Did You Know Newsday is New York's Official Paper of Geriatric Boredom?

And this proves it. Note: you must be at least 50 years old to fail this test and not commit hara-kiri. Should you lack the bravery and honour necessary for ritualistic disembowelment, we will gladly shuriken your head.





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That Paradigm Is Punk'd

Ban these words in 2004.



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Do the manifestations of these words also get banned? What will Russell Smith, P. Diddy, and Ashton Kutcher do this year?

Here's the full list (Sadly for Bookninja, LOL has been included)

http://www.lssu.edu/banished/archive/2004.php

Our LOL is a wholly original concept and we will defend it to the death. TO THE DEATH!

Cool Still Cool

The word "cool" apparently came without a best before date. (This is debatable. I knew some incredibly cool people in New York who were surprised to hear me use "cool" in conversation. They said I sounded like someone's dad. Prophets, those.) (LOL* ALDaily)



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This is So Fucking Stupid

A look at the "eff" word. (LOL* Bookslut)



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"The bad words can be chosen at random -- nobody's ever figured out, for example, how bloody acquired its taboo among the English"

I believe it's from "blood of Christ" and is therefore sacrilegious (like tabernacle in Quebec).

Edited by author 01-27-2004 11:35 PM
My mom being from La Tuque (born Trois Rivieres), I used to think those ads in the 70s for K-Tel compilations featuring the Moron Tabernacle Choir were sacrilegious.

For that and the headstart on lung cancer: thanks, Ma.

Edited by author 01-28-2004 12:40 AM
Hostie calice! My book would be facked without four-letter words.

I don't see what the big deal is about the F word. It just means "very".

Okay...according to your definition, Paul, when people say, "f*** you," they really mean "very you?"

Or when they say, "you f***," they really mean "you very?"

I'm f***ed if I understand this one.

You very loser.
I'm verried.

What the very?

They verried until the cows came home...

This discussion is very ridiculous.

Holy Crap!

It's the column of Pete's dreams! How did we not find this before?



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Not Sure What to Call the Offspring of an Eel?

The Beastly Garden or Wordy Delights has the answer. (From Languagehat)



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Ah, Adjective, My Unnecessary Nemesis

Has your time come again?



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Snowplough? Or Snowplow?

Stephen Henighan thinks Canadian authors have a lot to learn about spelling.



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Aside from sitting through "spelling" class for eight years in elementary school, and understanding that Canadian, British and US spelling systems are different, I don't recall ever being formally taught exactly what the Canadian differences officially are. I use the Oxford Canadian as my preferred dictionary. I know enough to double the L in words like "traveller", I know Sir John A. MacDonald decreed that Canadians should spell colour with a U (Prime Ministers just don't makes decrees like they used to). But I don't think the Canadian spelling system was ever taught to me as a "system", and if it had, I suspect it would have been a benefit.

Found this, maybe it'll help.
http://www.cornerstoneword.com/misc/cdneng/cdneng.htm

Great! one more damn thing to look for in my ms.

Henighan's one of my favourite curmudgeons. He did a reading at Concordia when I was there. Really nice guy.

He lives in Guelph, but I haven't met him yet.

I'd love to invite him to read here. Zach, what did he read from at Concordia?

He read from the Moldova book. Good stuff, judging from what I heard. I haven't got around to reading that one yet, but I really liked "When Words Deny the World"--even when I disagreed with him.

Kevin, where are you? I can get his info. Email me at george at bookninja dot com.

G

"As a folksinger once sang, how many roads must an individual walk down before you can call them an adult."

Just like the NYPD, the New York Language Police are kicking ass. "New York identified as biased such male-based words as 'masterpiece' and 'mastery.' Among the other words singled out for extinction were white collar, blue collar, pink collar, teenager, senior citizen, third world, uncivilized, underprivileged, unmarried, widow or widower, and yes man. The goal, naturally, is to remove words that identify people by their gender, age, race, social position or marital status." (From AL Daily)



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"...A bias review committee for the state test in New Jersey rejected a short story by Langston Hughes because he used the words "Negro" and "colored person."

So not only do they reject the word "negro", they reject the actual negro right along with it.

"...The goal, naturally, is to remove words that identify people by their gender, age, race, social position or marital status."

Who pays people to worry about this nonsense? Did my tuition dollars fund such insanity? How dehumanizing to extract by force from the language any word that can describe a person and thereby grant that person the dignity of individuality, of heritage, of whatever it is that makes one oneself. We don't all come from the same mold, and vive la difference! Sterilizing the language won't cure society of its prejudices, will it? It boggles the mind, doesn't it?

Hm, awfully niggardly of them, wouldn't you say?

Edited by author 03-18-2004 09:54 PM
Some Respit from a Blessing in the Skies

100 most often misprounced words and phrases. Some of these are pretty hard to believe (Old Timer's Disease?), but I have been guilty of a small number myself. All that said, the big news here is I've just won a long-standing argument with my wife about the word "respite". Boo-yah! (From Goodreports)



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Who wrote this site. It seems awfully snooty. I agree with some things, but others seem to be clinging to archaic pronunciations. Honestly, who says the first R in February?

I do, but who the hell pronounces 'forte' 'fort'? Wankin Brits...

Edited by author 03-19-2004 02:02 AM
Okay, I just read it again. This is bullshit. It must be. These are supposed to be the 100 most mispronounced words and phrases.

Who the hell pronounces:
"Heimlich maneuver" "Henekin Remover"?
"Law and Order" "Laura Norder"?

No one, that's who!

Also, seems rather intollerant overall of quite acceptable North American pronounciations. Sheesh! If the Brits want put the hammer down on this stuff, they could help us out by at least pronouncing the letter R when it comes at the end of a word.

That's proNUNciations, Ebo. They're just trying to maintain flaw and odour is all.

Ah... common spelling mistakes... that's another kettle of ghoti.

Edited by author 03-22-2004 08:13 AM
ah...ghoti...the last resort of desperate composition teachers everywhere (that's a self-dig, by the way.)

r /m33

Has anyone read H.L. Mencken's "The American Language"? Mencken points out that since American independence to the present day a lot of the "vulgar" pronunciations or word misusages that middlebrow English commentators deplore as "Americanisms" have in fact a long defensible pedigree. Mencken delights in exposing the poor scholarship and circular logic behind a lot of the arguments of the putatively cultured.

However, I do indeed pronounce the first "r" in February.

Likewise. I lose a micrometer off my dental enamel every time I hear someone say FebUary.

Zach, you better never have kids. Febuary, libary, brang,stealed, it never stops. You'd have to have them all pulled. But then dentures are cheaper and more durable, I hear…

When I was in grade 3, I got into an argument with my teacher about how brang SHOULD be a word. And I stand by that - it just makes sense. Ring, rang, bring, brang.

When I was in grade three, my perfect record on spelling tests was ruined when my doltish teacher read out 'pronounciation' and I spelled it accordingly. When I protested, she said that it was spelled 'pronunciation'--she was none too impressed when I told her that she should have pronunced it that way. I suppose I should be taking this up with a therapist, but you lot are so much more affordable :)

We've yet to bill.

re m/39

Bring, brought!

Ring, rought?

I dunno, Rach.

sing, sought?

singing, soughtought?

Letter and Word Frequencies

Tuck this site away in your bookmarks, people. It will come in handy someday. Like when the Rapture breaks... Tuesday, from what the little people are telling me. (From Clive)



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Oh, especially May 6 (Hey hey 16K).

That was the wrong link, KK, try it again..

Edited by author 05-11-2004 09:42 AM
Yes much cooler, thanks! Maybe I'll write a series of poems, possibly sonnets, but maybe haikus, using these constraints. Prize winner I'm betting...

OK, I Thought I Was a Geek
Welcome to Phrontistery, home of obscure and rare words.

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Double-Tongued Word Wrester
So where the hell is Language Hat in all these articles about blogs? It's one of the smartest ones out there. After all, it gives us sites like this:


Double-Tongued Word Wrester records words as they enter and leave the English language. It focuses upon slang, jargon, and other niche categories which include new, foreign, hybrid, archaic, obsolete, and rare words. Special attention is paid to the lending and borrowing of words between the various Englishes and other languages, even where a word is not a fully naturalized citizen in its new language.

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Neat New Telegraph Series on the Myths of English Sure to Make at Least One Ninja Drool

Dressed to the nines

Somebody who is "dressed to the nines" or "dressed up to the nines" is dressed to perfection or superlatively dressed. Writers have run up a whole wardrobe-full of ideas about where the expression comes from, which indicates clearly enough that nobody really knows for sure.

One very persistent theory is that the British Army's 99th Regiment of Foot were renowned for their smartness, so much so that the other regiments based with them at Aldershot in the 1850s were constantly trying to emulate them – to equal "the nines".

The big problem with this explanation is that the phrase "to the nines" is actually a good deal older – it was first recorded in the late 18th century in poems by Robert Burns. In its earlier days it wasn't linked to high standards of dress but to any superlative situation: people could refer to "praising a man's farm to the nines", for example.

(From GoodReports)



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Term of Endearment?

Varsity sports are creepy enough to begin with. They're filled with frat people. Ew. But getting the (female) president of a university involved in testifying on behalf of football players accused of sexual assault, creepier still, especially when under intense questioning about the use of the word "cunt" she tries to say it's meaning is contextual and it can be a "term of endearment". Then the backpedalling begins and she drags Chaucer in. The poor cock.



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One should also recall that women prefer men who read books. So, perhaps what women really want is a "goodbooking" man who is reading Wicked Words: A Treasury of Curses, Insults, and Put-Downs. He may not even need to read it, just bend the corners, whisper a special "term of endearment" and the rest is history.....or rather the woman is.

Neologisms

Languagehat points to a dictionary of "findable" terms.

This website is being developed as a record of new and evolving words and phrases in the English language, with special reference to UK English usage. One of its prime aims is to act as a repository for new words and phrases which are not otherwise listed on the Net - or at least not found by Search Engines. Hence the working title: Dictionary of Findable Words and Phrases.



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Ninja Rein's in Top Eight Percent!

I heard the grocer's putting his apostrophe in places we don't even want to know about....

One of the epidemic errors of the past 30 years - unnecessary, misplaced or omitted apostrophes in the words "its"and "it's" - has dwindled to only about 8% of people, possibly because the mistake has drawn so much ridicule. It was dubbed "the grocer's apostrophe" because of its unnecessary use in plural words on shop signs or placards (Price's Slashed).

There are plenty more mixed up homophones where this comes from.



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The dawn of "Liberati"

I am so suing this guy...

The Oxford English Dictionary is monitoring the infant word's progress and reports that its vital signs are good: with repeated usage it could grow up to become a proper dictionary word. Its entry will no doubt cite "liberal" and "literati" as its derivations, but it is its evocation of Liberace that truly gives it life.



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Bookninja: a gang of two
And other oxymorons.

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Are poets a waste? Opera!
Ah, palindromes....

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Wordcount
A cool little site that tracks the popularity of individual words and ranks them numerically. There are some interesting found poems in here.

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/m58 Opera means yes?

"Mother"?

Hm. I would have gone for "trist" or maybe "Stefanis". Browr! (I can't believe some fo the words that made this list... "gum"?)

The wordlist, which contains only one verb (cherish) which is not also a noun, emerged after the council asked more than 7,000 learners in 46 countries what they considered the most beautiful words in English language. Some 35,000 other people registered their favourites in an online poll run in the non-English speaking countries where the council operates.

I still only hear Norman Bates when I hear "mother"... Hello, Mother. (Our regular readers will note the inclusion of the word "Twinkle"...)



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Please note that "Twinkle" ranks higher than "gum", so ha!

On top of the world, ma!

"Blog" is M-W's choice for word of the year.



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When academia meets comedy, dude

About ten years ago I used to watch a lot of stand up. I don't remember the name of the comedian, or the entire sequence, but this one fella had a bit on the word "dude" that went on about it's multiple uses. He said dude could be hello and made a happy-to-see-you face and waved and said, "Dude!"; he said dude could express disappointment and hung and shook his head and said, "Dude..."; he said dude could be a word of disgust and curled his lip and shook his head and said, "Dude!"; and my favourite: he said dude could be used to express "Is that you in the closet with a knife?" by craning his neck, looking frightened and saying, "Dude...?" Now, years later, someone else raised on that same bit has turned it into an academic paper saying, it seems all the same things, but with bigger words.

Historically, dude originally meant "old rags" — a "dudesman" was a scarecrow. In the late 1800s, a "dude" was akin to a "dandy," a meticulously dressed man, especially out West. It became "cool" in the 1930s and 1940s, according to Kiesling. Dude began its rise in the teenage lexicon with the 1981 movie "Fast Times at Ridgemont High."

Ah, academia... taking the raw materials of life and selling them back to you as intellectual product. (Thanks to ZW for the link)



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Edited by author 12-08-2004 08:09 PM
the "dude" dialogue was the best part of "baseketball"

... beautiful, just, (sniff) beautiful

....

inCivility

YourDictionary.com has released its top words and phrases of 2004, most of which seem to be lead by the election. I like the Van Buren tidbit at the end of this article. I find the list of California cool words to be surprising. How does a geezer like me know all of these?



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Words of the Year: A How-to

Ever wonder how those Word of the Year lists are produced? Well, here's your answer, in excruciating detail.

The WotY process has two stages: a morning meeting, in which nominations are sorted into categories, and the afternoon vote, when things get decided. Turnout is light in the morning, when we're usually clustered around a table; by the afternoon, we generally move to an open room to accommodate the crowds. At this year's morning meeting, the suggestions were plentiful. Military terms were prominent—we saw hillbilly armor and backdoor draft. Blog, 2002's Most Likely To Succeed, returned in forms like blogosphere and blogorrhea. The culture of blogging has also spawned related words like pajamahadeen, which refers to bloggers in their bedclothes who criticize the mainstream media and which won Most Creative later in the day. In the Most Euphemistic category, Janet Jackson's wardrobe malfunction seemed like a lock until Bill Frawley, the dean of the Columbia College of Arts and Sciences at George Washington University, suggested badly sourced, which was used by Colin Powell and others to mean "false."

Hello!? Can I get an editor in aisle six, please? We've got a reader down. I repeat: reader down.



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All you need is love...

The greatest words of all time? Nuh-uh. Shows how good an internet survey is... I got four little babies right here that beat that hands down: "all you can eat".



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Christianists and Christianphobics

Perhaps because of this,* William Safire gives these semi-divine words* the once over.


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"Treeware"

BoingBoing covers the advent of a recent coinage.


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Meh

What's your favourite word that's not in the dictionary? (Does anyone remember which big paper has that neologism contest every year? I have a list of "words" I keep meaning to send. Like "Dessertation"... The sweet last paragraph of seven years' work.)


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'Meh' was one of my favourite features of the dialogue in A Complicated Kindness. I second that motion.

The stand alone "Esque" or "Ish": similar to.

"Like that stupid little car over there?"

"Hmm. Esque, but even smaller."

"Sounds gay."

"Well, ish. But, fuck-you Exxon Valdez."

A tabloid primer

Maud points us to a glossary of tabloid terms that's making its way around the email circuit.

Feisty: Short, old female
Flamboyant: Homosexual
Controversial: He did something bad but we're not sure what
Scandal-plagued: Guilty
Informed source: Reads the newspaper
Confirmed bachelor: see "Flamboyant"
War-torn: We can't find it on a map
Venerable: Should be dead but isn't (eg: Strom Thurmond)
Knowledgable observer: The reporter
Knowledgable observers: The reporter and the person at the next desk
Self-styled: Phony
Guru: see "Self-styled"


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Whitelist

Explained.


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Word frequencies

Word and letter frequencies. "The" is screwing up the averages. (From Maud)


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Neato!

Okay, here's a freebie. On this webiste:

http://deafandblind.com/word_frequency.htm#written-english

They have this list:

"Word Frequency of Two-Letter Words in the English Language:
of to in it is be as at so we he by or on do if me my up an go no us am"


Now, take that list and divide it into equal four-word lines, like this:

of to in it
is be as at
so we he by
or on do if
me my up an
go no us am

Ah ha! See? There!

Now, read that out loud as if it is a poem. Repeat it three or four times, speaking a little faster each time until, by the third or fourth time, you're speaking so fast it's just one long hilarious blurrrr of phonemes!

Congratulations, you've just written/performed a performance/language poem in the style of Christian Bok.

So long!

Truthiness?

Word of the year. Funny. It's all relative, I suppose. Judging from my life, you would have thought craptastic would have made it.


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