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Defining 2008
Baron missed one: "bailout," from Merriam-Webster, a less capricious choice than some of the others in that it was chosen because it "received the highest intensity of lookups on Merriam-Webster Online over the shortest period of time." (Don't examine that claim too carefully!)
The American Dialect Society will have the last word, literally, when it votes on a 2008 word of the year at its annual meeting, in January. It is now accepting nominations, so if you have a candidate, do tell.
Our language in limerick form
Thanks go to reader Holly Windle for introducing me to the Omnificent English Dictionary in Limerick Form, as she just did in the course of observing that wordcount.org, mentioned in my November column, is a "dangerous time sink." Holly? And how would you characterize the OEDILF?
A few limericks relevant to today and the holiday season to come are here.
No, it's not a "visitor's" center!
My extremely cool colleague Jim Fallows has written about the dopey mistakes the Chinese make when they translate things into English -- most recently here. He wonders why they don't ask a native English speaker to look translations over before making them public.
I, however, worry about the dopey mistakes that native English speakers make. I wonder why people don't run things by someone who's known to be good with spelling and punctuation and so forth.
Here's a case in point. That's Harvard in the background. (Apologies if the photo looks as peculiar on your screen as it does on mine!) I'm beginning to think the battle against misplaced apostrophes is over, and my side lost.
Monkeys give me an inferiority complex
Peevish about "spot-on"
Does "spot-on" bug anyone besides me? From today's Washington Post(in an attention-getting context!): "The hair comes from humans, but it is ethically sourced, of course," Potton said. He was presumably heading off any problems with People for the Ethical Treatment of Follicles. As for the eyeballs, Potton added, "they take individual silk strands to make the veins and get the eyes actually spot-on." And from americanchronicle.com: The current economic chaos and plight of average Americans prove Democrat Socialist George Orwell´s comments on the book offered decades ago ominously spot on. He said "[A] return to 'free' competition, means for the great mass of people a tyranny probably worse, because (it will be) more irresponsible, than that of the state." "Spot-on" is a Britishism that has begun cropping up a lot. In my experience, Americans don't like Britishisms from the mouths and keyboards of other Americans -- I get mail all the time complaining about "went missing." I admit, among possible alternatives"right on" is dated, and "on target" probably strikes some people as undesirably warlike. So maybe "accurate"? "Just right"?
Innocently insensitive (AMF, Part VI)
I wonder if my correspondent has in mind any household names here. Once again, Ammon Shea has been rifling through the Oxford English Dictionary in search of an apt word. Will Martin, of Charlottesville, VA, writes: "I've long sought a word to describe the intersection of 'insensitive' and 'innocent' to describe the actions of those among us who are simply too shallow or immature to deserve the shade of malice implied by 'insensitive,' yet too foreseeably destructive in their actions to deserve the kindness implied by 'innocent.'"
Ammon Shea replies: "Although the first word that springs to mind is teen-aged, I'm also rather partial to the word incogitant, as it has two meanings - 1. inconsiderate, and 2. not having the faculty of thinking - that I think almost cover the concept you refer to.
"Since I do not have a perfect match for this, I will also offer up airling, which, as a noun, does come fairly close to what I think you are looking for. It describes someone who is young and thoughtless."
Idiot magnet (AMF, Part V)
Here's more help from Ammon Shea in clearing my Word Fugitives backlog. Ammon is the author of Reading the OED, and if anyone would know words that actually exist to meet the needs of fugitive-seeking readers, it's probably ..., um, he. Jaye Stevens, of Stockton, CA, writes: "I have this uncanny (albeit annoying) knack of being a magnet for every rude idiot whenever I go to a movie theatre. Is does not matter where I sit -- back row, front row, in the middle, on the aisle -- I always manage to get my seat kicked, or it's the couple with the baby, or it's the dork sending text messages, or the one answering their phone, or the ones who just won't shut up. Is there such a name for such a dreadful ability to attract the worst patrons?" Ammon Shea replies: "Although I am tempted to say that the word you are looking for is stomaching (prone to cherishing anger or resentment), I'm afraid that it's not quite correct - it just happens to be the word that springs to mind when I read your letter.
"Aside of a highly colloquial term that I am fairly certain you do not want to hear about (it has something to do with excreta and magnets) there are no single specific words for your particular talent. Since I am unable to supply you with this word I may as well join the ranks of those who ceaselessly annoy you, and tell you of some words that you didn't ask for.
"What you need at the movies is your very own silentiary (a person who asks for silence, a professional shusher, if you will), of perhaps even an exclosure (which is an area from which undesired animals are excluded) that you can somehow carry about with you. Should you be unable to procure either of these things before your next trip to the movies, act as your very own silentiary, and by the end of the evening you with doubtless be pelted with popcorn, and happily forplaint (tired out from complaining)."
Meh!
Someone asked me a few weeks ago when to expect to see "meh" in dictionaries. Soon, according to AP. Oddly, the UK imprint Collins is the first real dictionary (as opposed to urbandictionary) to seize on this word, though "meh" is American -- Simpsonian, to be exact.
(Thanks to Mike Brower for forwarding the news.)
Hypermiling and other Words of the Year
The New Oxford American Dictionary is getting the jump on the Words of the Year season. Yesterday it announced its winner, "hypermiling" (meaning doing nutsy stuff to improve your gas mileage), and runners-up.
Words of the Year lists are shameless bids for publicity, and I'm unashamedly publicizing this one because the New Oxford American is a great dictionary that deserves more recognition than it gets. The fact that the electronic version comes with Macs tells you something.
Full disclosure and more shameless publicity: Oxford has invited me to take part in panel discussions about dictionaries in Cambridge, Mass., this Thursday, November 14 (headliner Simon Winchester), and in Philadelphia next Tuesday, the 18th. I'm not saying nice things about NOAD just for that reason, though. It really is an excellent dictionary.
Now that the election cliches are receding ...
... some new old words and phrases are lurching into view. Baltimore Sun copy chief John McIntyre is doing his best to keep us safe from them.
It's historic!
On the one hand, it may seem petty to focus on the niceties of language at this great moment in America's history. On the other hand, one reason Barack Obama is now the President-elect of the United States is his extraordinary command of the language. As I discussed in my column in the November Atlantic, his word choices aren't especially fancy. It's just that Obama uses the right words, so that he's easy for all of us to understand and hard to find fault with, unless you're trying to. On that note ... A reader writes: In all of this election coverage, I can't help but cringe ever time I hear people misuse historic/historical.
Many reporters are saying a historic event instead of an historic event which is forgivable enough. But I'm surprised about the categorical use of historical. Am I wrong in thinking that Obama's election will be historical in 40 years, but in fact is simply historic for the moment? And if I am correct in this line of thinking, I'm guessing you have noticed this misuse of historical it as well. OK, "a" is the right article with "historic" if you pronounce the "h," as dictionaries indicate most of us do. "An" goes with the "istoric" pronunciation, which is getting to be, well, historical. But my correspondent is quite right that this is a "historic" moment (a history-making one), not a "historical" one (one in history) and that not everyone is aware of the distinction. http://www.usnews.com/blogs/robert-schlesinger/2008/11/04/barack-obamas-election-gives-us-a-rarity-a-positive-instantly-historical-moment.html
Sort of a good sign: If you use Google News to find recent uses of "historical," one piece it returns from a major professional site has already been corrected to read "historic":
The F-word goes to the Supreme Court
At least one thing besides the election is scheduled
to happen tomorrow: The Supreme Court will hear FCC vs. Fox Television
Stations, as yesterday's New York TimesWeek in Review section pointed out. The crux of the case is whether ... I can write the word here, "fuck" falls afoul of indecency regulations because it necessarily refers to "sexual or excretory activities or
organs."
I'd agree that "fuck" is indecent - but that's not
why. The usages that the Supreme Court will be learnedly considering include Bono's
remark in 2003 that winning a Golden Globe award was "really really fucking
brilliant" and Nicole Richie's assertion that getting "cow shit out of a Prada purse" is "not so fucking
simple." What's sexual about either of those? "Nudge nudge wink wink" is a lot
more prurient than either of them. So are certain kinds of eyebrow-raising. So
are many, many ways of expressing oneself.
In the instances in question and many others (say, 99
percent of the 10 zillion times "fuck" turned up in the conversation of Tony
Soprano and his guys), the word is just an "intensifier," meant to establish the
speaker as aggressive and contemptuous of ordinary social norms. Part of its
purpose is to offend to decent folk, should they happen to be reading or
listening.
So of course we shouldn't welcome such a word into
everyday conversation. (If we did, it would lose its impact, and aggressive,
contemptuous people would need to find a new word.)
Peter Chernin, the president of News Corporation,
which owns Fox, has complained that forbidding people from swearing on network
TV puts the networks at "an inexplicable competitive disadvantage." I don't see
that. As things stand, viewers know the networks won't assault them with
language that's offensive on purpose. This could just as easily be a
competitive advantage, if the networks treat it as one.
To sum up: I'm not eager to hear "fuck" on network
TV. What's usually objectionable with the word, though, isn't that it's sexual but that
it's crude. UPDATE: Forgot to note previously that The Atlantic published Steven Pinker's take on this subject in the November issue.
AMF, Part IV
Here's the latest ... might we call it a guerdon? (more nearly that than a meed, wouldn't you agree?) resulting from a treasure hunt through the Oxford English Dictionary that guest blogger Ammon Shea is conducting for the benefit of Word Fugitives readers: James Weston, of Iowa City, writes: "I am looking for a word to describe the somewhat nonsensical words created by adding a false suffix (e.g., '-gate' added to mean scandal, after Watergate, hence 'Troopergate'; '-aholic' added to mean
dependency, after alcoholic, hence 'shopaholic')."
Ammon Shea replies: "Depending on whether you like your terms modern or outdated, the word you are looking for is either blend or portmanteau (defined by the OED as 'A word formed by blending sounds from two or more distinct words and combining their meanings'). The latter word has been in English use for quite some while - its original meaning, from the 1550s, referred to a bag or case that split into two different sections. It acquired the new meaning from Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass, in which Humpty Dumpty explains to Alice how slithy means lithe + slimy: 'You see it's like a portmanteau -- there are two meanings packed
up into one word.'
"Portmanteaux seem to be words that get little respect (it's easy to make fun of such recent coinages as chocoholic, nannygate, and the like), but there are many examples, such as chortle (chuckle + snort) and smog (smoke + fog), that have become fairly accepted words.
"I should mention that some lexicographers and philologists might take exception to the above explanation - in the view of some specialists a word would be considered a portmanteau or a blend only if it puts together two partial bits of words; if it is made up of a complete word and a partial word it should be referred to as a compound. Thus, chocoholic would
still be considered a portmanteau, but nannygate (with its use of the full word nanny) would properly be a compound."
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