Category: Uncategorized
Battle of the neologisms! Live, Saturday, June 16, in Chicago! Bang! Bang!
This year at the Dictionary Society of North America conference there’s an exciting new event: a chance to bring your spiffy self-made words to the world and to have them judged by a panel of experts (including me). It’s free, open to everybody (including press), and will be great fun. It’s also a chance to…
The brick-wall approach to getting a word in a dictionary
More new words (most of which we could do without). “They’re not new words exactly; rather, they’re words that have been flung at the proverbial brick wall so often over the last 10 years or so that they’ve stuck.” Otherwise, it’s the same-old lame article in which a dispirited journalist tries to cobble together reasonable…
Third Anniversary of Double-Tongued Dictionary
Yesterday was the third anniversary of the launch of Double-Tongued Dictionary, then called Double-Tongued Word Wrester. The site has seen four redesigns, includes 13191 citations not assigned to a full entry and 1168 full entries, and spawned a book. Thanks to my regular contributors and commenters, to my advertisers, and to you, too.
What a difference a word makes: midwifery, tocology, and legislation enhancement by obfuscation
In some Missourians the stubbornness of the Missouri mule shows up either in a posteriorly-painful bull-headedness or in a bee-like one-mindedness. The former type refuses to budge from a position. The latter works diligently to reach a goal. Both persevere despite setbacks. This time, the bees got one over on the bulls. … In the…
The fourth tone in Mandarin is so difficult that if you say it too many times you will be hungry
For Changing Queens, Lessons in Talk of the Streets. “Now, at 85, he has embarked on his last great linguistic effort. His progress has been maddeningly slow; at one point, Mr. Sygal approached ‘dozens’ of Chinese people, he said, in a fruitless attempt to translate the word ‘ka-ching,’ a term he had seen in a…
“Benchmark”: A Political Catchphrase, Coming In Off the Bench
In A Political Catchphrase, Coming In Off the Bench, Sridhar Pappu of the Washington Post quotes me and Peter Sokolowski of Merriam-Webster about the word “benchmark.” I tried to dissuade Mr. Pappu from writing that the word “benchmark” is newly popular in politics—even going so far as to suggest that he was suffering from the…
Erin McKean PopTech Video: Dictionaries are the Vodka of Literature
My colleague and friend Erin McKean, editor in chief of American Dictionaries for Oxford University Press, gave a great speech at the PopTech conference. It’s funny and charming. See the video.
You Don’t Say: Language And Usage, a blog from the Baltimore Sun
Mike Pope wrote to recommend You Don’t Say: Language And Usage, a blog by John McIntyre, the Baltimore Sun‘s assistant managing editor for the copy desk.
An example of why the false rule against split infinitives should be ignored
A great example from the International Herald Tribune of why you should absolutely split some infinitives: For seven years, Europe’s powerful mobile phone operators had been able to block quietly attempts to bring down roaming prices by getting proposals vetoed in the 27-member council, which meets behind closed doors. To block quietly attempts? Are you…
Dave Wilton’s Cincinnati Chili
Dave Wilton of WordOrigins.org gives his recipe for Cincinnati Chili in the Jackson, Mississippi, Clarion-Ledger.