Saturday, January 08, 2011
App it is: American Dialect Society Selects Word of the Year 2010 : APP
Sean D. Hamill at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette writes that the American Dialect Society has selected its word word of the year 2010: "app" it is.
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Word of the Year 2010: Sarah Palin's Refudiate
We got this from the Oxford University Press:
"Word lovers, you’ve been waiting 12 long months for Oxford to announce the new Word of the Year, and it’s
REFUDIATE!
An unquestionable buzzmaker in 2010, the word refudiate instantly evokes the name of Sarah Palin, who tweeted her way into a flurry of media activity when she used the word in certain statements posted on Twitter. Critics pounced on Palin, lampooning what they saw as nonsensical vocabulary and speculating on whether she meant “refute” or “repudiate.”
From a strictly lexical interpretation of the different contexts in which Palin has used “refudiate,” we have concluded that neither “refute” nor “repudiate” seems consistently precise, and that “refudiate” more or less stands on its own, suggesting a general sense of “reject.” Although Palin is likely to be forever branded with the coinage of “refudiate,” she is by no means the first person to speak or write it.
To set up an interview with an editor/lexicographer to discuss the 2010 Word of the Year, please contact
Robert Wicks at 212.726.6033, robert.wicks@oup.com,
or Purdy at christian.purdy@oup.com
Please also be in contact if you would like to see additional materials:
-Full press release
-Word of the Year FAQs
-The WOTY Short List Candidates
-“Refudiate” has a past, but does it have a future?
-Refudiate: The Timeline
-Nom nom! (Why 2010 was a good year for our language)
-More word blends!
Information can also be found at OUPblog: http://bit.ly/bifnQs
OUP USA’s Word of the Year is sponsored by the New Oxford American Dictionary.
Robert Wicks
Publicity
Oxford University Press, Inc.
198 Madison Avenue
New York, NY 10016-4314
212-726-6033
blog.oup.com"
Friday, September 10, 2010
Friday, August 20, 2010
Tuesday, February 02, 2010
Concision at The Smart Set: A Brief History
Concision is discussed at The Smart Set in A Brief History by Ryan Bigge
"Ours is not the first society to value an economy of words.Read the rest about concision here.
Less is more.
Omit needless words.
Brevity is the soul of wit.
Offer very little information about yourself."
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Google Books and Copyright Law : New Feature Creates Word Clouds for Published Materials : The Example of Stars Stones and Scholars by Andis Kaulins
Words. Words. Words.
Google Books has a special page for Legal Analysis relating to Google Books and copyright law.
Our photo shows the sculpture "The Word" at Groote Markt, the marketplace in Sint-Niklaas, capital of Waasland, Flanders, Belgium,the largest such marketplace in the country:
Google Books is a wonderful information resource which can assist greatly in determining whether to buy a book or not.
Google Books has expanded in the course of time to include many new features. Among these new features are word clouds - in a book's "Overview" section - showing a selection of frequent important terms found in a book. Here is the Google Books word cloud for Stars Stones and Scholars, the Decipherment of the Megaliths by Andis Kaulins.
Crossposted to LawPundit.
Google Books has a special page for Legal Analysis relating to Google Books and copyright law.
Our photo shows the sculpture "The Word" at Groote Markt, the marketplace in Sint-Niklaas, capital of Waasland, Flanders, Belgium,the largest such marketplace in the country:
Google Books is a wonderful information resource which can assist greatly in determining whether to buy a book or not.
Google Books has expanded in the course of time to include many new features. Among these new features are word clouds - in a book's "Overview" section - showing a selection of frequent important terms found in a book. Here is the Google Books word cloud for Stars Stones and Scholars, the Decipherment of the Megaliths by Andis Kaulins.
"Common terms and phrases
Ain Ghazal Ancient Britain Andis Kaulins Andromeda Aquarius Aquila Arbor Low astronomical Auriga Autumn Equinox Barclodiad Y Gawres Bouar Canis Major Carnac Cassiopeia Catal Huyuk Cave Paintings Ceide Fields Celestial Pole Centaurus Cepheus Cetus Clava Cairns Cohen Gadol Coma Berenices constellations Corona Australis Corona Borealis County Sligo Creswell Crags Cygnus Decipherment Delphinus Deneb Dolmen Draco Dschubba Ecliptic Pole Egypt Eridanus Estonia Externsteine False Cross Fowlis Wester Gardom's Edge Gavrinis Gemini Ggantija Gozo Herefordshire Beacon Hierakonpolis Hyades Hydra Hydrus Kents Cavern Lanyon Quoit Large Magellanic Cloud Lascaux Latvian Leo Minor Magdalenians Malta megaliths Menhir Miami Circle Milky Mnajdra Mulfra Neolithic Newgrange Ophiuchus Ordnance Survey Perseus planisphere Pleiades Pole Star precession Richard Hinckley Allen Rock Drawing Rollright Stones Sagittarius Sarsens Saulheim Scorpio Scotland Serpens Caput Serpens Cauda Silbury Hill Solstice Stonehenge Tarxien Taurus Trethevy Quoit tumuli Ursa Major Ursa Minor Virgo Wayland's Smithy Yarmukian Zhangye"
We are very happy to be part of Google Books and view "word clouds" of our published works to be "fair use". But is the legal issue here so simple?
Take a look at these word cloudsvia Federal News Service transcriptsregarding the Democratic Party and Republican Party conventions leading to the US Presidential Election of Barack Obama.
It would certainly seem to be the case that a particular design of a word cloud is copyrightable, and since every word cloud has its own design, then word clouds would appear to be subject to copyright protection. But who owns the words in a cloud?
Word clouds are essentially one example ofdata visualization, for which there are numerous programs online.
Is a "word cloud" a derivative use (in which case it belongs to the original copyright holder) or is it a transformative use (in which case it belongs to the transformer). We favor the latter interpretation, but the issue has never been litigated.
As software applications show, "word clouds" appear to have a very "proprietary" character.
Online anyone can generate word clouds for free at WORDLE.net, which, however, claims the copyright to the word cloud image created, licensing it under a Creative Commons license with attribution. Here is a Wordle word cloud of the most recent postings at LawPundit:
There is also a free networking site for writers at The Word Cloud.
We are very happy to be part of Google Books and view "word clouds" of our published works to be "fair use". But is the legal issue here so simple?
Take a look at these word cloudsvia Federal News Service transcriptsregarding the Democratic Party and Republican Party conventions leading to the US Presidential Election of Barack Obama.
It would certainly seem to be the case that a particular design of a word cloud is copyrightable, and since every word cloud has its own design, then word clouds would appear to be subject to copyright protection. But who owns the words in a cloud?
Word clouds are essentially one example ofdata visualization, for which there are numerous programs online.
Is a "word cloud" a derivative use (in which case it belongs to the original copyright holder) or is it a transformative use (in which case it belongs to the transformer). We favor the latter interpretation, but the issue has never been litigated.
As software applications show, "word clouds" appear to have a very "proprietary" character.
Online anyone can generate word clouds for free at WORDLE.net, which, however, claims the copyright to the word cloud image created, licensing it under a Creative Commons license with attribution. Here is a Wordle word cloud of the most recent postings at LawPundit:
There is also a free networking site for writers at The Word Cloud.
Crossposted to LawPundit.
Friday, August 24, 2007
More on More on Spoonerisms, Chairs of Bowlies and Thimilar Sings
Grammar Girl's Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing (Podcast)
Russell Frank's blog Spankly Freaking
Away With Words and Wordworking
Dave Brondsema
The Wunder Blog and their Daily Bug posting titled
Balking Tackwards
VKpedia
The Grumpy Old Man has some Pedantic Moans in this direction and gives a nice list of Spoonerisms
Goonerisms Spalore! has a list (Parental Guidance recommended)
Joho the Blog has an on-the-borderline list (Parental Guidance definitely recommended)
Home is where The Horse is in the posting The man behind the muddle talks about Spooner
and see, generally,
Figures of Speech
with "Many definitions from: The American Heritage ® Dictionary of the English Language, Third Edition copyright © 1992 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Electronic version licensed from InfoSoft International, Inc. All rights reserved."
Russell Frank's blog Spankly Freaking
Away With Words and Wordworking
Dave Brondsema
The Wunder Blog and their Daily Bug posting titled
Balking Tackwards
VKpedia
The Grumpy Old Man has some Pedantic Moans in this direction and gives a nice list of Spoonerisms
Goonerisms Spalore! has a list (Parental Guidance recommended)
Joho the Blog has an on-the-borderline list (Parental Guidance definitely recommended)
Home is where The Horse is in the posting The man behind the muddle talks about Spooner
and see, generally,
Figures of Speech
with "Many definitions from: The American Heritage ® Dictionary of the English Language, Third Edition copyright © 1992 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Electronic version licensed from InfoSoft International, Inc. All rights reserved."
Thursday, August 23, 2007
Spoonerisms and other Verbal Blunders: Um ... by Erard
Um ... er .... ah. Having trouble speaking or writing? Do you suffer from lips of the stung? Do you sometimes write there for their? You are not a loan. The process of communication by words is beset with surprising linguistic obstacles.
Micheal Erard is "a journalist who writes mainly about language at the intersection of technology, policy, law, and science." He has a new book out Um...: Slips, Stumbles, and Verbal Blunders, and What They Mean.
Erard talks about those slips of the tongue that befall most of us at tome sime or another. It is an instructive world of verbal blunders made famous in our own day by US President Bush's "Dubyaspeak", which led to Erard's Um.
But the problem of dubyaspeak is older than President Bush. Former US President Herbert Hoover was, for example, also famed indirectly by a spoonerism, a lexical flip by radio announcer Harry von Zell, who referred to Hoover once as Hoobert Heever (read this account as a general lesson in evidence).
In his review of Erard's book, Dennis Lythgoe at the Desert Morning News writes as follows about "Um" and "Dubyaspeak":
"Erard became interested in the subject of verbal blunders during the 2000 presidential campaign, when George W. Bush’s malapropisms were referred to as “abnormal” in media reports. Erard thought critics were too hard on Bush, because he believes all of us commit verbal blunders.
He is convinced that making mistakes in speech is not a sign of a lack of intelligence. It is often caused by anxieties — people repeat words and restart sentences if they’re nervous. Or they may simply be accidental."
That may in part be confirmed at the blawg Yayarolly goes to law school, where "a 30-something's adventure in law school writes" in "Stick a fork in 1L, I'm done":
"Seriously. I'm tried. That's really the only way to describe what I am feeling right now. Not euphoric, not relieved, just tired. And a little concerned if my speech will ever be the same again... I've been spitting out spoonerisms over the last week like it's going out of style."
For more details about malopropisms , spoonerisms, and similar verbal blunders, see these reviews of Erard's book.
Micheal Erard is "a journalist who writes mainly about language at the intersection of technology, policy, law, and science." He has a new book out Um...: Slips, Stumbles, and Verbal Blunders, and What They Mean.
Erard talks about those slips of the tongue that befall most of us at tome sime or another. It is an instructive world of verbal blunders made famous in our own day by US President Bush's "Dubyaspeak", which led to Erard's Um.
But the problem of dubyaspeak is older than President Bush. Former US President Herbert Hoover was, for example, also famed indirectly by a spoonerism, a lexical flip by radio announcer Harry von Zell, who referred to Hoover once as Hoobert Heever (read this account as a general lesson in evidence).
In his review of Erard's book, Dennis Lythgoe at the Desert Morning News writes as follows about "Um" and "Dubyaspeak":
"Erard became interested in the subject of verbal blunders during the 2000 presidential campaign, when George W. Bush’s malapropisms were referred to as “abnormal” in media reports. Erard thought critics were too hard on Bush, because he believes all of us commit verbal blunders.
He is convinced that making mistakes in speech is not a sign of a lack of intelligence. It is often caused by anxieties — people repeat words and restart sentences if they’re nervous. Or they may simply be accidental."
That may in part be confirmed at the blawg Yayarolly goes to law school, where "a 30-something's adventure in law school writes" in "Stick a fork in 1L, I'm done":
"Seriously. I'm tried. That's really the only way to describe what I am feeling right now. Not euphoric, not relieved, just tired. And a little concerned if my speech will ever be the same again... I've been spitting out spoonerisms over the last week like it's going out of style."
For more details about malopropisms , spoonerisms, and similar verbal blunders, see these reviews of Erard's book.
Monday, January 22, 2007
Wordgloss : The Meaning and Origin of Words
The following is our book review of Jim O'Donnell's book, Wordgloss : A Cultural Lexicon , which we have reviewed at Amazon.co.uk:
"Was this the wish of the Demiurge? Boston to Washington DC is a conurbation! Cui bono?! Do we live in a lexical dystopia awaiting a thaumaturgic gloss revival? Who today knows that "pleonasms are tautologous and should be avoided"? Errata need not be repetitive - a verisimilitude!
Do you need this book? Do you know the words?
Author Jim O'Donnell (book Foreword by John Banville) writes in his preface that "the extraordinary expansion of modern knowledge and its fission into micro-specialties" has created "a niagara of words and concepts flowing from a wide range of disciplines that we have never explored."
The everyday result is that our increasingly sophisticated modern world of communications is confronted by the Hydra-headed cultural stumbling block of a classics-based "verbal universe" manifesting an erstwhile lexical heritage to which most readers no longer have any personal or educational connection.
Wordgloss is not a quintessential corrective panacea for this problem, but O'Donnell writes that "Wordgloss is full of the words and concepts you always meant to look up. It tells you where they came from and how they acquired the meaning or meanings they now have."
The book is written "associatively", which is "pedagogically" more effective than the "linear" scientific style of dictionaries.
Definitely a fun and educating vade-mecum read.
Fons et origo!"
"Was this the wish of the Demiurge? Boston to Washington DC is a conurbation! Cui bono?! Do we live in a lexical dystopia awaiting a thaumaturgic gloss revival? Who today knows that "pleonasms are tautologous and should be avoided"? Errata need not be repetitive - a verisimilitude!
Do you need this book? Do you know the words?
Author Jim O'Donnell (book Foreword by John Banville) writes in his preface that "the extraordinary expansion of modern knowledge and its fission into micro-specialties" has created "a niagara of words and concepts flowing from a wide range of disciplines that we have never explored."
The everyday result is that our increasingly sophisticated modern world of communications is confronted by the Hydra-headed cultural stumbling block of a classics-based "verbal universe" manifesting an erstwhile lexical heritage to which most readers no longer have any personal or educational connection.
Wordgloss is not a quintessential corrective panacea for this problem, but O'Donnell writes that "Wordgloss is full of the words and concepts you always meant to look up. It tells you where they came from and how they acquired the meaning or meanings they now have."
The book is written "associatively", which is "pedagogically" more effective than the "linear" scientific style of dictionaries.
Definitely a fun and educating vade-mecum read.
Fons et origo!"
Sunday, November 19, 2006
Word Freak Paul Muldoon
Charles McGrath in his exceptional New York Times article Word Freak, informs us about the remarkable poetry of Paul Muldoon. McGrath writes:
"Just about everyone except Muldoon thinks his poetry is often difficult. When I suggested to him once that his work is sometimes hard to follow, he shook his head and seemed almost offended. “I’m not all that keen on the idea that every poem should be full of allusions,” he said, and he added that what he strove for always was clarity. “It’s mostly a matter of clearing away,” he said. “The way Frost did.” But then after a pause, he added: “It’s hard to make a poem these days that is absolutely clear and direct — if the poem is really to be equal to its era. This is not an era in which clarity and directness, however much we hope for them, are entirely justifiable, because so much is unclear and indirect. I’m not just talking about willed obfuscation and crookedness, though, God knows, there’s plenty of that. I’m just talking about a realization that very little is as it seems, that everything has within it massive complexities — maybe even the inappropriateness of being certain about things. A proper awareness that things are just not at all as they seem — one would wish for more of that, particularly on the political front. Wouldn’t you love to hear the president or someone say, ‘Well, you know, I’m not absolutely clear on that’?”"
Muldoon is also the member of a rock band, Rockett, which sings lyrics written by him. McGrath gives the following example from “Meat and Drink,” a love song from the band’s second CD,“Standing Room Only,” which contains this stanza
"I’m through with hitting the sake
With Kenzo and Miyake
I’m done with Valpol and polenta
WithOscar de la Renta
Now the joint is pastry-cased
Enough of the modus vivendi
Of Ferragamo and Fendi
No mooching through Balducci’s
With Pucci andGucci
Finding nothing to my taste."
Hey, this guy is really good.
"Just about everyone except Muldoon thinks his poetry is often difficult. When I suggested to him once that his work is sometimes hard to follow, he shook his head and seemed almost offended. “I’m not all that keen on the idea that every poem should be full of allusions,” he said, and he added that what he strove for always was clarity. “It’s mostly a matter of clearing away,” he said. “The way Frost did.” But then after a pause, he added: “It’s hard to make a poem these days that is absolutely clear and direct — if the poem is really to be equal to its era. This is not an era in which clarity and directness, however much we hope for them, are entirely justifiable, because so much is unclear and indirect. I’m not just talking about willed obfuscation and crookedness, though, God knows, there’s plenty of that. I’m just talking about a realization that very little is as it seems, that everything has within it massive complexities — maybe even the inappropriateness of being certain about things. A proper awareness that things are just not at all as they seem — one would wish for more of that, particularly on the political front. Wouldn’t you love to hear the president or someone say, ‘Well, you know, I’m not absolutely clear on that’?”"
Muldoon is also the member of a rock band, Rockett, which sings lyrics written by him. McGrath gives the following example from “Meat and Drink,” a love song from the band’s second CD,
"I’m through with hitting the sake
With Kenzo and Miyake
I’m done with Valpol and polenta
With
Now the joint is pastry-cased
Enough of the modus vivendi
Of Ferragamo and Fendi
No mooching through Balducci’s
With Pucci and
Finding nothing to my taste."
Hey, this guy is really good.
Tuesday, January 10, 2006
Business Jargon - Green Weenies and Due Diligence
Dana Sanchez at The Herald in Bradenton, Manatee and Sarasota, Florida (thank you Bradentonians for this tip) has an article "Using a language that works: Jargon makes the business world go round", reviewing a book documenting business jargon, written by auto salvage magnate Ron Sturgeon and entitled "Green Weenies and Due Diligence". It is an education.
.
.
Truthiness and Podcast Words of the Year 2005
Well, we have said it along about the humanities, and now it has hit the world in general.
Via email from Bradenton, Florida (thank you) containing snips of articles in The Herald, we discover that The American Dialect Society (ADS) in its 16th annual words of the year vote, has chosen "truthiness" as the Word of the Year 2005, i.e. as the word best reflecting the year 2005. According to the ADS:
"Truthiness refers to the quality of preferring concepts or facts one wishes to be true, rather than concepts or facts known to be true."
Via email from Bradenton, Florida (thank you) containing snips of articles in The Herald, we discover that The American Dialect Society (ADS) in its 16th annual words of the year vote, has chosen "truthiness" as the Word of the Year 2005, i.e. as the word best reflecting the year 2005. According to the ADS:
"Truthiness refers to the quality of preferring concepts or facts one wishes to be true, rather than concepts or facts known to be true."
It used to be that we now call "truthiness" was simply "wishful thinking".
That same society also voted "podcast" as "the most useful word" of 2005, with podcast defined as "a digital feed containing audio or video files for downloading to a portable MP3 player. From the brand name MP3 player iPod + broadcast."
.
Thursday, September 01, 2005
WebCorp Linguistic Search Engine
WebCorp is part of a linguistic search engine developed by The Research and Development Unit for English Studies (RDUES).
RDUES, "based in the School of English at UCE Birmingham, is a small team of corpus linguists, software engineers and statisticians. We carry out applied research in corpus linguistics, developing new descriptions of the language in use and tools for the extraction and management of knowledge in databases. The Unit's linguistic background is broad: corpus-based linguistics, lexicography, applied linguistics, the study of modern English language, modern languages, TEFL."
Webcorp is capable of creating word concordances of website pages.
.
RDUES, "based in the School of English at UCE Birmingham, is a small team of corpus linguists, software engineers and statisticians. We carry out applied research in corpus linguistics, developing new descriptions of the language in use and tools for the extraction and management of knowledge in databases. The Unit's linguistic background is broad: corpus-based linguistics, lexicography, applied linguistics, the study of modern English language, modern languages, TEFL."
Webcorp is capable of creating word concordances of website pages.
.
Sunday, October 17, 2004
Word Magazine - Entertainment and Music
Word Magazine - Entertainment and Music
Via Blognor Regis:
"I read every issue of the music monthy Q Magazine from January 1990 through to this spring when I'd finally had enough of the constant top 100 this, that and the other polls. I'm not sure whether I've outgrown the magazine or whether the magazine has gone downhill. I think the latter because the editors of Q back in the day, Mark Ellen and David Hepworth (who, famously, was once in a band at Oxford called Ugly Rumours with our present Prime Minister) now produce a magazine called Word."
Word Magazine writes about itself:
Word has already established a reputation as the most authoritative grown-up magazine in the entertainment and music market. Industry figures and readers have applauded the quality of its writing and presentation and its refreshing approach to its subject.
This sounds good enough that we might buy a copy.
Via Blognor Regis:
"I read every issue of the music monthy Q Magazine from January 1990 through to this spring when I'd finally had enough of the constant top 100 this, that and the other polls. I'm not sure whether I've outgrown the magazine or whether the magazine has gone downhill. I think the latter because the editors of Q back in the day, Mark Ellen and David Hepworth (who, famously, was once in a band at Oxford called Ugly Rumours with our present Prime Minister) now produce a magazine called Word."
Word Magazine writes about itself:
Word has already established a reputation as the most authoritative grown-up magazine in the entertainment and music market. Industry figures and readers have applauded the quality of its writing and presentation and its refreshing approach to its subject.
This sounds good enough that we might buy a copy.
Saturday, May 08, 2004
Working With Words - Blog
Working With Words - Blog
The blog Working With Words carries the following description:
"A weblog devoted to spurring a conversation among those who use words to varying degrees in their daily work. Hosted by John Ettorre, a Cleveland-based writer and editor...."
This blog is a great addition to any blog roll for its postings on the literary world of writing and reporting.
We would, however, recommend, that the blog author post his personal political opinions to a different blog devoted to political topics. Here, they just get in the way....
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