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What Words Reveal
A new tool for computer language analysis can evaluate your mind based on your Tweets (and might help psychologists, too)
Unless you’ve been living under a rock or among the molemen, you’ve probably enjoyed the humor of @s–tmydadsays, the popular Twitter account of Justin, who describes himself like so: “I’m 29. I live with my 73-year-old dad. He is awesome. I just write down s–t that he says.” That s–t consists of cranky honesty like “I…
Read & Discuss
Thesaurus Rex
Forty-four years in the making: the world’s first historical thesaurus.
Ever wonder how people really talked in the 1800s, or 1500s, or earlier?
You can stop building the time machine. Such questions are now easier to answer than ever before, with the publication—after 44 years of work—of the Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary. At almost 4,000 pages and about 800,000 meanings, this mind-boggling reference work is the biggest thesaurus ever and the world’s first historical…
Read & Discuss
Are You Raising a Furkid?
Confusing parenthood and pet ownership: The words of the dog world.
Kids chase fewer squirrels and postal workers than dogs, but the way we pamper our poodles and great danes and mutts has a lot in common with how we treat our toddlers and teens.
Though I try not to over-kid-ify my canine, the bounds of sane dog owner behavior are blurry. I frequently arrange playdates for my rat terrier Monkey, and, I hate to admit, once…
Read & Discuss
The Language of 30 Rock
How Liz Lemon and company have enriched our lexicon.
Since its debut in 2006, there hasn’t been a more quotable comedy than 30 Rock. Memorable lines include the quacky pronouncements of Dr. Spaceman (“Medicine’s not a science”), Jack Donaghy’s non-compliments (“Lemon, don’t ever say you’re just you, because you’re better than you”), Tracy Jordan’s bizarre endorsements (“I love this cornbread so much, I want to take it behind a middle school and get it pregnant”), Liz Lemon’s…
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Confusion Caused by Crash Blossoms
Linguists give a name to an old headline hazard.
If brevity is the soul of wit, it is also the trapdoor of ridiculousness—at least in the world of headlines, which have long been prone to unintentional comedy along the lines of “Woman Better after Being Thrown from High-rise” and “Scientists Are at Loss Due to Brain-eating Amoeba.”
Now there’s a name for the phenomenon of ambiguously or bizarrely worded headlines: “crash blossoms,” as suggested by a poster at…
Read & Discuss
Like an Octopus in a Garage
Jag Bhalla collects the world’s odd idioms and out-dated metaphors.
When describing you to prospective dates and employers, do friends say you “Have one on the waffle” or “The roof has slid off”?
If they have (and I hate to tell you this), your friends think you have bats in the belfry—they’re just using idioms from other languages. As Jag Bhalla has shown with his book, I’m Not Hanging Noodles on Your Ears, the world of idioms is…
Read & Discuss
On William Safire
Saying goodbye to the consummate language columnist.
If you enjoy this language column—or any language column at all, anywhere—then you should take a minute to remember William Safire, who died Sunday of pancreatic cancer at 79. The Nixon speechwriter was a prolific and Pulitzer-winning conservative columnist, the author of four novels, and chairman of the Dana Foundation, which funds research in neuroscience, but he was best known as the word nerd who paved the way for lucky…
Read & Discuss
If “Mark Twain Said It,” He Probably Didn’t
How words drift toward the famous, regardless of the facts.
That Mark Twain was something else, wasn’t he? He said so many memorable things, like “If you don’t like the weather in New England, just wait a few minutes” and “Golf is a good walk spoiled.” What a writer, what a guy.
Unfortunately—even though Twain is the great American humorist—he didn’t say either of those things. Twain is what scholar Fred Shapiro calls a “quote magnet,” someone…
Read & Discuss
In Slang, to “Gay Marry” Is Legal
Accepting gay marriage in language is more than just wordplay.
Eventually, according to my crystal ball, gay marriage will be legal everywhere. I predict that opposition to the civil right of marriage will be looked back at as vicious, repressive, dark-ages nonsense by our enlightened successors.
But that golden age may be far off; we’re still living in a time when batty objections to gay marriage flourish. Witness, for example, the idea that if we expand marriage…
Read & Discuss
“The Unfolding of Language”
Read & Discuss
What Words Reveal
A new tool for computer language analysis can evaluate your mind based on your Tweets (and might help psychologists, too)
Unless you’ve been living under a rock or among the molemen, you’ve probably enjoyed the humor of @s–tmydadsays, the popular Twitter account of Justin, who describes himself like so: “I’m 29. I live with my 73-year-old dad. He is awesome. I just write down s–t that he says.” That s–t consists of cranky honesty like “I…
Read & Discuss
Thesaurus Rex
Forty-four years in the making: the world’s first historical thesaurus.
Ever wonder how people really talked in the 1800s, or 1500s, or earlier?
You can stop building the time machine. Such questions are now easier to answer than ever before, with the publication—after 44 years of work—of the Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary. At almost 4,000 pages and about 800,000 meanings, this mind-boggling reference work is the biggest thesaurus ever and the world’s first historical…
Read & Discuss
Are You Raising a Furkid?
Confusing parenthood and pet ownership: The words of the dog world.
Kids chase fewer squirrels and postal workers than dogs, but the way we pamper our poodles and great danes and mutts has a lot in common with how we treat our toddlers and teens.
Though I try not to over-kid-ify my canine, the bounds of sane dog owner behavior are blurry. I frequently arrange playdates for my rat terrier Monkey, and, I hate to admit, once…
Read & Discuss
The Language of 30 Rock
How Liz Lemon and company have enriched our lexicon.
Since its debut in 2006, there hasn’t been a more quotable comedy than 30 Rock. Memorable lines include the quacky pronouncements of Dr. Spaceman (“Medicine’s not a science”), Jack Donaghy’s non-compliments (“Lemon, don’t ever say you’re just you, because you’re better than you”), Tracy Jordan’s bizarre endorsements (“I love this cornbread so much, I want to take it behind a middle school and get it pregnant”), Liz Lemon’s…
Read & Discuss
Confusion Caused by Crash Blossoms
Linguists give a name to an old headline hazard.
If brevity is the soul of wit, it is also the trapdoor of ridiculousness—at least in the world of headlines, which have long been prone to unintentional comedy along the lines of “Woman Better after Being Thrown from High-rise” and “Scientists Are at Loss Due to Brain-eating Amoeba.”
Now there’s a name for the phenomenon of ambiguously or bizarrely worded headlines: “crash blossoms,” as suggested by a poster at…
Read & Discuss
Like an Octopus in a Garage
Jag Bhalla collects the world’s odd idioms and out-dated metaphors.
When describing you to prospective dates and employers, do friends say you “Have one on the waffle” or “The roof has slid off”?
If they have (and I hate to tell you this), your friends think you have bats in the belfry—they’re just using idioms from other languages. As Jag Bhalla has shown with his book, I’m Not Hanging Noodles on Your Ears, the world of idioms is…
Read & Discuss
On William Safire
Saying goodbye to the consummate language columnist.
If you enjoy this language column—or any language column at all, anywhere—then you should take a minute to remember William Safire, who died Sunday of pancreatic cancer at 79. The Nixon speechwriter was a prolific and Pulitzer-winning conservative columnist, the author of four novels, and chairman of the Dana Foundation, which funds research in neuroscience, but he was best known as the word nerd who paved the way for lucky…
Read & Discuss
If “Mark Twain Said It,” He Probably Didn’t
How words drift toward the famous, regardless of the facts.
That Mark Twain was something else, wasn’t he? He said so many memorable things, like “If you don’t like the weather in New England, just wait a few minutes” and “Golf is a good walk spoiled.” What a writer, what a guy.
Unfortunately—even though Twain is the great American humorist—he didn’t say either of those things. Twain is what scholar Fred Shapiro calls a “quote magnet,” someone…
Read & Discuss
In Slang, to “Gay Marry” Is Legal
Accepting gay marriage in language is more than just wordplay.
Eventually, according to my crystal ball, gay marriage will be legal everywhere. I predict that opposition to the civil right of marriage will be looked back at as vicious, repressive, dark-ages nonsense by our enlightened successors.
But that golden age may be far off; we’re still living in a time when batty objections to gay marriage flourish. Witness, for example, the idea that if we expand marriage…
Read & Discuss
“The Unfolding of Language”
Read & Discuss
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