Author Archives: John McGrath

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Beautiful Libraries

A little Friday fantasia: in September of 2007 Curious Expeditions collected dozens of pictures of stunning old libraries in a post titled Librophiliac Love Letter: A Compendium of Beautiful Libraries, which was just sent to me by my old pal Magnolia. They’re incredible.

I’ve spent my entire life surrounded either by clean-lined modernism or an almost equally spare New England aesthetic, and it’s startling to be reminded that baroque and rococo (barococo?) confections like this were ever built, let alone on this scale and in such profusion. Likewise, information is now so ubiquitous, and incorporeal, and cheap, it’s jolting to think of a time when it was rare, and heavy, and expensive, and so justified the building of palaces like this to contain it.

Curious Expeditions says they’ll leave it to someone else to post a list of beautiful modern libraries, like Louis Kahn’s library at Exeter. If anyone knows of one, please let us know in the comments.

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The Morbid Language of Newspapers

BoingBoing has a short but sweet post (the comments are worth reading too), sent to me by harrisj and mentioned on Wordie by VanishedOne, about the death-tinged tone of journalism jargon. Beat, kill (sometimes for a fee), morgue, widow, orphan, slug, bullet. I’m guessing this stems more from the sometimes bleak nature of what journalists cover than the overwhelmingly bleak current state of the industry—these are old terms, after all. They might also have roots in the noirish self-image a lot of newspaper people have of themselves: secretly every jschool grad from the ‘burbs wishes he or she was Bogart in “Deadline U.S.A.”

Some other good journalism lists on Wordie: newspaper names*, this one of tabloid phrases, and my own short list of tabloid headlines, which could use a shot in the arm**.

* Consistently the most common source of search traffic to the site.
** It’s an open list, so feel free.

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Yes We Scan

Carl Malamud is the “rebel archivist” who has been working for years to make government documents freely available, and he has started a campaign to be appointed Public Printer of the United States, head of the Government Printing Office. Malamud says he’s inspired by Augustus E. Giegengack, “a working printer and regular leather apron man” who FDR appointed to head the GPO after a similar grassroots effort.

Malamud’s background is ideal for the position, and his appointment would go a long way towards furthering Obama’s campaign pledge to increase transparency in government. For more info and to offer your support, visit Malamud’s delightfully-named campaign site, Yes We Scan!

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After Deadline: Murky Passages

I just discovered that After Deadline, an internal New York Times newsletter on language and writing, is also adapted for inclusion in the Times Topics blog. The most recent post is on murky language and overstuffed sentences, and there’s a nice stash of earlier posts on grammar, usage, words, and other things language-related.

Among them is a piece on the rise of the word we love to hate, the s-word. Even if it pains you to see it in print, the post has some interesting statistics on the rise of this scourge word, which, amazingly, wasn’t used in the Times a single time in 1980, and only once in 1985 (by my nemesis, William Safire). Usage crept up through the ninteies, and set a record last year with over 40 appearances. The author, Philip B. Corbet, doesn’t offer any theories about the source of the plague, though he does suggest it’s time to give it a rest. Here’s to hoping it goes the way of the Bush administration.

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Beware the Econorrhea

Trevor Butterworth is the editor of the absolutely fantastic STATS.org blog, which has been my favorite media watchdog publication for the past few years. They post authoritatively on topics like media coverage of health issues and the use and abuse of statistics, and happily their quantitative bent is accompanied by a joy in language, particularly of the so-bad-it’s-good variety.

Last month Trevor posted a Wordie list, subtitled Econorrhea, of neologisms and portmanteaux having to do with the economic implosion, which he has now worked into a Jabberwocky parody* on Recessionwire—which is itself compiling the beginnings of what could be something fun: a recession lexicon. It’s all worth checking out, in particular STATS.

* Check the comments too: he’s being pursued by the Lewis Caroll Society.

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Getting Back on the Bike

So, I’ve been the worst blogger ever. Got my head turned by Twitter, other parts of life flared up, and next thing I know I haven’t posted to Errata in over four months.

This is a tentative step towards getting back on the bike. I spent this weekend refactoring some of the innards of poor neglected Wordie. The results of this ongoing effort will be largely invisible, and mostly for my own benefit–some of the internals were written in such haste that now, months or years later, what’s going on under the hood is a little hazy, even to me. So I’m reorganizing internals*, fixing a few longstanding bugs, and along the way hopefully improving performance, to handle the slow, steady increase in traffic Wordie continues to see. Once I’ve cleaned house I’ll be in a much better position to start adding some new features.

One small feature you can see right now is a new link to Forvo.com under each word. Forvo is sort of like Wordie–user submitted words–but it focuses on audio pronunciations, rather than, uh, whatever it is that Wordie focuses on. Click the last little square under antipodes for an example. It’ll bring you to a page on Forvo where you can hear the proper Canadian pronunciation of the word.

* For those who care, I’m also bolting on, after the fact, a proper test suite, having recently gotten the TDD religion.

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Happy 80th, OED

In 1857 the “Unregistered Words Committee” of the Philological Society of London published the report On Some Deficiencies in our English Dictionaries, calling for the creation of a new comprehensive English dictionary. Sixty-one years later, on April 19, 1928, the final fascicle of the Oxford English Dictionary was published, covering Wise to the end of W. (Curious about the fate of X, Y, and Z? Me too, but I’m just parroting Wikipedia.)

In celebration of the 80th anniversary of the OED, the Oxford University Press is hosting a series of events around the world. And for the rest of this year, they’re offering the full 20-volume print edition for the low low price of £450 or $850. You can’t afford not to buy it! It’ll probably hold its value better than your stock portfolio, and it’s certainly a lot more fun.

October 12-13
Oxford University, Oxford, England
with:
Charlotte Brewer
Ammon Shea
John Simpson
Simon Winchester

October 22
Century Club, New York, NY
with:
Simon Winchester
Ammon Shea
Jesse Shedlower

November 13, 6:00pm, Brattle Theater
Harvard Bookstore, Cambridge, MA
with:
Ammon Shea
Jesse Sheidlower
Simon Winchester

November 18, 7:30-9:00pm
Philadelphia Free Library, Philadelphia, PA
with:
Ammon Shea
Jesse Sheidlower
Barbara Wallraff