.”

“Kissed By Fire,” April 28, 2013

Wildfire, known by pyromancers as the Substance and derisively as pyromancer’s piss, is a “highly volatile material which can explode with tremendous force and burns with a fire” immune to water and that can only be extinguished by large amounts of sand. Wildfire is similar to Greek fire or napalm.

 Wildling

 Night’s Watch Member: “He’s a bloody Wildling all he is.”

 “And Now His Watch Is Ended,” April 21, 2013

Wildling is a derogatory term for the Free Folk, people who live north of the Wall. A wildling is also “a wild plant or animal, especially a wild plant transplanted to a cultivated spot.”

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This Week’s Language Blog Roundup: spelling bee, swearing, French kiss

bees wallpaper

Yesterday was all about the Scripps National Spelling Bee. Congratulations to 13-year old Arvind Mahankali of Bayside Hills, New York. Arvind won the 86th Scripps National Spelling Bee by correctly spelling knaidel, “a type of dumpling eaten by Jews during Passover.”

Knaidel is Yiddish in origin by way of German, and after misspelling German words two years in a row, Arvind proclaimed that “the German curse has turned into a German blessing.”

Check out all the words from the final round of the Bee, as well as all the winning words starting from 1925.

In other bee news, Ben Zimmer discussed this year’s change to the rules that required competitors to know the definitions of the words they were spelling. Mashable rounded up 10 spelling bee words we’d definitely mess up, Mental Floss reminded us of 13 words that knocked out Scripps Bee finalists, and we confessed to common words we still can’t spell.

At the Macmillan Dictionary blog, Gill Francis discussed dangling modifiers and Simon Williams told the story behind the phrase, as rare as hen’s teeth.

At Lingua Franca, Anne Curzan looked at more importantly; Allan Metcalf redefined the dictionary; Ben Yagoda played the the card and suggested smart as an early contender for the word of the year. Lucy Ferriss thought getting rid of the apostrophe might be a good idea, and Matthew J.X. Malady at Slate agreed.

Inventor of the GIF, Steve Wilhite, told us the proper way to pronounce the acronym, while Stan Carey assured as we can pronounce it however we like, and also gave a reactive defense of the word, proactive.

James Harbeck relayed the delights and frustration of off-road grammar; dissected the linguistics behind seven annoying teenage sounds; and clarified some preposition confusion. Kory Stamper explained how pop culture words become official.

The Dialect Blog examined the pronunciation of Manhattan; the differing pronunciations of the letter t in butter and button; and the word goombye.

In words of the week, Fritinancy noted HOHO, which stand for hop-on hop-off and “describes a type of sightseeing bus that allows passengers to disembark whenever they reach a stop that interests them, then re-board when it’s convenient”; and tick-tock, “journalism jargon for a story that recounts events in chronological order, as if accompanied by the soundtrack of a ticking clock.”

The Word Spy spotted smartphone face, “a drooping jawline and saggy jowls caused by neck muscles that have been shortened from constantly looking down at a smartphone or similar device,” while Erin McKean brought to our attention, fondleslab, another word for the iPhone, iPad, or similar device, as opposed to grandpa box, a desktop computer.

Erin’s weekly word choices also included magicicadas, periodical cicadas; nixtamalization, “dried corn treated with lye or lime,” and bodag, a special Roma bread.

The Altantic took a look at a new book, Holy Sh*t: A Brief History of Swearing, focusing on how Romans swore, while Salon excerpted the book.  Meanwhile, Medium recounted the history of fuck yeah on Tumblr.

McSweeney’s gave us some updates to the new Newspeak dictionary, while several words were added to Le Petit Robert, a popular French dictionary, including bombasse, “a noun used to describe a curvy female”; chelou, “slang for someone or something of dubious character”; and galoche, the French kiss. Well, it’s about time.

That’s it for this week!

[Photo: CC BY 2.0 by Jelene Morris]

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Spelling Confessions: Words We Still Can’t Spell

The Ferrers-Walker Memorial Kitchen Garden - Beware of the Bees - sign

Tomorrow are the semi-final and final rounds of the 2013 Scripps National Spelling Bee. Talented orthographers aged 8 to 14 will be tasked with spelling difficult words such as last year’s winner, guetapens, or the winner from 2012, cymotrichous.

However, many of us still have difficulty spelling even the simplest of words. We asked our followers on Twitter and fellow Reverbers what kinds of words still trip them up.

Double consonants were a common culprit. Words such as accommodate, disappointed, embarrassed, occurrence, unnecessary, immediately, and of course misspell, sent many folks to Google and dictionaries (such as [cough] Wordnik [cough]). Mischievous received a couple of votes with that pesky alternate pronunciation that adds an extra i in the penultimate syllable.

French-derived words, often with silent vowels, were the bane of many an existence, including bourgeois and bourgeoisie, bureau, bureaucracy, and bureaucrat, guarantee, nausea and nauseous, restaurant and restaurateur. “‘Restaurant’ I’m fine with,” said Drew Mackie, “but ‘restaurateur’ I bungle. Dumb, vanishing ‘n.'” We agree.

For others, silent consonants were the tricksters in words like Buddhist, lasagna, rhythm, silhouette, and surprise. “Is there an r or isn’t there?!!!!!!!” asked @miarose. There is, as Jim Nabors knows.

Sometimes it’s our fingers that do the misspellings. One Reverb developer noted that he often spells password as passwd “because of too much time with Apache,” while another used to constantly misspell myself as mysql. One New England native confessed that he often writes main as maine, while another Reverber’s fingers type reasearch when she very well knows it’s research.

Other words are simply too much alike. Who hasn’t spelled weather as wheather (“a bad spell of weather,” as a Reverber put it), or whether as wether? As David Habib noted, “‘Wether‘ is a word and always passes spellcheck.”

For still others, the variant is more well-known. Several of us were astounded to learn that the correct spelling of supercede is actually supersede, and one Reverber relayed how he lost a spelling bee by spelling doughnut as donut, which we all agreed was wholly unfair.

And damn all those alike-sounding vowels! Is it anomalous or anamolous, anomaly or anamoly, anonymity or anonimity? How about definitely or definately, privilege or privelege,  separate or seperate? (The first word is right for all those by the way.)

We’ve just about given up on learning how to spell these words correctly, and will leave the art of orthography to the experts.

Speaking of which, be sure to join us on Twitter on Thursday as we live-tweet the semi-final and final rounds of the Scripps Bee.

Happy (mis)spelling!

[Photo: CC BY 2.0 by Elliott Brown]

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Word Soup Wednesday: l’affaire est ketchup, Glühenvolk, tyromancy

CODI 2007 Things_081

It’s time for another installment of Word Soup Wednesday, in which we bring you some weird, funny, and interesting words from recent TV.

l’affaire est ketchup

Anthony Bourdain: “Across town [is] another thing entirely, the younger, wilder L’Affaire Est Ketchup, which I am reliably informed means ‘everything’s cool’ in local idiom.”

“Quebec,” Parts Unknown, May 5, 2013

We couldn’t find the origin of l’affaire est ketchup, which seems to mean everything from “everything’s okay,” to “it’s going to work,” to “it’s all good.” If anyone knows, please add it in the comments.

beavertail

Anthony Bourdain: “Beavertail, on the other hand, is not actually beaver at all, rather a quick spoonbread type of thing that in our case goes somewhat awry during an inadvertent inferno.”

“Quebec,” Parts Unknown, May 5, 2013

The beavertail is a kind of fried-dough pastry shaped like a beaver’s tail. BeaverTails are “a Canadian-based chain of pastry stands” founded in 1978. It’s unclear which came first, the pastry or the chain.

crackles

Dr. Turner [listening to Sister Bernadette’s lungs]: “Crackles on both sides.”

Episode 6, Call the Midwife, May 5, 2013

Crackles refer to “clicking, rattling, or crackling noises” in the lungs as a result of respiratory disorders should as pneumonia, pulmonary fibrosis, acute bronchitis, or, as in this episode of Call the Midwife, tuberculosis. Crackles were originally known as rales, French for “rattles,” a term developed by French physician René Laennec.

embarrassment of boobies

Zeke: “It’s an embarrassment of boobies!”

“Carpe Museum,” Bob’s Burgers, May 5, 2013

An embarrassment in this case is a mock collective noun, “a noun that denotes a collection of persons or things regarded as a unit,” in this case, “boobies.” Other collective nouns include a blush of boys, a superfluity of nuns, and a glaring of cats.

FARC

Anthony Bourdain: “Until recently most of the news coming out of this part of Colombia was not good. It was a front line in the War on Drugs, for lack of a better term, and Colombia’s long struggle with the FARC, a Marxist guerilla force financed by drug trafficking, kidnapping, and covert assistance from Venezuela.”

“Colombia,” Parts Unknowns, April 28, 2013

FARC stands for Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia, or in English, Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. The FARC is “considered a terrorist organization by the Government of Colombia.”

Glühenvolk

Rosalee: “When I was a kid, we used to think [Glühenvolk] were these beautiful, magical creatures that glowed in the dark. It was supposed be really good luck to see one, like the leprechaun legend.”

“Endangered,” Grimm, April 30, 2013

Glühenvolk translates from the German as “glow people.” Their bulbous heads, bioluminescence, and penchant for mutilating cows to obtain the ovaries for pregnant females (see also alien cattle mutilation) have led people in this episode to think they’re aliens.

orrery

Appraiser: “And this is what’s called a planetarium, or an orrery.”

“Rapid City,” Antiques Roadshow, May 6, 2013

An orrery is “a mechanical model of the solar system,” and was named “after Charles Boyle, Fourth Earl of Orrery (1676-1731), for whom one was made.”

pastagate

Anthony Bourdain: “So I was going to talk about the whole history of French Quebecois identity. A separatist movement, but I have to get right to the pressing matter of the day, pastagate. “

“Quebec,” Parts Unknown, May 5, 2013

Pastagate, as Bourdain says, “refers to an incident where local authorities [in Quebec] notified an Italian restaurant that they were in violation of French laws because they used the word ‘pasta’ which is Italian.”

Pastagate plays off Watergate, a scandal which occurred during the Nixon administration “involving abuse of power and bribery and obstruction of justice.” The suffix –gate has come to signify any scandal.

prom-posal

Stephen Colbert: “These days there’s something even more glamorous and expensive than the prom itself, the prom proposal, or as some zeigeist watchers are calling it, the prom-posal, which of course is a combo of the two words, pro and mposal.”

The Colbert Report, May 7, 2013

A prom-posal is the act of asking someone to the prom. “According to The New York Times,” says Colbert, “prom-posals have gotten so elaborate that teens are bringing in event planners, like the Heart Bandits, which charge $400 for orchestrating custom promposals.”

push the boat out

Mrs. Clark: “They didn’t even have a famous judge, which is where I thought we ought to push the boat out.”

Episode 5, Call the Midwife, April 28, 2013

Push the boat out is a British English idiom meaning to do something extravagantly, especially in regards to a celebration. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the earliest citation is from 1920 and is also Navy slang for “to buy a round of drinks.”

The phrase seems to have originated from the once common practice of helping to push a beached boat into the water, which was considered an act of generosity.

snowball

Trixie: “Just a rather naughty version of eggnog. When you mix it with fizz, you get something called a snowball.”

Episode 5, Call the Midwife, April 28, 2013

A snowball refers to a variety of cocktails. The one in this episode could include a “generous measure of Advocaat” as Trixie has stashed a bottle of that drink under Jenny’s pillow.

spirit lamp

Sister Bernadette: “We struggle with these spirit lamps. They’re so old-fashioned and so fragile.”

Episode 5, Call the Midwife, April 28, 2013

A spirit lamp is “a lamp that burns alcohol or other liquid fuel,” where spirit refers to alcohol.

sugar shack

Anthony Bourdain: “The tradition of the cabane a sucre, or sugar shack, is as old as maple syrup here in Quebec, where 70 percent of the world’s supply comes from.”

“Quebec,” Parts Unknown, May 5, 2013

The sugar shack is a building where maple sap is collected and boiled down to make syrup. It’s also known as a sugar house or sugar shanty.

tablescaping

Linda: “One of our kids is actually participating in something. We’re going, even if it’s table setting.”
Gene: “It’s tablescaping, and it’s the most exciting competition on four legs.”

“Boyz 4 Now,” Bob’s Burgers, April 28, 2013

Tablescaping, as Gene says, “combines accurate table setting placement with creative themes and costumes.” The word is a blend of table and landscaping. Xeriscaping is landscaping for deserts while manscaping is the practice of trimming men’s facial and body hair.

tejo

Anthony Bourdain: “But I’m not really here for the climate. I’m here for tejo. It involves alcohol and explosives.”

“Colombia,” Parts Unknowns, April 28, 2013

Tejo, which translates from Spanish as “disc” or “hopscotch,” is a game in Colombia which involves throwing a metal disc at a board with a metal ring, or bocin, surrounded by “two to four triangular folded paper packets, called ‘mechas,’ which are filled with gunpowder-like material that explodes on impact.” The goal of the game is to “lodge the tejo puck inside the bocin, strike the mechas in order to create an explosion, and ultimately score the most points.”

tyromancy

Franklin: “You ever heard of tyromancy?”
Dr. Lecter: “Divination by cheese.”

“Sorbet,” Hannibal, May 9, 2013

Tyromancy is telling the future by reading the coagulation of cheese, specifically “the shape, number of holes, pattern of the mold and other characteristics,” according to this blog post recapping an episode of The Splendid Table.

Village maidens would “write the names of their prospective suitors on separate pieces of cheese and the one whose name was on the piece of cheese where molds grew first was believed to be the ideal love mate.” Another technique was related to myomancy, divination by mice, in which the possible answers to a question were written on pieces of cheese and placed in a cage with a mouse. Whichever piece the mouse ate first was the answer to the question.

[Photo: CC BY 2.0 by sylvar]

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Office Soup: Our Favorite Words from ‘The Office,’ Farewell Season

This season wraps the eight-year run of the mockumentary about a little paper company. We’ve gathered our favorite words from the last season here.

Belsnickel

Dwight: “What about an authentic Pennsylvania Dutch Christmas? Drink some gluhwein, enjoy some hasenpfeffer. Enjoy Christmas with St. Nicholas’s rural German companion, Belsnickel?”

“Dwight Christmas,” December 6, 2012

Belsnickel is “a crotchety, fur-clad Christmas gift-bringer figure in the folklore of the Palatinate region of southwestern Germany,” and is “preserved in Pennsylvania Dutch communities.” The name comes from the German pelz, “to pelt,” and the name Nikolaus. See also Krampus.

Bildenkinder

Jim: “Did you ever think that because you own the building, everyone in it – we’re all kind of like your children.”
Dwight: “You know, there’s a phrase about that in German: Bildenkinder. Used almost exclusively by childless landlords to console themselves.”

“Work Bus,” October 18, 2012

Bildenkinder is a nonsense German word which translates as “formation (Bilden) children (Kinder).”

bund

Andy: “Dwight’s grandfather was – ”
Dwight: “A member of the bund, which is technically not the same thing as the Nazi party.”

“Andy’s Ancestry,” October 4, 2012

The bund was “a pro-Nazi German-American organization of the 1930s.” It was also  “a European Jewish socialist movement founded in Russia in 1897.” Bund translates from German as “alliance, league.”

chore wheel

Pam: “The building’s custodian is on vacation for the month, and Dwight is too cheap to hire a replacement. So instead we’re living in filth. But not for long because I have created. . .the chore wheel.”

“Roy’s Wedding,” September 27, 2012

Pam’s chore wheel plays off the wheel of fortune, or rota fortunae, “a concept in medieval and ancient philosophy referring to the capricious nature of Fate,” as well as the Wheel of Fortune game show.

coolio

Andy: “Are we coolio? Just say the word ‘coolio.’”
Dwight: “Not a word.”

“Couples Discount,” February 7, 2013

Coolio is slang for cool or awesome.

Dumpster Man

Kevin: “What was the word they said when they showed me? Skraldespand? What’s that mean in Danish? Cool guy?
Oscar: “Dumpster Man.”

“Promos,” April 4, 2013

Dumpster Man is what Kevin is referred to in the Danish promo for the fictional documentary of the show. The Danish word seems to be skraldemanden.

full-ass

Nellie: “What if you were to stay here and ‘full-ass’ it?”

“Livin’ the Dream,” May 2, 2013

To full-ass is something is to do it to the utmost of one’s ability. Its opposite is half-ass, to do something without much effort. Half-ass is a back formation of the adjective half-assed, “not well planned or executed.” Half-assed originated around 1932, “perhaps a humorous mispronunciation of haphazard.”

gotcha journalism

Dwight: “This is gotcha journalism, and you know what? They’re not gonna gotch me.”

“The Boat,” November 8, 2012

Gotcha journalism is “any method of interviewing designed to entrap interviewees into making statements that are damaging or discreditable to their cause, character, integrity, or reputation.” The earliest citation we could find for this phrase was from 1991. Please antedate us if you can!

Irish exit

Darryl: “I hate goodbyes so last week when I left Dunder-Mifflin for good, I pulled the old Irish exit, just slipped out without making a big deal.”

“A.A.R.M.,” May 9, 2013

An Irish exit is leaving without saying goodbye. The phrase may come from the practice of Irish Americans leaving social functions without alerting anyone, knowing that goodbyes would be long and delay their departure, or perhaps, more stereotypically, leaving without a word because one is drunk.

kitchen witch

Aunt Shirley [about Angela]: “Who’s this little kitchen witch? She’s so tiny like a little kitchen witch.”

“Moving On,” February 14, 2013

A kitchen witch is a “homemade doll resembling a stereotypical witch or crone displayed in residential kitchens as a means to provide good luck and ward off bad spirit.” The country of origin may be Norway or Germany, which is where Dwight’s family, including his Aunt Shirley, is from.

kobold

Dwight: “Troy is literally one of a kind. He’s a goblin or a Hobbit or a kobold, which is a type of gremlin.”

“Junior Salesman,” January 31, 2013

A kobold is “an often mischievous household elf in German folklore.” Kobold comes from the German kobolt, which also gives us cobalt, from silver miners’ belief that the element had been placed by goblins who had stolen the silver.

perfektenschlage

Dwight: “I am so deep inside of perfektenschlage.”

“Special Project,” February 9, 2012

This word is from last season, but we couldn’t help but include it. Perfektenschlage is “when everything in a man’s life comes together perfectly.” The second meaning is “perfect pork anus.” The word translates from the German as “perfect (perfekt) bang or blow (schlage).” It’s most likely a nonsense word.

sausage factory

Pete: “This next card comes to us thanks to Meredith Palmer who called Eastern Pennsylvania Seminary a, quote, sausage factory.”

“The Target,” November 29, 2012

A sausage factory is “a party or gathering with few to no women present.” It also refers to in literature, “an unappealing process to generate something familiar”; in journalism, “the process of creating news”; and in politics, “dealing and compromise done behind the scenes to enact legislation.”

Silicon Prairie

Ryan: “I’ve actually done a lot of market research and it turns out that southwestern Ohio is going to be the next Silicon Valley. They call it the Silicon Prairie. It’s a big university town.”

“New Guys,” September 20, 2012

Silicon Prairie plays off of Silicon Valley, “a region in California to the south of San Francisco that is noted for its concentration of high-technology industries.”

The coinage of the phrase Silicon Valley is credited to journalist Don Hoefler who wrote a series of articles entitled “Silicon Valley USA” in 1971.

Stairmageddon

Erin: “Didn’t you get the memo? It’s stairmageddon!”

“Stairmageddon,” April 11, 2013

Stairmageddon is a blend of stair and Armageddon, “the scene of a final battle between the forces of good and evil, prophesied to occur at the end of the world.” As Oscar says, the Dunder-Mifflin office “has an unusually large number of unusually large people,” so when “something is routine as elevator maintenance happens and people are forced to expend cardiovascular effort, [they] have to compare it to the end of time.”

white whale

Dwight: “There’s a reason we in the paper industry call [the White Pages] the white whale. Look at all that sweet blubber.”

“The Whale,” November 15, 2012

White whale refers to Moby-Dick, the elusive white whale in Herman Melville’s novel. The expression now refers to anything desirable yet elusive to the pursuer.

YOLO

Oscar: “YOLO! It’s a thing. It means you only live once.”
Kevin: “We’re aware of what it means, Oscar. You just do not look cool saying it.”

“Suit Warehouse,” January 17, 2013

YOLO stands for “you only live once.” While YOLO came about in the last few years, according to Ben Zimmer, “the exact wording of ‘you only live once’ begins cropping up in the late 19th century, and by 1937 it was popular enough to be used as the title of a Fritz Lang film noir.”

Zuckerberg

Darryl: “You’ve got a real Facebook energy going here. You Zuckerberged this place out.”

“Suit Warehouse,” January 17, 2013

Zuckerberg in this context means to turn a workplace into something hip and casual, similar to what a start-up like Facebook might be (although the employees at Jim’s company all wear suits as opposed to, say, hoodies).

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WotD Perfect Tweet Challenge – Week of May 6, 2013

Every week, we pose a challenge: using any word of the day from the week, create a perfect tweet, otherwise known as a twoosh. Here are our favorites from last week.

Thanks to everyone for playing! Remember, the WotD Perfect Tweet Challenge is going on a short hiatus, and will be back the week of June 3. We look forward to seeing your perfect tweets then!

And as always, to get the word of the day, follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook, or subscribe via email.

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This Week’s Language Blog Roundup: The Great Gatsby, really old words, Dothraki

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.

great gatsby

Great Gatsby

With the premiere of the latest movie version of The Great Gatsby, the 1920s were on a lot of minds this week. The OxfordWords blog discussed the language of jazz; Ben Zimmer explained how baloney got phony; and Katy Steinmetz at Time told us why F. Scott Fitzgerald is all over the dictionary.

Author Haruki Murakami discussed translating The Great Gatsby into Japanese. Flavorwire rounded up some beautiful Great Gatsby covers, and we at Wordnik discussed the language of the 1920s beyond bee’s knees and other well-known slang.

In language news, the Washington Post announced that linguists have identified 15,000-year-old “ultraconserved’ words. Not so fast, said both Sally Thomason at Language Log and Robert Lane Greene at The Economist. Thomason explained that “word sets that have similar meanings and also sound similar after 15,000 years are unlikely to share those similar sounds as the result of inheritance from a common ancestor,” while Greene questioned the “clever statistical analysis” of the study.

In other language controversies, participants in the Scripps National Spelling Bee are now required to know the definitions of the words they’ll be spelling. Ben Zimmer took a deeper look at this rule change. Disney tried to trademark the phrase Dia de los Muertos, Day of the Dead, then decided not to, thank goodness. We also found out that we’ve been lied to all these years about the QWERTY keyboard.

In dictionary news, we were happy to learn that DARE, the Dictionary of American Regional English, has gotten a financial reprieve through a $100,000 anonymous donation and a $30,000 gift from the American Dialect Society.

At Lingua Franca, Geoff Pullum wondered why we’re still waiting for natural language processing; Lucy Ferriss discussed the possible death of LOL; Allan Metcalf visited the zoo of language pet peeves; and Ben Yagoda delved into a specific peeve, the misuse of literally.

The Atlantic had their own wordy annoyance, the overuse of definitely; The Sydney Morning Herald is “being driven mad by extraneous ‘’whats’”; and a word snob at The New York Times confessed to words both loved and hated.

At Macmillan Dictionary blog, Luke Vyner told the story behind the phrase, eye of the tiger, and Stan Carey explored LOL slash grammar. At Merriam-Webster’s blog, Emily Brewster also looked at slash as punctuation turned slang. Arika Okrent discussed some other symbols that have turned into words.

Fritinancy’s weekly words included slow TV, “television dramas whose gradual, deliberate pacing and literary structure. . . demand patience and engagement on the part of the viewer,” and, because it’s Underwear Week over at Fritinancy’s, cheekini, a style of women’s underwear with “a raised cut in the rear that covers some but not all of the buttock cheeks.”

Erin McKean’s words of the week included zhongshan, the Mao suit; uptalk, “pronouncing statements as if they were questions”; and papalo, “cilantro on steroids.” Word Spy spotted feature nail, “a fingernail with an applied color, pattern, or shape that is different from the other nails”; get-off-my-lawn, “cantankerous and old-fashioned”; and Facebook facelift, “cosmetic surgery designed to improve how a person looks in photos posted to social networking sites.”

Fully (sic) made the case for chook lit, “chick lit for the older woman,” as chook is slang for an older woman. Oz Worders explored the word shaggledick, an “affectionate term used to greet someone who is quite familiar but whose name you’ve forgotten.”

Our own words of the week included ploddledygook, promposal (also a contender for worst word of the week), and our favorite, Rikering, which must be seen to be believed.

At The Week, James Harbeck found other languages with spelling worse than that of English, and on his own blog cleared up the difference between any more and anymore. Arrant Pedantry gave the reasons the reason why is correct. Kory Stamper considered not-so-tidy parts of speech. The New Yorker explained their love of double consonants.

In library news, the Digital Public Library of America is offering 38,000 historical maps to explore, and the New York Public Library’s remodeled Donnell Library Center was unveiled this week, as well as designs for their new 53rd Street branch.

This week we learned the Isaac Newton invented a language, and how to invent a conlang, or constructed language, like Dothraki in Game of Thrones. We found out everything we need to know about Dothraki, including that we’ve been pronouncing khaleesi wrong this whole time. But so has the Game of Thrones cast with their variety of accents. On that note, we learned how to fake an accent and get away with it.

The Dialect Blog examined the poshification of David Beckham’s accent. All Voices taught us some Yorkshire. WBEZ explored the Chicago accent, Chicago “blaccent,” and differences between various African-American accents. At Johnson, Robert Lane Greene took a look at Charles Ramsey and black dialect.

We loved this piece on poets’ second jobs and this one on New York cabbie poets. You have until July 1st to submit your haiku to Mars.

In naming, we learned why NPR reporters have such great names, and a bunch of names so awful that New Zealand had to ban them. We found out that Franz Kafka was a great procrastinator; that Harper Lee is suing her literary agent for rights to To Kill a Mockingbird; and that CIA agents use pseudonyms when they review spy novels.

We loved this guide to summer movies based on books and these weird things people have said in bookstores. Finally, we weren’t sure whether to love or hate this glossary of hipster hallmarks.

That’s it for this week!

[Photo: CC BY 2.0 by Chris Drumm]