Browsing Year 2008
Early nominations for the grandaddy of all 2008 word-of-the-year votes are released
The product of one of the other hats I wear: … [ The short URL to this post is http://americandialect.org/woty2008/ ] Early nominations for the American Dialect Society’s 2008 word of the year vote are now available, including three batches from society members who specialize in following language trends, and a list of the most-nominated more…
Buzzwords of 2008
My fifth annual “buzzwords of the year” article has been published by the New York Times. I’ll also be fielding questions about buzzwords, and about language in general, on the Times’ Ideas blog.
What is this shit?
My latest column in the Malaysia Star is about the word “shit.” This paragraph is the key one: [Shit] is, I believe, ready to be heard unbleeped (uncensored) on the government-regulated airwaves in America. It is also ready to be printed in mainstream periodicals without fear of outrage, without being remarked upon, or without being more…
The American Dialect Society seeks 2008 word-of-the-year nominations
The American Dialect Society is now accepting nominations for the “word of the year” of 2008. What is the word or phrase which best characterizes the year 2008? What expression most reflects the ideas, events, and themes which have occupied the United States and its residents? Nominations should be sent to woty@americandialect.org. They will be more…
First Haircut
Guthrie, at 19 months, got his first haircut today. He now knows Vito the Barber by name. He was very good, though a little nervous. His papa held him in his lap the whole time. You can see the little rat’s nest in the back that had to go. Like I said, he was very more…
How I Spent Halloween With a Monkey
As we wrote before, the boy has been pumpkin-crazy for weeks. We bought him one and he insisted on taking it to the bath and to bed. He calls them “pump-kings.” And can you believe it? They’re everywhere! They all have to be identified with pointing and delightful shouts. Like last Halloween, Grammy made a more…
Photos, at last, of the funnyman
The boy loves to color. And he loves playdough. It doesn’t look so colorful now. It’s turned a bland, dark gray. He blows a kiss at a birthday brunch for Mama at the end of August. Alison, Mama, Anne, and Guthrie at the birthday brunch. Alison snarls. A one-socked naked man ran through our house! more…
Where would we be without “ass”?
My latest column in the Malaysia Star. … In its most common form, “ass” means one’s buttocks, rear end, behind, etc. The slangy use of it, though, means fool or stupid person. You can probably see how that came about: an ass is a taboo place on the body because that’s where we excrete our more…
Organizing Our Marvellous Neighbours
A guy who has been sending tip-offs on new words and slang for years, Joe Clark of Toronto, did some independent research into Canadian English spellings, looking at everything from blogs to literature to yogurt (not “yogourt”) containers. Canadian spelling really exists, he found, but it’s under threat from spellcheckers, which let American and British more…
What a bitchin’ word!
Read my latest column in the Malaysia Star, bitches. … One of the measures of whether or not a word is considered safe, at least by Americans, is whether or not it’s OK to say it on television during prime time, when the whole family might be watching. “Bitch” is one of those words. In more…
