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WotD Perfect Tweet Challenge – Week of October 22, 2012

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.

Remember that once a month we’re giving away Wordnik T-shirts to two randomly chosen players, to be announced the last Monday of the month – and that’s today! This month’s winners are Justin Jones and Jonathan Katz. Congrats! We’ll be in touch soon to get your T-shirt sizes and addresses.

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

Thanks to everyone for playing!

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Word Soup Wednesday: Pokemoning, Butt Chugging, Spatter

Welcome to Word Soup Wednesday, in which we bring you our favorite strange, obscure, unbelievable (and sometimes NSFW) words from TV.

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,” The Office, October 18, 2012

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

brick

Jimmy: “Thanks Jen, you’re a brick.”

“Maybe a Baby,” Call the Midwife, October 14, 2012

Brick is a “a term of admiration bestowed on one who on occasion or habitually shows in a modest way great or unexpected courage, kindness, or thoughtfulness, or other admirable qualities.” This sense is from 1840, says the Online Etymology Dictionary, perhaps from the idea of a brick being solid and reliable.

bush league

Vinny [to Castle]: “Frankly, I am offended that you’d think I’d do such a bush league hit. If I had whacked that guy, nobody’d ever find the body.”

“Murder, He Wrote,” Castle, October 15, 2012

Bush league refers to something amateurish or inferior. It originally referred to the minor league in baseball, from “bush in the slang sense of ‘rural, provincial.’”

butt chugging

Attorney: “I swear to each and every one of you, that every allegation of the gross and immoral activity of butt chugging or alcohol enemas never took place at the Pi Kappa Alpha house.”

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, October 16, 2012

Butt chugging is “the act of ingesting alcohol through one’s rectum.” The earliest citation we could find was in a May 12, 2010 post in Gawker: “We’ve heard it called ‘boofing,’ ‘slimming,’ and most descriptively, ‘butt-chugging.’”

Chug is short for chugalug, “to swallow the contents of (a container of beer, for example) without pausing,” which came about in the 1940s, says Online Etymology Dictionary, “probably imitative of the sound of swallowing.”

copperhead

Kevin: “You knew about an attack on New York and haven’t made a report to the proper authorities.”
Robert: “Who would I tell? The mayor? Governor Seymour? The editor of the New York Daily News? They’re all copperheads.”

“Better Times Are Coming,” Copper, October 7, 2012

Copperhead is a term used “during the civil war in the United States [for] a northern sympathizer with the rebellion.” It comes from the idea of the copperhead snake which “unlike the rattlesnake, has the habit of striking without previous movement or warning, whence its name is a synonym of hidden danger or secret hostility.”

detective-speak

Woman: “I should really go clean.”
Kevin: “See, in detective-speak you just said, ‘Yes, Jeremiah did know her.’”

“Better Times Are Coming,” Copper, October 7, 2012

Anachronism alert! Speak as a suffix meaning “language, jargon, or terminology” didn’t originate until 1949, says the Oxford English Dictionary, coming from George Orwell’s Newspeak. Copper takes place in 1864.

pokemoning

Jack: “I’m Great Escaping you so you have every right to do the same.”
Zarina: “My generation calls it pokemoning. Gotta catch ‘em all.”

“Stride of Pride,” 30 Rock, October 18, 2012

Great Escaping means having a ragtag group of lovers, like the characters in the film, The Great Escape. Pokemoning has the same meaning, based on a goal of the video game Pokemon to collect “all of the available Pokémon species found in the fictional region where that game takes place.”

sex-idiot

Jack: “Zarina is the society girl I take to black tie events. When I want to talk politics, I call Ann. Tabitha knows how to work my DVR. And Mindy is my sex-idiot.”

“Stride of Pride,” 30 Rock, October 18, 2012

A sex-idiot is an intellectually challenged yet attractive person used for the sole purpose of having sex. See also bimbo and mimbo.

spatter

George: “He’s not a cop. He’s a lab rat. Blood splatter.”
Sirko: “It’s spatter. Blood spatter.”

“Run,” Dexter, October 21, 2012

The difference between spatter and splatter, says the Grammarist, is that spatter means “to scatter or dash (a liquid) in small drops,” while splatter “doesn’t necessarily involve small drops,” and “might be large and messy.”

Spatter is older, originating in the 1570s and perhaps coming from the Low German spatten, “to spout, burst.” Splatter came about around 1754, perhaps from splatterdash, “an uproar; a bustle,” or as a blend of splash and spatter.

Blood spatter analysis or bloodstain pattern analysis is a forensic tool “used in crime scene investigations” which helps the investigator understand “the dynamics of an altercation, how blood behaves when it exits the body, and how it reacts when it contacts a surface.”

stump speech

Handler to Congressman: “Just run through some of your stump speech.”

“Sex Education,” Parks and Recreation, October 18, 2012

A stump speech is “a standard speech used by a politician running for office.” The phrase originated around 1820, says Online Etymology Dictionary, from the idea of “large tree stumps being a natural perch for rural orators,” a custom attested from 1775. Stump as a verb meaning “to go about making political speeches” came from stump speech.

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Welcome Hannah and Tom!

We’re happy to welcome two new folks to the Wordnik team!

First off — Hannah!

Welcome Hannah!

Hannah Russin is a marketer with broad experience in both B2B and B2C customer acquisition. Prior to joining Wordnik, Hannah worked at start-ups, including GREE, Clean Power Finance, AdRoll, and Sungevity, where she focused on communications and acquisition channels, including mobile UA, SEO, SEM, email marketing, website optimization, and social media outreach. Hannah began her start-up career as the eighth employee at Sungevity, where she built everything from her desk to a marketing strategy that helped grow Sungevity into a top solar installer in California. When she’s not working, she’s organizing events, people, and un-alphabatizing her bookshelf, or attempting to improve her cooking skills. Hannah holds a BA degree in Foreign Service from Georgetown University.

And Tom!

Welcome Tom!

Tom Naughton comes to Wordnik from Apple where he spent 15 years working on localization, internationalization, WebObjects, and Xcode. Prior to that, he worked on edutainment titles at MECC including The Oregon Trail. He studied French, Japanese, and Computer Science at Michigan State University, and Computational Linguistics at San José State University.

In his spare time, Tom likes to read non-fiction, work on iOS applications, ride his Harley, and stare at spectrograms.

We’re very glad to have Hannah and Tom with us!

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WotD Perfect Tweet Challenge – Week of October 15, 2012

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.

Remember that once a month we’re giving away Wordnik T-shirts to two randomly chosen players, to be announced the last Monday of the month, 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: Binders, Britishisms, and more

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 celebrated Dictionary Day on Tuesday with a fictional dictionary contest – congratulations again to all the winners! – while at The Atlantic, Jen Doll told us a few things about Noah Webster, the lexicographer the day honors.

In politics, Ben Zimmer discussed moochers, while in the aftermath of the first presidential debate, he examined President Obama’s after-the-fact comeback, or l’esprit de l’escalier, “the wit of the staircase.” Orin Hargraves, meanwhile, delved into the language of both contenders.

After the vice presidential debate, we heard a lot of malarkey, my friend, from Ben Zimmer, Jen Doll, and Nancy Friedman, while the second presidential debate gave us a sketchy deal, binders and barb words, binders full of women, and binder reviews (oh, internet, will you marry me?). We learned about interruptions in debates, Paul Ryan’s accent, and how to say Missouri.

In Australia, the prime minister’s speech prompted a dictionary to change its definition of misogyny, which, Fully (sic) explained, wasn’t so much a change but an update “to bring it up to speed with the last 30 years of common Australian usage.”

This week we also learned that Americans are apparently “barmy over Britishisms,” to which Jen Doll, Lynneguist, and Dialect Blog all responded. Perhaps part of that barmy-ism can be credited to the Beatles and their influence on the English language, as discussed by Michael Rundell at Macmillan Dictionary blog.

Also at Macmillan, John Williams wondered if there’s a case for publically, and Stan Carey took a look at some lesser spotted portmanteaus, and on his own blog, posted about Scott Kim’s very cool symmetrical alphabet.

At Language Log, Victor Mair pleaded against the butchering of the name of the winner of the Nobel prize in literature, Chinese writer Mo Yan, and Mark Liberman considered the pronunciation of the seemingly simple word, with. Johnson discussed the slang term, guys, and Grammar Girl taught us some Yoda grammar.

At Lingua Franca, Allan Metcalf announced the winners of his latest contest, invent “a new bogus rule of usage,” and suggested that weird words won’t win in the game of neologism. Ben Yagoda talked about reaching out and had some fun with some puns.

In words of the week, Fritinancy selected hustings, “a place where political speeches are made; more generally, the campaign trail,” while Word Spy spotted sageism, “discrimination based on a person’s gender and age”; doorer, “a driver who opens a car door into the path of an oncoming cyclist”; tech-life balance, “the use of technology in such a way that it does not interfere with or reduce the quality of one’s personal life or relationships”; and digital dualism,“the belief that online and offline are largely distinct and independent realities.”

Erin McKean’s word selections included sundowning, a condition “in which the fall of darkness causes confusion and fear” in patients with dementia; boffo, Variety magazine speak for “excellent”; and ralli quilt, a “marriage blanket” from Pakistan or India. Erin also spoke with the ModCloth Blog about the awesome job of lexicography.

The Dialect Blog wondered if Received Pronunciation – or a “standard British accent” – was ever rhotic. Sesquiotica considered the whippersnapper and enjoyed the foliage. The Virtual Linguist told us about having a stiff upper lip, being on the ball, and the origins of the pomegranate.

We found out how British sign language is changing, that slang is the universal language, and about bigger, better Google Ngrams. We learned how New York City neighborhoods got their names, the origin of the dog ate my homework, and why people quit cold turkey.

We’re excited about this previously unseen poem from JRR Tolkien and this new volume of “spare words” from Douglas Adams, and are intrigued by the idea of a science fiction adaptation of Moby-Dick, which, by the way, celebrated its 161st anniversary yesterday.

We loved these photos of writers hanging out together, this letter from typewriter lover Tom Hanks, and these Halloween costumes based on books. We were in awe of these incredible libraries from around the world and that MythBusters host Adam Savage has a list of 17,000 palindromes (come to Wordnik, Adam! we love lists too).

That’s it for this week!

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Dictionary Day Contest Winners: Fictional Dictionaries

Happy Dictionary Day!

Last week we posed the challenge: to celebrate the birthday of lexicographer Noah Webster, make up a dictionary. A fictional dictionary, if you will. A fictionary. You get the picture, and you more than delivered.

We had a lot of favorites. There was the practical, like @TorchwoodPride’s “Intaxication A to Z, a Taxman’s invaluable Insurance against Flaws, Faults, and Forgeries.” There was the trippy, such as @lowdudgeon’s “The Synesthete’s Dictionary – Definitions supplemented with the most common associated colors, sounds, tastes & personalities.”

And we can’t forget the meta, like Kotonosato’s “The Dictionary Dictionary: From ‘The ABCs of Abacuses’ to ‘Zwilliger’s Concise Dictionary of Zulu,’” and @HansonHelen’s “Dictionary of fictional dictionaries.”

A dictionary we’d want to own is runner-up @ChromaGeddon’s “Real-time businessese plugin for video conferencing with translation eg ‘We need synergy’ –> ‘We don’t know what we need.’”

We’d gladly include on our already bursting bookshelves second runner-up @searchlight5’s “The Compleat Dictionary of Words and Phrases Commonly Used by Mimes” (perhaps inspired by The Compleat Angler, or the Contemplative Man’s Recreation), at a very slim zero pages.

But there can only be one winner, and that would be @lowdudgeon and his “Dictionary of Autocorrect Replacements – Near-homophones (of a sexual, scatological or Freudian nature) for all common words.” So that’s where the iPhone gets its words.

Thanks to everyone for playing! All players mentioned in this post will get some lovely prizes. We’ll be in touch soon to obtain addresses.

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WotD Perfect Tweet Challenge – Week of October 8, 2012

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.

Remember that once a month we’re giving away Wordnik T-shirts to two randomly chosen players, to be announced the last Monday of the month, and as always, to get the word of the day, follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook, or subscribe via email.