by

Other words of this year

Dictionary Evangelist, aka Erin McKean, has posted a list of coulda-been-a-contender words that didn’t make it onto the WotY shortlist, but perhaps should have. They’re solid words, and they’re words. The runners-up on the official OUP list included, to my mind, too many phrases, like “colony collapse disorder” and “social graph.”

Erin’s list: brick, hypermiler, griefer, jatropha, and unconference. Check out the post for the full poop.

There’s a movement afoot to pick a Wordie WotY, curated by the Coed League of Extrawordy Gentlemen, and chosen by popular vote. More details here.

by

There She Is, Locavore

The Oxford University Press, in the role of Country Music Television (or perhaps TLC), has crowned their Miss America: this year’s Word of the Year is locavore. Or as mollusque would have it, proxivore.

Here’s where I finally get to take a Walt Winchell (or perhaps Matt Drudge) turn: a few WotY contenders (though not the winner) made a brief appearance on Wordie last week, courtesy of… well, I won’t say, but they came from on high, and were promptly removed.

That’s right, lexicographic dish! Oh, I would die happy if this became the Page Six of the lexicographic world. Quixotic, maybe, but a boy can dream.

by

When lexicographers strike!

Daniel Cassidy’s “How the Irish Invented Slang” was recently the subject of a flattering (some might say fawning) story in The New York Times.

Grant Barrett, professional lexicographer and the editor of The Official Dictionary of Unofficial English, called bullshit on Cassidy in a post on his blog and here on Wordie. Our own beloved sionnach weighs in as well.

It’s not exactly bareknuckles–this is Wordie, we try to be civilized–but it’s edifying to hear from the pros about what constitutes proper lexicography. I’d like to hear Cassidy’s response (Barrett isn’t the only one to find fault), but as far as I can tell he hasn’t responded to his critics, on Wordie or anywhere else.

by - 5 Comments

Natural Language Search

Natural language processing–designing computer systems that understand human language– has proven a tough nut to crack. Yesterday a TechCrunch UK post covered the beta launch of True Knowledge, a UK startup offering a natural language search engine. They join competitors like Powerset, which has yet to launch but is apparently tackling the same problem. It’ll be interesting to see if these go anywhere, or become the next Ask Jeeves.

True Knowledge has a good demo video explaining their technology. The most interesting part of which is hearing a British voice pronounce the word “beta.” It comes out sounding like beet-ah. Is that how it’s actually pronounced over there, or is that just a quirk of the guy talking? Team Wordie, UK division, please report.

by

Paginated Word Lists

Finally, word lists have been broken into pages, to make it easier to go through long lists (and to prevent long lists from crashing browsers–Wordie now passes the stpeter test).

I cranked this out, so it’s pretty basic, and probably buggy. Right now each page is 100 words long; eventually I’ll make that configurable, and otherwise fancy it up. Let me know if you see any problems.