Month: October 2007
Free linguistic articles from Cambridge Extra at Linguist List
I’m not sure how I missed this, but Cambridge University Press and Linguist List have teamed up to create a new, free online publication called Cambridge Extra. You do have to register to read it. The debut issue is visually quite ugly and seems to be merely a repackaging of linguistic content from various Cambridge…
Translating “wheeze” in Spanish affects asthma treatment: sibilancia, ronquido, or something else?
Jennifer 8. Lee writes in the City Room blog of the New York Times that difficulties in choosing the correct Spanish word for “wheeze” are making it difficult to treat asthma in Hispanophones. Be sure to read the comments, where Spanish-speaking doctors chime in with informed opinions (alongside the usual half-assed comments from anyone with…
Recent Catchwords: o-beer-time, butthurt, way back, huacha
The most interesting recent catchwords in the Double-Tongued Dictionary were: o-beer time: in the Philippines, an instance of or an occasion suitable for drinking, similar to “beer o’clock” and “beer thirty.” butthurt adj. angry, indignant, offended, or outraged. way back n. the backmost area of a station wagon (British: estate car), usually used for portage…
The truth about communication differences between genders
Deborah Cameron’s book The Myth of Mars and Venus seems to be a fact-based debunking of the popular notion that men and women speak and write differently. It’s Language Log territory, for sure. In the London Times she outlines the myths about communication between genders: Myth 1: women talk more than men. Myth 2: men…
The Pork Chop Bandit: Why cops give criminals nicknames
In the Edmonton Journal, Bill Mah takes a quick look at police-given names for criminals. “For us, instead of saying, ‘You know, the guy who’s running around with a hammer targeting bakeries,’ it’s easier to give the guy a name,” Hewko said.…While some of the names sound silly, Hewko says police aren’t being flippant about…
Changes in emails, feeds, and blog postings
Today we start a new format for the daily emails and the RSS feeds that reflects a change in the Double-Tongued Dictionary web site. From here on out, I am concentrating on collecting new catchwords, which are those words that to seem to warrant more attention from lexicographers, and less on doing full entries, in…
How very disingenuous of Steven Pinker
In a column for the Los Angeles Times, author and linguistic gadfly Steven Pinker writes, Every year, the American Dialect Society predicts which new words will catch on. But a follow-up of their picks from the 1990s shows they are about as accurate as tabloid psychics. Some of the words were political barbs that died…