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’ll be giving away Wordnik T-shirts to two randomly chosen players. Winners will be announced at the end of the month. And to get the word of the day, follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook, or subscribe via email.
Thanks to everyone for playing!
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 kick things off with the finance word of the week, clawback, which is (according to NPR) “the recovery of money which has been already paid to a person or company, typically because that payment should not have been made for legal (or occasionally moral) reasons.” Meanwhile, health care reform is clearly a BFD, and at the Boston Globe, Ben Zimmer explored the origin behind the Supreme Court’s parade of horribles.
At Language Log, Mark Liberman discussed the use of gambling language in politics; the evolution of the Higgs Boson particle; the because NOUN formation; and rounded up some linguistic magazine mock-ups. Victor Mair explored some pastry Chinglish and wordless traffic signs in China. At Lingua Franca, Geoff Pullum addressed some grammar panic; Allan Metcalf looked at destination as an adjective; Ben Yagoda asked if the English asked more questions and served up another big bowl of wrong.
At Macmillan Dictionary blog, Orin Hargraves used nouns attributively while Stan Carey discussed the many right ways of English language usage, and on his own blog, looked at distant compounds, the Mind is a Metaphor database, and how awkwardly to avoid split infinitives. Meanwhile, John McIntyre expressed his woes about teaching English.
Fritinancy suggested we verb, and for words of the week, spotted foie-kage, “a fee charged by a restaurant to prepare foie gras purchased elsewhere,” and preglimony, “financial support paid to a pregnant woman by the father of the unborn child.” Erin McKean’s weekly word selections included mutts, marketing bonds that “don’t belong to a particular breed”; duckeasies, restaurants “where diners can order foie gras using certain code words”; derecho, a type of storm; and Kubb, a Scandinavian lawn game.
Sesquiotica posted on melisma, boson, and cormorant. The Virtual Linguist examined the food phrase Adam and Eve on raft; words coined by English writer Fanny Burney; pub synonyms; and onymous words. The Dialect Blog wondered where aye went; how George Washington spoke; and about the inanimate guy in American dialects. Meanwhile, we enjoyed the idea of being told in a New York accent when to cross the street.
This week we also learned that “proper” English is a matter of fashion; why words get cut from the dictionary; 10 weird rules for the naming of planets; and that a whole slew of English words actually came from India. We loved this love story about semicolons, these visual interpretations of unusual words, these usable fictional alphabets, and that researchers at Northwestern University invented a language inspired by Stephen Colbert.
We guffawed over these product names that mean unfortunate things in other languages, and would pay good money to see this spelling bee movie. We were glad to see this empty Walmart store put to good use, and that Hermione Granger and other literary characters didn’t keep their original names (Pansy O’Hara just doesn’t have the same ring).
That’s it for this week!
We’re happy to announce that Joe Spector has joined Wordnik as our first Director of Business Development!
As our new Director of BD, Joe will lead and implement partnership efforts for Wordnik and manage relationships with major publishers, content providers and mobile application developers.
Prior to joining Wordnik, Joe has worked at a number of mobile and online media companies including GREE, Meebo (acquired by Google) and SAY Media (formerly VideoEgg) all in a business development capacity. These experiences provide industry knowledge and relationships that will be instrumental in shaping distribution and revenue growth at Wordnik.
Originally from Uzbekistan, Joe can speak fluent Russian and can put away a lot of desserts. Joe received his bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from UC Berkeley and his MBA from The Wharton School. Follow him on Twitter at @joespector.
Every week, we pose a challenge: using any word of the day from this week, create a perfect tweet, otherwise known as a twoosh. Here are our favorites from this week.
Remember that once a month we’ll be giving away Wordnik T-shirts to two randomly chosen players. Winners will be announced at the end of the month. And to get the word of the day, follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook, or subscribe via email.
Thanks to everyone for playing!
Every week, we pose a challenge: using any word of the day from this week, create a perfect tweet, otherwise known as a twoosh. Here are our favorites from this week.
Remember that once a month we’ll be giving away Wordnik T-shirts to two randomly chosen players. Winners will be announced at the end of the month. And to get the word of the day, follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook, or subscribe via email.
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.
In taboo news, Geoff Nunberg discussed private parts in public places while Peter Sokolowski explained why we curse. The Wall Street Journal reported on grammar gaffes in the office, and John McIntyre responded (“a farrago of shibboleths and cultural prejudices”). At Johnson, Robert Lane Greene told us about kitchen Russian and baby Danish; commented on commas; and tested a Chinese language learner. Meanwhile, The Economist noticed an anachronism on Chinese television.
At the Language Log, Victor Mair examined PRC taikonauts and the transcription of China in Chinese characters. Mark Liberman pickled a mistranslation at great expense and compared versus and verses. Geoff Pullum noticed some blithering idiocy on the subjunctive; Julie Sedivy discussed some fracking words and the hubbub around bilingual greetings in Montreal; and Ben Zimmer decrypted some Reuters-ese.
At Lingua Franca, Ben Yagoda admitted he was wrong about the cause of a certain comma trend; Carol Saller investigated trucker lingo; and Lucy Ferriss discussed jeepers words and took an infinitives trip to splitsville. At Macmillan Dictionary blog, Orin Hargraves ran from hot to cold, while Stan Carey cultivated some linguistic botany, and on his own blog, mused on grammar in song lyrics and comma clusters and texting style.
Fritinancy noted pride and junk; dark money,“pools of unregulated political contributions whose sources and fundraisers are anonymous (‘dark’)”; and strass, “a hard, brilliant, lead-containing glass used in making artificial gems.” In the week in words, Erin McKean noticed Swirlogram, a type of graph; spraywork, a type of graffiti; and pachislot, “a cross between Japan’s wildly popular pachinko and Las Vegas-style slot machines.” Meanwhile, Word Spy spotted cashmob, “an event where people support a local retailer by gathering en masse to purchase the store’s products.”
Kory Stamper wrote a love letter to English; K International celebrated linguistic diversity in Australia; Slate compared woots; and ermahgerd, Superlingo began investigating another internet trend (previously, LOLcat lingo). Sesquiotica posted on ovoviviparity, funambulist, and rag-tag. The Virtual Linguist explained the origins of bully and kilt. The Dialect Blog examined a new dialect in New Zealand; Canadian and Californian vowels; the British lot; and room pronunciations.
Lynneguist told us about yog(h)urt, while from the Oxford Dictionary Blog, we learned some food idioms, and from Slate we heard about the “breastaurant” business. We really want to go to this NYPL exhibit on the history of lunch, and weren’t really surprised that wine geeks will pay more for a fancy name. Meanwhile, these drunk-texting authors have had one too many, and if they aren’t careful, may end up with a tattoo with a hidden meaning.
We learned 50 words for rain, some contemporary slang words which might be older than we thought, and about a missed connections for books. We loved these literary quotes from The Simpsons, this supercut of Sorkinisms, and we may take up the Rory Gilmore reading challenge.
Finally, we were saddened this week by the passing of writer and director, Nora Ephron. We love her writing, her movies, and these lists she made of what she would and wouldn’t miss.
That’s it for this week. Till next time, au revoir, bye!
Confused about all the terms flying around as a result of the Supreme Court’s ruling today? Here’s a roundup of 10 key words and terms.
Affordable Care Act
“One of the main goals of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is to extend coverage to millions of Americans who can’t obtain insurance today. These are typically people with preexisting medical conditions or limited incomes whose employers don’t offer health benefits.”
“’Obamacare’ insurance exchanges: Let’s get going,” The Los Angeles Times, February 8, 2012
According to Investopedia, the Affordable Care Act, short for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, is:
A federal statute signed into law in March 2010 as a part of the healthcare reform agenda of the Obama administration. Signed under the title of The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the law included multiple provisions that would take effect over a matter of years, including the expansion of Medicaid eligibility, the establishment of health insurance exchanges and prohibiting health insurers from denying coverage due to pre-existing conditions.
Check out this guide from The Atlantic regarding which provisions of the ACA were approved by the Supreme Court today.
Commerce Clause
“Can the federal government require Americans to buy health insurance? Well, yesterday, a federal judge in Virginia said no, that that part of the health care overhaul law is unconstitutional. The legal argument hinges on the powers given to Congress under the Commerce Clause of the Constitution. The clause is a short one. It says that Congress has the power to regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the several states and with the Indian tribes.”
“Health Mandate Fight Hinges On Commerce Clause,” NPR, December 14, 2010
The Commerce Clause relates to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act in that “Congress claims authority from the Commerce Clause,” and therefore “is authorized to require citizens to purchase health insurance from the private market, known as the individual mandate.”
death panel
“Democrats are right that offering an on-demand counseling session is hardly the same as establishing a ‘death panel’ to determine which senior lives or dies. To equate the two, as Sarah Palin has done, is to utter, in Obama’s term, ‘outlandish rumors.’”
Amity Shlaes, “Death Panel Needed for Health-Debate Hypocrisy,” Bloomberg, August 10, 2009
A death panel is “a supposed committee responsible for allocating healthcare and promoting euthanasia to reduce costs.” In 2009 former Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin stated:
The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s ‘death panel’ so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their ‘level of productivity in society,’ whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil.
According to the Washington Post, Palin was referring to a provision “that would provide funds to physicians or other health care providers to help counsel patients on end of life planning issues such as how to create a living will or advanced directive.”
individual mandate
“If there were no individual mandate included in the legislation, this would create a situation where people would be likely to wait until they had a health problem diagnosed before they applied for insurance. That would cause premiums to increase and make coverage increasingly unattractive to people who are young and healthy.”
Brendan Borrell, “Individual mandate: A sticking point in the healthcare debate,” The Los Angeles Times, February 15, 2010
Individual mandate is “a requirement by law that certain persons purchase or otherwise obtain a good or service.” The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act “imposes a health insurance mandate,” which would “fine citizens without insurance,” says the L.A. Times.
Medicaid
“Retirees who expect to end up on Medicaid, Mr. Kotlikoff says, might want to skip this. Medicaid, which is based on financial need, ‘will end up taking the additional money that comes in.’”
Jeff Opdyke, “How to Game Social Security,” The Wall Street Journal, August 27, 2010
Medicaid is “a program in the United States, jointly funded by the states and the federal government, that reimburses hospitals and physicians for providing care to qualifying people who cannot finance their own medical expenses.” Medicare is “a program under the U.S. Social Security Administration that reimburses hospitals and physicians for medical care provided to qualifying people over 65 years old.” See how Medicaid will be affected by today’s ruling.
Obamacare
“Democrats in Congress are upset that Republicans are using the term ‘Obamacare’ — the pejorative term for the Affordable Care Act — in taxpayer-funded congressional mass correspondence.”
“Super Committee Democrats Announce What They’ll Eventually Cave On,” The Huffington Post, October 26, 2011
Obamacare refers to reforms in the U.S. healthcare system proposed by the Obama administration. See Affordable Care Act.
preexisting condition
“I thought of Brown as the Obama administration announced this week that it would cut premiums for people with preexisting conditions who seek coverage under federal programs created as part of the healthcare reform law. The programs are intended to serve as a stopgap until 2014, when insurers will no longer be permitted to turn people away because of illness or a preexisting condition — that is, if the provision survives legal challenges.”
David Lazarus, “Falling through the cracks with a preexisting condition,” The Los Angeles Times, June 3, 2011
A preexisting condition is a “medical condition that occurred before a program of health benefits went into effect.”
Romneycare
“Santorum comes back and uses the word ‘Romneycare‘ and lists the flaws of Romney’s plan, calling it ‘top down, big government’. This is the best criticism of Romney’s Massachusetts healthcare package – which was very similar to the Obama reforms – that anyone has made so far.”
Richard Adams, “GOP presidential debate in Las Vegas – as it happened,” The Guardian, October 19, 2011
Romneycare refers to the Massachusetts health care reform law, which was “enacted in 2006” and “mandates that nearly every resident of Massachusetts obtain a state-government-regulated minimum level of healthcare insurance coverage and provides free health care insurance for residents earning less than 150% of the federal poverty level.” The health legislation was signed by Romney, who was governor at the time.
SCOTUS
“Some cameras-in-the-courts detractors say that’s why it’s useless to broadcast SCOTUS hearings live: Under this questioning, even for lawyers it’s often impossible to tell whose side the adversarial judges are really on until they rule.”
James Poniewozik, “The SCOTUS With the Mostus,” Time, December 1, 2000
SCOTUS is an acronym that stands for the Supreme Court of the United States. POTUS stands for the President of the United States, while FLOTUS is the First Lady of the United States.
socialized medicine
“Socialized medicine is a system in which the government owns the means of providing medicine. Britain is an example of socialized system, as, in America, is the Veterans Health Administration. In a socialized system, the government employs the doctors and nurses, builds and owns the hospitals, and bargains for and purchases the technology. I have literally never heard a proposal for converting America to a socialized system of medicine.”
Ezra Klein, “Health Reform for Beginners,” The Washington Post, June 9, 2009
Socialized medicine refers to “a government-regulated system for providing health care for all by means of subsidies derived from taxation.” Some examples of countries that practice socialized medicine are Australia, Canada, Finland, and the United Kingdom. Socialized medicine differs from single-payer health care, says Ezra Klein, in that:
[single-payer health care is] a system in which one institution purchases all, or in reality, most, of the care. But the payer does not own the doctors or the hospitals or the nurses or the MRI scanners. Medicare is an example of a mostly single-payer system, as is France. Both of these systems have private insurers to choose from, but the government is the dominant purchaser.
Canada has socialized medicine and a single-payer system (newsflash to those with moving plans).