Author Archives: Angela Tung

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We’re Under Your Spell: Scripps National Spelling Bee

Have you heard the buzz? It’s Bee Week, which means elite spellers from around the world are coming together to practice some orthography and compete for the 2012 Scripps National Spelling Bee championship.

To celebrate, we’ll be live-tweeting the semifinal and championship rounds on Thursday, May 31, from 10 AM to 1 PM and 8 PM to 10 PM EDT, respectively. Join us as we cheer on the competitors and provide etymologies, lists, images, and other fun facts about the words the spellers spell. Follow us on Twitter and look out for the official Scripps Bee hashtag, #spellingbee.

Can’t wait till Thursday? Play Spelling Bee Bingo by guessing what you think will be this year’s winning word. You can enter as many times as you want. The winner gets a Wordnik T-shirt and other swag.

The first national spelling bee was held in 1925 “as a consolidation of numerous local spelling bees,” and was won by 11-year old Frank Neuhauser, who passed away in March 2011 at 97. Neuhauser spelled gladiolus correctly to beat out eight other finalists and win “$500 in gold, a bicycle and a trip to the White House to meet President Calvin Coolidge.”

But the art of correct spelling, or orthography, wasn’t always so valued. Spelling in Old English texts was so variable that now they “are generally ‘normalized’,” says Rice University, “or printed in accordance with what scholars think is a good representative form for each word.” It wasn’t until the 15th century and the advent of the printer that the word orthography even came about. Since then English spelling has seen many changes, such as Latinizing (det becoming debt due to the Latin debitum); attempts at spelling reform; problems with reform; spellcheck; when spellcheck won’t help; autocorrect and the Cupertino effect.

This week’s competitors won’t have – or need – spellcheck or autocorrect. In fact they probably know most of these sometimes-obscure correctly spelled words that look like misspellings of other words; all the winning words from 1925’s gladiolus to 2011’s cymotrichous, “characterized by having waving hair”; and these guesses from last year’s Spelling Bee Bingo. They’ll have no need for the Oatmeal’s hilarious explanation of 10 words we must stop misspelling, and would laugh as hard as we did at this roundup of ridiculous, and frighteningly common, spelling mistakes on Twitter.

We look forward to seeing some amazing “spells” cast this Thursday. Remember to join us on Twitter as we live-tweet the semifinal and championship rounds.

Best of luck to all the spellers!

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WotD Perfect Tweet Challenge Roundup

Every week, we pose a challenge: using any word of the day from the week, create a perfect tweet, otherwise known as a twoosh. If we like it, your tweet will appear on our blog.

Here are our favorites from last week:

Thanks to everyone for playing! Remember, to get the word of the day, follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook, or subscribe via email.

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The Language of the Telegraph

en-first-telegraph-painting

On this day in 1844, Samuel F.B. Morse sent the first public message over his invention, the telegraph. The message, “What hath God wrought?” was dispatched, says the Library of Congress, “over an experimental line from Washington, D.C., to Baltimore,” and “had been suggested to Morse by Annie Ellsworth, the young daughter of a friend.” Some proclaim today Morse Code Day, while others prefer April 27, Morse’s birthday. Either seems like a good time to celebrate telegraph language.

The word telegraph came about before the invention of the electric telegraph. In 1794, says the Online Etymology Dictionary, the telegraph was a “semaphore apparatus” invented in France, which translated literally as “that which writes at a distance.” In 1797, the word was applied for the first time to an “experimental electric telegraph.”

Wireless telegraphy, also known as spark-telegraphy, is “telegraphy by radio rather than by long-distance transmission lines.” The marconigraph was a wireless telegraph developed by Guglielmo Marconi, one of the earliest developers of long-distance radio, while to aerograph means “to communicate by means of wireless telegraph.” The marconi system uses Hertzian waves “in transmission and a coherer. . .as the receiving instrument.” A marconist practices marconism, “the art of wireless telegraphy according to the Marconi system.”

Morse code, a type of symbol-printing, was invented in part by Morse and expanded by Alfred Vail, a machinist and inventor. It uses dots and dashes to communicate, the dot, “the short sound or signal,” and the dash, “the long sound or signal.” The spoken representations of the dot and the dash are, respectively, dit and dah since they “more closely resemble the timing of the sounds.”

A prosign, or procedural signal, is “any of a set of special sequences in Morse code used as control characters and punctuation.” An example of a prosign is SOS, “an international distress signal, especially by ships and aircraft.” SOS, by the way, isn’t short for “save our ships” or “save our souls.” The letters were “chosen arbitrarily as being easy to transmit and difficult to mistake.” An alternative suggestion was C.Q.D., which may mean “come quickly, distress.” SOS “is the telegraphic distress signal only,” with the spoken equivalent being mayday.

Like all languages, Morse code has its own slang. Rag-chewing refers to a conversation that’s longer than usual, “generally a conversation extending about 30 minutes,” and comes from the idiom chew the rag. Achy digits? You might have morse finger, a “contraction of the finger following a traumatic inflammation of the joints excited by overuse in pressing the keys of the Morse telegraph.”

Umpty, an indefinite number, was “originally Morse code slang for ‘dash,’ influenced by association with numerals such as twenty, thirty, etc.” Thirty indicates “the last sheet, word, or line of copy or of a despatch,” while in the 20th century “jargon of journalism, it came to be a traditional sign-off signal and slang word for ‘the end.’” Seventy-three means “best regards” while eighty-eight means “hugs and kisses.” (The origins of these is unknown, as far as we can tell.) Check out even more telegraph and radio slang.

Then there are the non-telegraph words the telegraph gave us. For instance, while today we know a troubleshooter as “a worker whose job is to locate and eliminate sources of trouble, as in mechanical operations,” as well as “a mediator skilled in settling disputes especially of a diplomatic, political, or industrial nature,” it was originally “one who works on telegraph or telephone lines.”

Most of us have heard a rumor through the grapevine, but you may not know that grapevine is actually short for grapevine telegraph. World Wide Words says the phrase originated in the U.S. “sometime in the late 1840s or early 1850s,” providing “a wry comparison between the twisted stems of the grapevine and the straight lines of the then new electric telegraph marching across America.”

Unlike the electric telegraph, “the grapevine telegraph was by individual to individual, often garbling the facts or reporting untruths (so reflecting the gnarled and contorted stems of the grapevine), but likewise capable of transmitting vital messages quickly over distances.” It was during the Civil War that the phrase gained widespread popularity.

Those are the dits and dahs from us. Till next time, 73 and 88!

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Word Soup Wednesday

While the television show The Soup brings you “the strange, obscure and totally unbelievable moments in pop culture, celebrity news and reality TV,” Word Soup brings you those strange, obscure, unbelievable (and sometimes NSFW) words from talk shows, sitcoms, dramas, and just about anything else on TV.

Aegishjalmur

Hank: “What the hell is that thing on his face?”
Nick: “It’s called the Aegishjalmur, the helm of awe. It’s a symbol the Vikings wore for invincibility.”

“The Woman in Black,” Grimm, May 18, 2012

Aegishjalmur may translate literally as “terror helm.”

beefsquatch

Linda: “He’s just mad because he thinks Gene beefsquatched all over his special moment.”
Bob: “Don’t use that as a verb.”

“Beefsquatch,” Bob’s Burgers, May 20, 2012

The Beefsquatch is a character that Gene developed for his father’s television cooking segment, in which he dons an ape mask and gorges himself on hamburgers. Beefsquatch is a blend of beef and Sasquatch, another name for Bigfoot, which comes from Halkomelem, “a native language of the Pacific Northwest.” To beefsquatch means to ruin something, perhaps reminiscent of squash or quash.

copera

Cop: “Love is not admissible evidence! I’m working on a cop opera.”
Everyone: “Copera!”
Pierce: “Policial!”

“First Chang Dynasty,” Community, May 17, 2012

Copera is a blend of cop and opera. Cop originated in 1704 as a northern British dialectecal meaning “to seize, to catch,” which may have ultimately come from the Latin capere, “to take.” Policial is a blend of police and musical. Cop Rock was a musical police TV drama that aired in 1990.

cryptozoologist

Hank: “Both were self-described cryptozoologists.”
Renard: “Meaning?”
Nick: “Big Foot hunters.”

“Big Feet,” Grimm, May 11, 2012

A cryptozoologist is one who studies crytozoology, “the study of creatures, such as the Sasquatch, whose existence has not been substantiated.” Crypto, meaning “secret” or “hidden,” comes from the Greek kryptos, “hidden, concealed, secret.” Zoologist and zoology come from the Greek zoion, “an animal.”

crap attack

Linda (to Tina): “Don’t you tell me not to have a crap attack! I’ll have a crap attack anytime I want!”

“Bad Tina,” Bob’s Burgers, May 13, 2012

A crap attack is the act of overreacting to something perceived as minor. Synonyms include spaz attack, where spaz is a shortening of spastic or spasm; conniption fit; to have kittens; and to have a cow.

deanelganger

Cop: “Of course. The head of security of Greendale Community College has kidnapped the real dean and replaced him with a deanelganger.”
Jeff: “Well, when you say it that way, it sounds ridiculous.”
Troy: “The word we used was doppeldeaner.”

“First Chang Dynasty,” Community, May 17, 2012

Deanelganger is a blend of dean and doppelganger, a double or apparition of a living person. Doppelganger translates from the German as “double-goer.” Sometimes doubleganger.

A deanelchanger, a blend of dean, doppelganger, and Chang, is a bell that Chang rings to summon the fake dean. Changer may be a play on clang, “a loud, sharp, resonant, and metallic sound,” and clanger, a British English word meaning “a blunder.”

folk racing

Anthony Bourdain: “The idea? Survive two laps on mirror ice. No snow tires or chains.”

“Finland,” No Reservations, May 14, 2012

Finnish folk racing is “a mixture of rally racing and demolition derby.”

GILF

Helen Cho [reading a suggestion from a fan]: “Have a grandma cook for you.”
Anthony Bourdain: “Get working on a GILF.”
Cho: “A GILF?!”
Bourdain: “A Grandma I’d Like to Feed Me.”

“Finland,” No Reservations, May 14, 2012

GILF plays on MILF, a “mother found sexually attractive; an attractive middle-aged woman.”

granny slippers

Anthony Bourdain: “I don’t even know what this shot was about, though it’s called granny slippers, disturbingly enough. Salmiakki vodka and Irish cream? Sure, why not?”

“Finland,” No Reservations, May 14, 2012

Granny slippers in Finnish is mummon tohveli.

nerf herder

News announcer: “Security cameras caught the getaway van heading west toward Manhattan.”
Liz [recognizing her boyfriend’s hot dog van]: “Nerf herder!”

“What Will Happen to the Gang Next Year?” 30 Rock, May 17, 2012

Nerf herder is a variation on Liz’s usual “swear word,” nerds, and is also a reference to the insult hurled by Princess Leia to Han Solo in The Empire Strikes Back: “Why, you stuck up, half-witted, scruffy-looking… Nerf herder!”

pocket warmer

Sammi Yaffa [on koskenkorva, a Finnish vodka]: “It’s made out of rye. They call it the pocket warmer because everyone walks around with a half drunk warm bottle of koskenkorva. This stuff is usually better when it’s pocket-warm.”

“Finland,” No Reservations, May 14, 2012

Koskenkorva is “the most common clear spirit drink in Finland,” and “is a small village. . .in Finland that translates as ‘(area) by the rapids.’”

sauna

Anthony Bourdain: “What is it with saunas in this country? Everyone says, number one answer, what you should do in Finland.”
Sammi Yaffa: “It’s a Finnish word.”

“Finland,” No Reservations, May 14, 2012

Sauna came into English around 1881.

snorgasm

Tammy: “Tina, no offense but this tour is giving me a snorgasm.”

“Bad Tina,” Bob’s Burgers, May 13, 2012

Snorgasm is a blend of snore and orgasm, and means a feeling of intense boredom.

twist

Bartender [to Emily]: “Want a twist? The hero and the villain are actually the same person. Get it?”

“Legacy,” Revenge, May 9, 2012

Twist here has a double meaning: “a sliver of lemon peel added to a cocktail, etc.” as well as “an unexpected change in a process or a departure from a pattern, often producing a distortion or perversion.” On the show, Emily is both the hero and the villain.

Wildermann

Monroe: “[Wildermann are] smart loners. Like the woods, cabins, campfires, hiking. You know, back to nature eco-warrior types. Thoreau, Emerson, Abbey.”

“Big Feet,” Grimm, May 11, 2012

Wildermann translates from the German as “savage (wilder) man (mann).”

Woge

Monroe: “Woge. It roughly translates to the wave that overtakes one. You know, the change, the surge, the massive hormonal jolt.”

“Big Feet,” Grimm, May 11, 2012

Woge translates from the German as “wave” or “surge,” and refers to the change that Vessen experience when changing from human to animal form.

That’s it for this week! Remember, if you see any Word Soup-worthy words, let us know on Twitter with the hashtag #wordsoup. Your word and Twitter handle might appear right here!

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Elementary, My Dear Wordnik! Mystery Words

Sherlock Holmes

Sherlock Holmes

Today marks the 153rd birthday of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the man behind Sherlock Holmes. To celebrate (and console ourselves over the end of the second season of the Masterpiece Mystery series), we’ve rounded up some words about mysteries and mystery solvers.

The word detective, which came about in the early 1800s, was originally short for detective police. Detective is the adjectival form of detect, which comes from a Latin word meaning “to uncover.” Tec is an abbreviation of detective that originated in 1879.

The origin of sleuth is less direct. The word, which has Old Norse origins, came about in the 13th century, says the Online Etymology Dictionary, and meant “track or trail of a person.” This sense of sleuth gave us sleuthhound, a kind of bloodhound, which gained the figurative meaning of “keen investigator” in 1849. In 1872, this sense of sleuthhound was shortened to sleuth.

Hawkshaw is American English slang and comes from the “name of the detective in ‘The Ticket-of-Leave Man,'” a 19th century British play. (A ticket of leave, in case you were wondering, is “a license or permit given to a convict, or prisoner of the crown, to go at large, and to labor for himself before the expiration of his sentence.”) Snoop, another synonym for detective, gained its mystery-solving meaning around 1891. It originally meant “to go about in a prying or sneaking way” and probably comes from the Dutch snoepen, “to eat on the sly.”

While the character Sherlock Holmes first appeared in print in 1887, it wasn’t until 1903 that sherlock came to mean “detective” in general. The phrase no shit, Sherlock, said when someone is being obvious, seems to have gained popularity in the 1980s. However, we did find a mention in a 1976 book, No Bugles, No Drums.

Gumshoe originated around 1906, and comes from “the rubber-soled shoes [detectives] wore,” perhaps because they allow the wearer “to move about stealthily.” Dick meaning detective “is recorded from 1908, perhaps as a shortened variant of detective.” Shamus, slang for a police officer or private investigator, may come from the Hebrew shamash, “servant,” referring to the “sexton of a synagogue,” and influenced by the Irish name Seamus, or James, “a typical name for an Irish cop.”

A skip tracer specializes in “finding people who have attempted to disappear,” with the idea of tracing someone who has skipped town. We couldn’t find an origin, though we did spot this mention in a newspaper article from 1930 about lexicographers and slang expressions: “Of course, I know without being told what a stick-up artist is, even tho yesterday I did not know what a skip-tracer was.”

Finally, private eye was first recorded around 1938, according to World Wide Words, and is “a pun derived from private investigator, via the abbreviations PI and private I.”

Usually where there’s a detective, there’s a mystery. Mystery in the sense of ‘detective story’ was first recorded in 1908. The word originally referred to ancient religious rites such as “purifications, sacrificial offerings, processions, songs, dances, dramatic performances, and the like” before it came to mean anything “of which the meaning, explanation, or cause is not known, and which awakens curiosity or inspires awe.”

A whodunit is “a story dealing with a crime and its solution,” while a howdunit focuses not on who committed the crime but how the crime was committed. Similar is a howdhecatchem, also known as an inverted detective story, which reveals the crime and perpetrator in the beginning, then focuses on how the perpetrator was caught by the crime-solver. In a locked room mystery, the crime is “committed under apparently impossible circumstances,” involving a “crime scene that no intruder could have entered or left, e.g., a locked room.” A procedural is so-called because it involves a sequence of technical details or procedures.

Hard-boiled meaning “callous” came about around 1886. The origin of the hard-boiled detective is unclear although we did find this citation in a 1925 issue of Collier’s Magazine. Hard-boiled fiction, which gained popularity in the 1920s and 1930s, is “ distinguished by the unsentimental portrayal of violence and sometimes sex.” Noir is a type of crime literature that features “tough, cynical characters and bleak settings,” and is short for the French roman noir, literally “black novel,” a type of gothic fiction.

In cozy mysteries, or cozies, “sex and violence are downplayed or treated humorously, and the crime and detection take place in a small, socially intimate community.” The crime-solvers are “nearly always amateurs. . .and frequently women” who are “well-educated, intuitive, and often hold jobs (caterer, innkeeper, librarian, teacher, dog trainer, shop owner, reporter) that bring them into constant contact with other residents of their town and the surrounding region.” The blog Traditional Mysteries does a great job researching the origin of the term, tracing it back to the early 1960s. The term may come from tea cozy.

For even more mystery words, check out this list of snoops, some perponyms, and these words noir.

[Photo: CC BY 2.0 by timofeia]

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WotD Perfect Tweet Challenge Roundup

Every week, we pose a challenge: using any word of the day from the week, create a perfect tweet, otherwise known as a twoosh. If we like it, your tweet will appear on our blog.

Here are our favorites from last week:

We also liked this sentence left in the comments of our blog from “food writer and dilettante,” Gary Allen:

The inexperienced habanero eater burst flammivomously.

We hate when that happens!

Thanks to everyone for playing! Remember, 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

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.

Early last week Maurice Sendak, beloved children’s writer, passed away. While we mourned his loss, we enjoyed his memory through these Sendak-esque Avengers on parade; Ben Zimmer’s piece about the wild words of children’s literature;  and these hilarious interviews with Stephen Colbert (including this uncensored, NSFW one).

Speaking of dirty words, Johnson recounted the F-word in court; Arnold Zwicky reported on the reporting of the profane; the Dialect Blog wondered about the dirtiness of bloody; and Stephen Fry extolled the virtues of the “unnecessary” art of swearing.

In politics, Mighty Red Pen red-lined Mitt Romney’s grammar (mmm, pizza magnet); John Edwards’s defense team relied on the definition of the; and Barbara Partee at Language Log delved into weak definites. Meanwhile, at the Macmillan Dictionary blog, Stephen Bullon explained the origins of the left and the right.

Back at Macmillan, Orin Hargaves discussed English’s jumbled history; Gill Francis examined changing uses of “grammar” words; and Stan Carey looked at different ways of apologizing, and on his own blog, scared up some scary quotes and explored a skeptical Irish expression. At Language Log, Mark Liberman verbed some words and called some BS, while Ben Zimmer solved the mystery around a Sherlock Holmes “typo,” and at The Boston Globe got meta on the word meta.

At Lingua Franca, Ben Yagoda considered a racist word, while Allan Metcalf looked into generations and the word hip and the decline of ain’t. Fritinancy had it out with violent snacks, and for words of the week noted grasstops, “the leadership in a community or organization,” and wantologist, “a coach who sells his or her assistance to people unclear about what they want.” Erin McKean’s weekly wordy selections included belted lav, a passenger seat on a charter jet located in the bathroom; FPC, flavors per calorie; sauropod, a plant-eating dinosaur; and subluxation, misalignment in the joint.

Kory Stamper wrote a letter to a prospective lexicographer. The Virtual Linguist traced the history of the word cynic. The Dialect Blog posted on the impolite “please” and Pennsylvanian accents and dialect.

This week we also saw the rise of the twitchfork mob; thought about taking a long remode; and learned the difference between your and you’re from the fastest white rapper. We loved these punning policemen, these geeky insults, and this letter on plagiarism from Mark Twain to Helen Keller. We enjoyed these good portmanteaus and even these bad ones. Finally, we will immediately start incorporating these words and phrases from Game of Thrones into our vocabulary.

That’s it for next week! Till next time, here’s wishing you a wild rumpus.