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.

Gun Failing

NPR spoke with Katherine Connor Martin, head of U.S. dictionaries for Oxford University Press, about how gun metaphors have become embedded in the English language.

Kory Stamper discussed how the Iraq war transformed the English language, and Arika Okrent told us how the U.S. Army used Esperanto, a language of peace, as a language of war.

Jen Doll told us what the definition of marriage tells us about marriage equality, and Katy Steinmetz rounded up seven hang-ups in the language of gay rights.

In grammar news, Megan Garber looked at the decline of whom, and a grammar war was sparked in Britain by some dropped apostrophes, to which Robert Lane Greene and Geoff Pullum both responded.

At Lingua Franca, Anne Curzan wrote about guys, girls, and women, and Ben Yagoda spoke with an expert about March Madness cliches. In other basketball news, Ben Zimmer had a chalk talk.

At Macmillan Dictionary blog, Dorothy Zemach revealed the story behind the word wayzgoose; Gill Francis talked about weather words; Michael Rundell delved into some J.R. Ewing sayings; and Stan Carey explored some U.S. regional slang. On his own blog, Stan had fun with alternative names of the exclamation mark and asked for your suggestions.

In the week in words, Fritinancy chose fiberhood, “a neighborhood that has Internet access via fiber-optic cable,” and subtweet, short for subliminal tweet, “a tweet that refers to a person without including his or her Twitter handle; the online version of talking about someone behind his back.”

Erin McKean‘s weekly word choices included loquat, a kind of fruit; landspout, a whirling storm; ludologist, one who studies games and game-playing; and skaldic poetry, poetry of the Vikings. Erin also rounded up February’s also-rans, noteworthy words that didn’t make it into her Wall Street Journal columns.

The Word Spy spotted Proteus phenomenon, “the tendency for early findings in a new area of research to alternate between opposite conclusions”; datasexual, “a person who obsessively collects and shares data about his or her own life to improve self-knowledge and embellish self-presentation”; and crime-as-a-service, “Web-based software that enables or enhances online criminal activity.”

Meanwhile, the narcotic word of the week was sizzurp, prescription cough syrup “mixed with soda and sometimes hard candy, like Jolly Ranchers.”

Oz Worders considered the archaic girt. The Dialect Blog explored Jane Austen’s English. The Virtual Linguist examined the phrase not on your nelly as well as a country suffix, while Sesquiotica, aka James Harbeck, discussed trendy suffixes and, at The Week, Scandinavian pronunciations of common English words. The Atlantic gave us 14 Swedish words that English should immediately adopt, including ogooglebar, or “not found via Google.”

This week we learned what the word clue has to do with a ball of string, what online dictionaries are learning about us, and fifty shades of the color gray. We enjoyed these collective nouns, these old-timey political words, and these old-fashioned swear words.

We were happy to hear that landmark status is being sought for the New York Public Library’s Rose Reading room, and that the Los Angeles County Museum has made 20,000 images available for free. We’d also like to visit these weirdly specific museums and to read all these academic papers on ‘90s TV shows.

We agreed with this list of blacklisted biz speak words. We were horrified by these bad covers of classic books and hope we never get one out of a book vending machine.

We enjoyed this regional vocabulary throwdown and these 18 obsolete words that should come back in style. We loved this piece in The New York Times about how the author’s sister cured her writer’s block, and the idea of a Hip Hop Word Count database. The OxfordWords blog told us about the language of My Fair Lady, and Fast Company discussed how the the title of a movie can determine if it will be a hit or a flop.

That’s it for this week!

[Photo: “Gun Failing,” CC BY 2.0 by andorand]

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.

Earlier this week we celebrated what would have been Douglas Adams’s 61st birthday. Google had an interactive Doodle honoring the author of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy while Neil Gaiman spoke to The Washington Post about Adams’s genius.

National Grammar Day is over but discussion about grammar never ends (in a good way of course). Stan Carey asked which was worse, a double comma or unclosed bracket, and got lots of answers. Ben Yagoda told us seven grammar rules we should really pay attention to, The New York Times rounded up some dangling grammar gaffes, and Open Culture shared David Foster Wallace’s write-up of five common usage mistakes.

Ben Zimmer discussed one young man’s journey to find the origin of scalawag and was also busy anointing the champions of the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament and the Symmys Awards, for the year’s best palindromes.

In more wordplay news, Simon Akam at Slate asserted that words like chillax and bridezilla signify the death of the American pun. However, the love of puns seems to be going strong at the O. Henry Pun-Off World Championships.

At Language Log, Mark Liberman explored nerditude. Johnson took a laughing look at the overzealous Quebec language police and explored metaphors in the digital age. At Lingua Franca, Ben Yagoda told us about the slang expression, a hell of a note; Lucy Ferriss weighed in on hypercorrection; and Geoffrey Pullum gave his opinion about quite. Anne Curzan discussed commas and the language of texting, which is apparently a linguistic miracle.

Stan Carey told us about the dramatic grammatic evolution of LOL and the origin of the word kempt. At Macmillan Dictionary Blog, Michael Rundell gave us the story behind dapper and the difference between who and whom.

Some people freaked out about the wrong definition of literally literally going in the dictionary. John McIntyre suggested that they chill out, and also considered the words omnibibulous and git.

In the week in words, Erin McKean noticed pogonophobia, “fear of facial fuzz”; sede vacante, Latin for “the seat being vacant” (regarding the Pope); tuts, video tutorials on YouTube; and polocrosse, “a mashup of lacrosse and polo.” Fritinancy weekly selections included wudu, “in Islam, the ritual washing of the face, hands, and other body parts in preparation for prayers”; and grist, “grain for grinding; ground grain.”

Word Spy spotted safe shake, “the touching of elbows used as a handshake replacement to avoid spreading germs”; instamentary, “a documentary produced in a very short time, particularly one about a recent news event”; openture, “the tendency to not seek a resolution or ending for an emotionally difficult experience”; and, just in time for Pi Day, pi-ku, “a haiku on the theme of the mathematical constant pi.”

The Dialect Blog dialogued on drawer-draw conflation and the hateful history of wog, “an offensive term in British English which refers to various immigrant groups.” Lynneguist dispelled the myth of –ogue-less Americans. Fully (sic) took a look at Canberra bashing, “the act of criticising the Australian federal government and its bureaucracy,” a term that “will be included in the next edition of the Australian National Dictionary.”

In other dictionary news, Grantland offered some tidbits from The Devil’s Dictionary of Sportswriting, and the first edition of the Dictionary of Canadianisms is now online, from which Akira Orent gleaned 24 particularly interesting ones (we may have mal de raquette from our visit to Boston last week).

At the Visual Thesaurus, Georgia Scurletis stared, glanced, and glared at the words of Twilight. Largehearted Boy alerted us of brackets for “swooniest male” in Young Adult literature (Team Peeta – no, Gale! no, Peeta!), and Quora blogs gave us some Harry Potter etymology.

Mental Floss gave us 11 nicknames and the people who hated them, and The Atlantic explained why hot gym girl is a grosser nickname than hot gym guy. We learned how mountains in the U.S. are named, about the experiences of a lip reader, and why it’s important to invent new words (you don’t need to tell us twice!).

We love that these dead authors have lively social media profiles. We want these tiny books made by 17-year old Charlotte Bronte and these miniature libraries. We’d also like to visit these bookstores in barns.

We were disturbed and amused by these suggested renamings of horse meat, and we’re unreasonably excited now that line breaks are allowed in Twitter.

That’s it for this week!

[Photo: CC BY 2.0 by Jim Linwood]

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.

Academy Award Winner

Did you watch the Academy Awards this Sunday? We did and enjoyed this analysis of Oscar speeches far more. Meanwhile, Ben Yagoda enjoyed the luscious language of Lincoln; Ben Schmidt pointed out the anachronisms in Best Picture winner, Argo; and Geoff Nunberg wondered if historical accuracy of language really matters.

In politics, NPR discussed how language shapes the gun debate; we met the man who edits the speeches of North Korean leader Kim Jung Un; and we were glad to learn the Associated Press changed their style guidelines in regards to the language around same-sex marriage.

While last week Allan Metcalf explained the grammar of newspaper headlines, this week he told us about the poetry of it. At Macmillan Dictionary blog, Gill Francis assured us you can’t go wrong with a hyphen, and Lars Trap-Jensen gave us a view from Denmark regarding the dominance of English. The OxfordWords blog discussed the language of crime, and Stan Carey translated some wonderful Dublin phrases.

Fritinancy’s word of the week was behindativeness, “the exaggerated rear shape created by a large dress bustle.” The Word Spy spotted goalodicy, “the continued pursuit of a goal despite evidence that the goal cannot be achieved,” and demitarian, “a person who cuts his or her meat consumption in half.”

The Dialect Blog shared a great find, the NBC Handbook of Pronunciation, as well as some thoughts on the language in Game of Thrones. Lynneguist explained the difference between British and American crosswords. Sesquiotica gave us a taste of moxibustion and glides, and as his alter ego James Harbeck, rounded up nine confusing ways to pluralize words.

Jesse Sheidlower spoke to Time Out about sex in the dictionary, while Christine Ammer discussed the American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms with NPR. Megan Garber of The Atlantic showed us the Kindle of the 16th century. BBC News discussed SaypU, a proposed universal phonetic alphabet, while Victor Mair at Language Log had his doubts. Akira Okrent at Mental Floss wondered how many languages it’s possible to know. Meanwhile, a quirky dialect in northern California is dying out.

In author news, 50 unseen Rudyard Kipling poems have been discovered, and Jane Austen stamps are being issued for 200th anniversary of Pride and Prejudice. Based on these syllabi, we’d take a class with any of these famous authors, and would also consider taking these performance enhancing substances if the literary competition called for it, such as these medieval word puzzles.

We loved these illustrations from Edward Gorey for The War of the Worlds and these from Charles Addams for Mother Goose. We learned the fun meanings of some ancient words; the origins of 10 great insults; the linguistic history behind the phrase, rainbows and unicorns; and new ways to sit in the office thanks to smartphones and tablets.

We found out what a space roar is and the possible new names of Pluto’s smallest moons. In other naming news, certain surnames in the UK are dying out and apparently Chicken McNugget shapes have official names. Finally, we were saddened to learn that there’s a real life thing called Brogurt (we hope Burt from Raising Hope gets a cut).

That’s it for this week! Next week we’ll be at the AWP Bookfair. Come to booth 2907 and say hello!

[Photo: CC BY 2.0 by Davidlohr Bues]

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.

President Abraham Lincoln

Earlier in the week, the Oxford Dictionaries blog celebrated Presidents’ Day by comparing the language of President Obama’s inaugural address to that of Abraham Lincoln’s time. Slate showed us the President’s handwritten edits of his speech, and The Atlantic discussed dialect and when presidents say “y’all.”

OxfordWords also explored guest and host words, the genetic lexicon, and horse idioms and proverbs. In addition, they explained when wrong usages become right. Meanwhile, Mental Floss told us about seven words that came about from people getting them wrong.

Ben Zimmer talked about the Boston accent on The Today Show, and on the Visual Thesaurus discussed dating and grammar and sequester and sequestration. Jen Doll explored word lengthening and texting (yaaaaay!)

Stan Carey looked at peppercorn rent and the controversy that has arisen in the UK when “a Teesside school principal asked parents to ‘correct’ their children’s informal speech – phrases such as it’s nowt (it’s nothing), I seen (I saw, I have seen), and gizit ere (give us it here = give it to me).” The Dialect Blog had a thing or two to say about it too. In other dialect news, ATMs in East London now speak Cockney rhyming slang.

At the Macmillan Dictionary blog, Stan centered on centre around and Michael Rundell honored International Mother Tongue Day by writing about language, culture, and the dominance of English.

The Virtual Linguist explained the difference between cloud-cuckoo-land and the Land of Cockaigne, and meteor and meteorite. (And in case you missed the amazing videos of the meteor blast over Russia, here’s a roundup from Mashable.)

At Language Log, Mark Liberman was severely positive. At Lingua Franca, Ben Yagoda swang and missed, Allan Metcalf explained the grammar of newspaper headlines, and Geoffrey Pullum defended the “monstrous” adverb.

Fritinancy explored the recent proliferation of Xs and Os and the fictional drug brand name, Ablixa. In words of the week, her selections were dudeoir, male boudoir photography, and doxing, “the practice of investigating and revealing a target subject’s personally identifiable information, such as home address, workplace information and credit card numbers, without consent.”

Erin McKean noted jammer, a skater on a roller derby team who “tries to lap the other team’s skaters”; jughandle, a type of traffic-control feature; and decalcomania, in art, “two wet surfaces pressed together and then pulled apart.”

The Word Spy spotted second screening, “using a mobile device to monitor and post social media comments about what you are watching on TV or at the movies,” and sick-lit, “a literary genre that features individuals dealing with fatal or devastating diseases.”

Arnold Zwicky discussed his dislike for National Grammar Day. Photographer Ellen Susan proposed a new punctuation mark while College Humor suggested eight new and necessary punctuation marks.

In language news, a new Yiddish dictionary is being released, as well as a new look for Harry Potter trade paperbacks. Melville House told us about Whale Words, Flavorwire rounded up literary characters inspired by real famous people, and NPR interviewed Paula Byrne, the author of The Real Jane Austen.

This week we learned that plain and simple language doesn’t always equal the truth, men and women use uptalk differently, and why tongue twisters are hard to say. We groaned over these disastrous mistranslations. We loved this history of dog names, this etymology of the mother of all curse words, and this explanation of the two types of linguists (hint: at Wordnik we’re mostly type 2).

Finally, our favorite website of the week was Introverted Fairy Tales:

Once upon a time there was a young woman called Belle who fell in love with a library. Sure, there was a guy and a rose and a particularly talkative tea set, but mostly there were books. And they all lived happily ever after.

That’s it for this week!

[Photo: CC BY 2.0 by USDAgov]

30 Rock

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.

For Super Bowl XLVII, OxfordWords Blog tackled some football language. In honor of the end of 30 Rock, Slate gave us their favorite catchphrases from the show while Visual Thesaurus reminded us of Mark Peters’ post on 30 Rock euphemisms.

The New York Times delved into the origin of big data, and Vanity Fair recounted an oral history of YOLO, “the word that lived too long.” Ben Zimmer explored the history of bounding asterisks and when life imitates movies, from gaslighting to catfishing, while The Week told us even more about what gaslighting is.

Johnson examined foreign language films at the Oscars, Indian retroflexes, and immigration and learning English. At Lingua Franca, Ben Yagoda discussed dog-whistle politics, Geoff Pullum wrote about being a preposition, and Allan Metcalf told us about a publication of the American Dialect Society, American Speech.

At Macmillan Dictionary blog, Michael Rundell picked on adverbs and Stan Carey praised serendipity. On his own blog, Stan traced the diffusion and variety of folk tales. John McIntyre considered the relationship between writer and editor and the persistence of grammar ignorance.

In the week in words, Erin McKean noted funambulist, a tightrope walker; tongqi, Chinese for a straight woman married to a gay man; mot-diese, France’s substitution for the banned hashtag; and windowing, charging a fee to viewers who want to get early access to videos. Erin also gave us the Week in Words’ also-rans for January, words that “while interesting, were not Week-worthy.”

Fritinancy’s weekly word choices were tannoy, “a loudspeaker or public-address system,” and Godwin’s Law which says, “As an online discussion becomes longer, the probability of a comparison invoking Hitler or Nazis approaches one.”

Word Spy spotted hedge rage, “extreme anger or aggression exhibited by a homeowner in response to a neighbor’s massive or overgrown hedge”; social swearing, “casual swearing that helps to define and bind a social group”; and cinemagraph, “a still image where an element or small area of the image has been animated.”

Sesquiotica compared if and when, and in his Word Taster’s Companion series, offered the consonant line and the fricative. The Virtual Linguist examined stalking horse; chaturanga and the number four; and the origins of hunch and hunch-backed. The Dialect Blog explored different kinds of ahs as well as the impact of military service on one’s dialect.

In dictionary news, Kory Stamper examined morality and dictionaries, Merriam-Webster gave us a preview of their electronic unabridged dictionary, and DARE, the Dictionary of American Regional English, was awarded RUSA’s Dartmouth Medal for excellence. Meanwhile, we enjoyed this dictionary of Victorian slang.

This week we learned that grammar badness makes cracking passwords more difficult; most of what we think about grammar is wrong; and some early theories about the origin of language. We also found out about 11 words we’re mispronouncing; 20 words we owe to Shakespeare; and from Ben Yagoda, nine writing mistakes we might be making.

We sang along with these ABCs from eight different languages and practiced our letters via superheroes. We couldn’t help but laugh at Scott Brown’s Twitter troubles (“Bqhatevwr”). We love these hotels inspired by literature, these bizarre fairy tale adaptations, and the idea of James Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake in Chinese (or it gives us a headache, we’re not sure).

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

[Photo: CC BY 2.0 by nathaniel.scribbleton]

Bookstore cat, by Sarah Stierch

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

We were saddened by the passing of Aaron Swartz, “computer programmer, writer, political organizer and Internet activist.” Ben Zimmer wrote about Infogami, a startup Swartz founded, while Geoffrey Pullum discussed “vague and lazy talk” about hacking.

For Inauguration Day, the Smithsonian offered visualizations of the meaningful words behind famous inaugural speeches; Ben Zimmer discussed words coined by U.S. presidents; and The New Yorker gave us a brief history of inaugural poems.

The New York Times reported that in the debate on gun control, even the language can be loaded, while at Johnson, Robert Lane Greene wondered if changing one word could change American opinions.

Johnson also discussed the language of gender and sexual orientation, a short history of you, and the singular they, about which folks had a lot to say, including Jen Doll (against), John McIntyre (for), and the Oxford Dictionaries blog (neutral).

At Lingua Franca, William Germano examined Treasury Secretary Jack Lew’s signature and the paraph, “that flourish-y bit below a signature,” as well as catfishing and imaginary online friends. Geoff Pullum considered being an adjective, Lucy Ferriss peeked under the lid, and Ben Yagoda went po-faced.

At Macmillan Dictionary blog, Stan Carey mansplained the new-word-pocalypse, and on his own blog, played usage peeve bingo. In the week in words, Erin McKean noted jukochodai, old-school manufacturers; slow steaming, a technique for slowing down ships; laolaiqiao, “old people doing young things that even young people wouldn’t do.”

Fritinancy looked at drusy, “a crust of small crystals lining the sides of a cavity (or vug) in a rock”; snollygoster, “a shrewd, unprincipled person, especially a politician”; and some moist slacks (ew). She also discussed how to name anything.

Sesquiotica gave us a taste of phonemes, long and short vowel pairs, finicky, and frisky. The Dialect Blog dialogued on the Jamaican rounded schwa, and the Virtual Linguist told us about Silbo Gomero, “an old whistling language used on the Canary island of Gomera.”

Ben Yagoda discussed the Britishism have (someone) on. Allan Metcalf told us about a new crowdsourced Jewish English lexicon, Slate’s Lexicon Alley explained the origins behind the New York accent, and Chicago Magazine mapped the geography of Chicago’s second languages.

IBM’s supercomputer, Watson, is learning some slang; OxfordWords blog taught us slang of the prohibition era; and Jonathan Green gave us 50 (we think!) slang words that come from snow. The Economist discussed how the press in China is getting around censorship, while O Canada told us about a campaign to save old words, with quotes from Jesse Sheidlower, Mark Liberman, and our own Erin McKean.

This week we also learned a brief history of the dictionary, that Emily Dickinson scrawled her poems on tiny scraps of paper, how to insult in Lutheran, and how to speak Ned Flanders. We found out why the blues is called the blues, the science behind beatboxing, and why people roll their eyes when they’re annoyed.

We’re glad to see Ben Schmidt is still collecting anachronisms from Downton Abbey. We agree that editors are important and that cheesemongers do indeed pen some clever descriptions. We loved these best shots fired in the Oxford comma wars, these 16 great library scenes, and this amazing library (although the idea of robot librarians scares us a little). And then our heads exploded imagining all 11 Doctor Whos in one anniversary special.

We’d like to order all of these coffee drinks, then stay up all night playing these literary board games. We chuckled over these light bulb jokes for the publishing industry and are currently memorizing these 17 vowel free words that are acceptable in Words with Friends. We liked these lolcats of the Middle Ages and awww’d over this catalog of bookstore cats.

That’s it for this week! Until next time, have a dandy-diddly day-di-iddlyo!

[Photo: CC BY 2.0 by Sarah Stierch]