Relationships are weird...really weird

My newest epiphany is that most fights between lovers/life partners are remarkably similar in their weirdness. In other words, fights are reflections of our own strange inadequacies, rather than indications of deep-seated soul-crushing non-compatibility. That kind of relationship-ending garbage doesn't hide in between fights. It permeates interactions, good and bad. But even the worst fights are still weird reflections of yourself and your peculiar connection to another human being, colored by whatever context/item/other human being is closest. Think skating park, Instagram, your cousin's wounded turtle, or a piece of fruit.

This is what the twitter feed @wefoughtabout captures so perfectly.

Alan didn't take my "hair journey" slide show seriously.
— We Fought About: (@WeFoughtAbout) November 7, 2013

Alan and Claire have taken to the Internet to document the source of their quotidian conflicts, and it is like a couples counseling session that you never had to pay for. No, it's more remarkable than that. Each twitter post is an acknowledgement of the origin of the fight (in and of itself, an admirable feat), without sentimentality or horseshit psychology jargon, and with much humor. They touch on all facets of modern romance.

Jealousy:

Claire called our pet fish "baby" in front of me.
— We Fought About: (@WeFoughtAbout) November 6, 2013

Grief:

Claire blamed me for Dumbledore's death.
— We Fought About: (@WeFoughtAbout) October 9, 2013

Inappropriate musical accompaniment:

Alan harmonized with me.
— We Fought About: (@WeFoughtAbout) October 14, 2013

Read, laugh, and learn from the wonderful, revealing weirdness of their relationship.

Because of the Wonderful Things it Does

via Hello Literacy

Hot on the heels of Google's rebranding of 'literally', another word has burst from its cocoon of standard usage to blossom into something new.  Behold 'because'!  Why because?  Because, bloggers?  Because, irony?  Because SCIENCE?

Because, as we remember from Schoolhouse Rock, is a conjunction, hookin' up words and phrases and clauses.  In its newly evolved iteration of 'because noun', it becomes a preposition that allows a user to convey meaning, opinion, scorn, approval, or absolute assertion all in the span of two words.  Why do I  love Tom Hiddleston?  Because velociraptor.  Why can't we have nice things?  Because Republicans.  Why is using because in this way so much fun?  Because reasons.

A petite rant on usage

I worked for a financial newspaper that shall remain nameless (Voldemortgage News? Hrm...) and it had the worst culture of institutionalized bullying I have ever had to endure. Which made me a ruthless editor because editing became survival.

The scars of this experience are my intolerance for misused words. I'd be annoyed by them anyway, I assure you, but not to this PTSD degree. And while I could dismiss my vehement reactions on unresolved anger at a chief sub who was a righteous prick and needed a kick in the balls, it still doesn't change the fact that words are misused all the damn time by people and publications that should know better, and as a result they are dumbing down our entire society and heralding the End of Times.

Here are a few examples:

Over. Dear every newspaper editor or broadcast journalist ever, please stop saying "over" when you mean "about". "Over" implies space and direction. Full disclosure: I used "over" in a headline when I was working on the Daily Telegraph business desk but that was because "about" wouldn't fit and the next word was "oil" so it rolled nicely. But you know what? Print is dying, the internet has unlimited space and the Daily Mail is going to use all of it for a five-deck SEO-generating headline so there's no excuse for saying "over" when you mean "about".

And just in case you don't mean "about", you probably mean "more than". Because if it's an amount of something, it's "more than". And while we're talking about amounts...

Significant. You mean "substantial". Because it's an amount, right? You're talking about an amount. You're talking about how much more you're paying in insurance every month or how many more students are not going to go to university if there are no jobs. Amounts are "substantial". If you say "significant" you're implying something is special. And you know what? It isn't.

Fantastical. You know who the worst sinner of this is? SFX magazine. Every goddamn "reboot" of a "franchise" is "fantastical", according to its "showrunner". NO. If it's a fantasy you're describing, then the adjective is "fantastic". Yes I am aware that it is a superlative. It's funny how some words can function in different word classes, isn't it? Like "fuck" and "smurf". Stop taking a perfectly cromulent adjective and trying to turn it into another adjective. I don't care if Shakespeare used it. You're not Shakespeare. You're not even Stephen Moffat. Unless you are. But if you are, please don't say "fantastical" because you're Stephen Goddamn Moffat and you are BETTER THAN THAT.


Vast majority. It's either a majority or it isn't. Fuck off with this "vast" nonsense.

Whilst/amongst. In grad school my grammar professor argued (in my words, not his) that anyone who said "whilst" or "amongst" was a pretentious dickhead and in practice I've found this to be largely true.

In the Tower

You still have a chance to catch at the National Gallery of Art exhibit, "In the Tower" by Mel Bochner. The show is a retrospective of 43 thesaurus-inspired works from the last 45 years.

Give me a minute ... (squeeeeee!). Okay. I'm done.

Explore the transistion of the bomb (bad) to the bomb (good) and other language evolutions painted as conceptual art using words as a medium.
A schedule of art talks can be found here.

Did you know he used to compose portraits to his friends composed of synonyms describing them? Best. present. ever.

Get off your duff, it's only through April 29th.

A book is a dream that you hold in your hands

This is National Library Week in the US, and Neil Gaiman is serving as the honorary chair.  Euan Kerr of Minnesota Public Radio interviewed the writer and self described "feral child of librarians" about his love of libraries. His thoughts on their importance warms the heart of this librarian, and will likely ring true to any lover of the printed word. He reiterates the point that the institution and its stewards are more relevant than ever, acting as trusted guides through the wilderness of digital information. They're also stalwart and hysterical defenders of freedom of speech, and the privacy rights of patrons.

Highlighting the issue of censorship, the American Library Association has released its list of the ten most frequently challenged books for 2009.  There are both new and classic titles on the list, and the most frequently cited reasons for requesting their removal from shelves are offensive language, sexual content, or religious viewpoint.  “Protecting one of our most fundamental rights – the freedom to read – means respecting each other’s differences and the right of all people to choose for themselves what they and their families read.”

I recommend exercising your rights, and picking up a copy of a challenged book.  Or you can join One Book, One Twitter, a "big read" project that aims to use the power of social media for good, and get people reading and talking about the same book this summer.  Vote for your favorite from Wired's list of ten candidates.

If you only had five words

What would you say while accepting your Webby award?

"Thanks for all the fish."



via

Pig Essence

Fluffy, curvy, wobbly, sqooshy. Rubenesque, gordita, ample-bossomed, pleasantly-plump. I have used so many words in service to the squashier side of humanity (see, I just used another one) but all of them tend to be empty euphemisms skirting around a present state. A state which has been bastardized to indicate sloth, laziness, greediness, unattractiveness with an underlying embarrassment which implies a lack of control or willpower. Very few words, and indeed conversations, discuss the often inevitable state of becoming (shall I say it?) fatter, the fear of becoming fatter and in general the process of adding meat to one's so called bones. Don't know what I'm talking about? Start watching Mad Men and sympathizing with Betty Draper.

Meanwhile, enter pinguescence, for which a mnemonic lies above. It is a rare and nearly out of use word for the process of growing fat. Adding it to conversation lends numerous ways of elucidating your fears of a state demonized throughout female culture, though rarely spoken of openly. For example,

• Even though the scale has gone up since I've started working out, I know, my pinguescence is deteriorating.
• French fries are a notorious catalyst of my pinguescent nature.

And my favorite

• Curse my sudden but inevitable pinguescence!

Take back the language, my friends, take back the language.

You can't spell 'badass' without 'MLIS'

Regular listeners of Weekend Edition will be familiar with the names Mary Glendinning and Kee Malesky.  They're two of the reference librarians who provide invaluable information support to NPR's writers and reporters.  These and other masters of the stacks take you behind the scenes with As a Matter of Fact:

As A Matter of Fact is a blog by and for the audio-loving, fact-finding, truth-seeking, pop-culture-fiending, news-addicted librarians of the world. Of course, you don't need to be a librarian to read it. But we're pretty sure you may secretly want to be one after you do.

How Fail Went from a Verb to an Interjection

Uberfail, full of fail, made of fail, epic fail. When you're writing an e-mail, your spellcheck may never be the same. Ever wonder how "Fail" moved from a verb to a noun?" The New York Times article, "How Fail Went from a Verb to and Interjection," may shed some light on the etymology of a quickly grown grammar trend. Little surprise that they think it has roots in Japanese gaming where fractured English reigns king (but only if you shine ultimately) and the popularity of the Fail Blog whose snark quipping, web surfing fascination lies along the same lines as I Can Has Cheezburger and Photoshop Disasters.

Since we know "win" is traveling the same path, anyone want to brainstorm what the next verb will be to leave the ranks of verb virginity? Post in comments my friends.

The speed of change - 140 characters

Photo by Getty Images

Twitter has been around since 2006, allowing users to update the mundanity of life 140 characters at a time. 2009 may well mark the point at which it went from a toy to a powerful communication tool. Trendhunter has put together a list of 13 ways Twitter enables activism - whether it's fans trying to save their favorite TV show, or voters in Iran struggling to preserve their rights and make their voices heard. Tweet, tweet.

There's Klingons on the starboard bow

Trekkies and Wordies both will enjoy Akira Okrent's Salon article about the development of the Klingon language.  Okrent is a linguist who began as an impartial observer, and ended up passing the first level certification exam.  Who knew there even was an exam.  With her academic background, she provides interesting insight into the complexities of this made up language. 

Knowing that fans would be watching closely, Okrand worked out a full grammar. He cribbed from natural languages, borrowing sounds and sentence-building rules, switching sources whenever Klingon started operating too much like any one language in particular. He ended up with something that sounds like an ungodly combination of Hindi, Arabic, Tlingit, and Yiddish and works like a mix of Japanese, Turkish, and Mohawk. The linguistic features of Klingon are not especially unusual (at least to a linguist) when considered independently, but put together, they make for one hell of an alien language.

But Klingon isn't about practicality, or status, or even about love for the original Star Trek series. It's about language for language's sake, and the joy of doing something that's not easy, without regard for worldly recognition. Hence the Klingon Hamlet, which took years to compose and which maybe 100 people can appreciate. What a piece of work is man indeed. Or as Wil'yam Shex'pir would put it, toH, chovnatlh Doj ghaH tlhIngan'e'—"A Klingon is an impressive specimen."

via

The Coolest Ten Foreign Words the English Language Needs

And speaking of alien, Cracked.com has a list of "The Coolest Ten Foreign Words The English Language Needs". I've been trying to remember Mamihlapinatapai ever since I read it in Bill Bryson's Mother Tongue, (the book this flavor is named after incidentally) because it happens so dang often. Now, if I could only figure out how to work Mamihlapinatapai into a conversation and still look cool...

You know of some more foreign words? You know what to do.

Letters. We get letters. Stacks and stacks of letters.

io9 has compiled a list of 13 alien languages that have established alphabets - and downloadable fonts.  Some were created for a specific purpose, like Futurama's Alienese, used to write background in-jokes for fans.  Others were born out of the fandom's passion for a fictional world or culture - see Klingon or the 118 letter Kryptonese alphabet.  All of them acknowledge in some way the Welsh proverb  "Cenedl heb iaith, cenedl heb galon." 

"A nation without a language [is] a nation without a heart" 

Apoplectic, Apocalyptic Aporia

An aporia is an expression of doubt or perplexity, typically a feigned one where the speaker then asks his audience about how he should proceed.

It is the quintessential rhetorical weapon of nagging wives and husbands. Of the smarmy, overly analytical work mates prone to waxing, eloquent on your perceived stupidity. The device is often delivered at the top of the lungs like a screaming wraith, blowing back the hair of one's audience and peeling off the paint as demonstrated by this quote from Parker Posey's character in Party Girl:

I guess you didn't know we have a system for putting books away here? No, I'm curious. You were just randomly putting that book on the shelf, is that it? You've just given us a great idea. I mean, why are we wasting our time with the Dewey Decimal System when your system is so much easier? Much easier! [shouting now] We'll just put the books anywhere. Hear that, everybody? Our friend here has given us a great idea! We'll just put the books any damn place we choose! We don't care, right?! Isn't that right?

The wonderful thing about aporias is they can be illustrated with great lengths of exaggeration laden heavy with sarcasm. Also, its similarity to the words "apocalyptic" and "apoplexy" in assonance and rhythm (both from different Greek roots uncoincidentally) lends itself to wonderful constructions such as "Don't levy your aporical justice at me!" or "If you don't dial back that aporic tirade, you'll burst a corpuscle."

Just doing my bit to help people win arguments everywhere.

P.S. I'd love to hear if you can remember an aporiac tirade from a movie, too (See how I did that? Three constructions! English is wonderful). I was sure there was one in Ghostbusters somewhere...

Speak Lol Speak

Look, I...I don't usually write posts about this kind of thing but--It's a dictionary for Christ's sake! I had become infinitely frustrated at my inability to decipher comments on youTube. Also, I had a vague sense that the cat asking for a hamburger was using some kind of thinly veiled, racial slur. But, no! Now, I understand that these mis-communications were brought about by Lolcats Speak. Goodbye, ebonics! Hello, shiny new paralinguistic, idiosyncratic dialect!

Speak Lol Speak carries the Definitive Lolcats Glossary. Take "University" courses like Lol 101 or Lolcats Basics. Or just use the glossary to look up "words". Soon you'll be deciphering texts and comment threads with the best of them.

Good. Got it? Now show your grandmum. Kthx.

Velleity

As I was falling asleep, I woke up repeatedly last night wondering if I had left the gas on. The culprit was a pea soup, so desired by my sick husband, that refused to soften over three hours (and no mother, I did not put the salt in too early) after which, I finally succumbed to throwing into the refrigerator to try again the next day.

Giving up shortly before midnight, I went to bed. Yet I stuck my glasses back onto my nose, twice. Twice, I placed my hand on the covers, prepared to throw them off, suck it up and check to see if in fact, I had turned off the stove. Yet I never got up. I lacked the desire strong enough to inspire movement.

Which brings me to our word for today, velleity (vuh-lee-i-tee).

Velleity is a mild wish or urge too slight to lead to action. A mere wish, if you will, unaccompanied by an effort to obtain it. For instance, say that you have a wish to change the cable channel, unaccompanied by a desire to find the remote control. (Q: Honey, why have you been watching Animal Planet for three hours? A: My own velleity). Or say you have a desire to catch the bus for work, unhampered by the impetus to run and catch it. (Velleity prevented me from being on time, boss).

I grant that velleity is a little harder to work into day-to-day language as the words I typically post, likely because it has no corresponding adjective or verb form like other English words describing emotions or desires (emotion/emote/emotive, desire/desire/desirous, anger/angry/angrily, or wish/wish). But as I've often said, English is a malleable language. Perhaps velleitious will catch on as well as humongous.

Verbotomy

Most Word of the Day sites lack interest and whimsy because, frankly, they are filled with words that are actually words used in the English language. How unimaginative of them! Thank goodness I found "The Big Book of Bunkum" by Victoria Elizabeth a.k.a. the self proclaimed, "Quipping Queen". Please don't mistake any of these words for actual words, they are just fun to say.

Recent additions to Bunkum include "flatterchatter" (one with an incredible if not insatiable appetite for all forms of adulation, praise and recognition) and "umdrum" (a pregnant pause associated with a pathetic person, a prosaic place, or a thankless thing that one wishes one had not encountered in the first place. Hello, my last alumnae dinner).

Want to try your own hand an verbal invention? Join Verbotomy, where everyday "verbotomists" create a new definition (and matching cartoon). Players must create a word -- a verboticism -- that matches the definition to be voted on by community members. Recent winners include the above "tinselclown" (A person so enamored with the holidays that they don't just deck their halls and home, but they also decorate their car, their cubicle, their pets, and themselves) and "delessious" (To leave out an important ingredient when you are sharing a favorite recipe so that no one else can make it taste as good as yours). Go forth and conquor.

Bafflegab

Had an interesting bout with payroll the other day, which leads me to toady's word. A dictionary definition of bafflegab clarifies the word as, "incomprehensible jargon" and compares it to "gobbledegook". This definition is vastly insufficient.

Let's begin our discussion with an excerpt for an actual notification from a government contractor "suggesting" its workers take annual leave during building maintenance:

[Maintenance] has announced that electrical power to [our building] will be shut down beginning Friday. We understand that routine functions will cease at that time and non-emergency personnel will not be permitted in [our building] during the power outage.

Employees who are not able to work during the power outage may, with supervisory concurrence, adjust their work schedule for the [pay period before the outage] to complete 40 work hours prior to [Friday]. Alternatively, employees may elect to take Annual Leave for the work hours missed due to the power outage.

Not one worker in my office fully understood the message. Vaguely some realized that a choice was being given, but none understood what the choices were. The notification gamely suggested it was addressed to employees not able to work during the power outage, but since all employees were not be permitted in the building, it wasn't clear that the message was addressed to EVERYONE.

That's because it was written ambiguously, using jargon and conflicting modifiers with the explicit intent to cover [management's ass] by deliberately clouding the message's real intent (we are forcing you to work overtime or take annual leave). This message was written in bafflegab.

Milton A. Smith, the assistant general counsel for the US Chamber of Commerce, coined the word in 1952 after a maddening day trying to explain a written order to a colleague. He decided a special word was needed to describe his office's special blend of “incomprehensibility, ambiguity, verbosity and complexity” in its bureaucratic language.

At the presentation of an award from the Washington Report, Milton Smith was asked to briefly define his word. He described it as:

“multiloquence characterized by consummate interfusion of circumlocution or periphrasis, inscrutability, and other familiar manifestations of abstruse expatiation commonly utilized for promulgations implementing Procrustean determinations by governmental bodies.”

Expect to see that on your next annual review.

Thesaurus.com's Lexico sued by Roget's Thesaurus

If you use thesaurus.com as extensively as I do, you'll notice that on or about May 1st the website became drastically useless. Here's what happened.

Around April 8th, 2008, Jezebel.com made a snuff about synonyms for the word "weaker" at thesaurus.com, which came up as "female" and "lady". While disgusting, synonyms like these don't particularly surprise me since they are slang for the concept of female as the "weaker sex". (Yes, while males get stuck with synonyms like "soul" and "humanity", feminine synonyms run a gamut of derogatory slanders. Welcome to being a lady. But that is another post.) Many of these synonyms can be found in Roget's Thesaurus (indicated as slang, just like I said). I know because it is on the bookshelf above my writing desk (sometimes I like to drift among the words, like a thirsty man in the desert, so sue me. Oops, did I give away the post?). The people these synonyms surprised the most, were the people at Roget's Thesaurus.

The attention and outrage garnered at Jezebel.com lead to someone at Roget's realizing that Thesaurus.com was lifting their words and infringing on the copyright of their 21st Century Thesaurus. They are now suing Lexico, the owners of Thesaurus.com in "The Philip Lief Group, Inc vs. Lexico Publishing Group" dated May 7th, 2008.

Apparently in 1990 and 1998, Roget employed a Barbara Ann Kipfer, PhD to create the 21st Century Thesaurus and the Revised edition. Roget retained the copyright and its agreement with Kipfer prohibited her from participating in the preparation of another English language thesaurus without Roget's permission. In 1999, Thesaurus.com requested a license for Roget's Thesaurus for its (then) fledgling internet based reference business. Citing that the business was not profitable and would be used mainly to educate people, they offered Roget's $3,000 smackers. Roget's declined.

Meanwhile, Thesaurus.com entered into an agreement with Dr. Kipfer to buy a thesaurus for their online site called "Roget's New Millennium Thesaurus". Roget's is charging that Kipfer's "New Millennium Thesaurus" is actually their "21st Century Thesaurus" copied verbatim, complete with misspellings and nonsense words.

Oops.

From 2002 to 2008 Thesaurus.com has increased in business value by creating a significant web based advertising supported business replete with pay for use premium features. In July of 2007 Lexico (declined) an offer of 100 million dollars for its sale.

Around May 19th, Thesaurus.com apparently removed all the words from their database that could only be found in Roget's new Millennium Thesaurus. The result is fewer returns, non-existing antonyms and some that words no longer have thesaurus entries. Since each word is cross-referenced through hyperlinks, this has drastically reduced the overall effectiveness of their on-line tool. Cries across the web have ranged from complaints about the "massive reduction" of hits and the "newly degraded" format to less detailed epithets ("suddenly sucks" and "now worthless").

Other discussions on the subject have disintegrated to a lot of finger pointing. Thesaurus.com's parent company, Lexico, has remained mum on the subject (foolhardy in my humble opinion) but court records serve as the herald of the awful truth.

Dactylonomy

Heavens, how long has it been since I gave Candy readers a really delicious word to chomp on? Too long, says I. Dactylonomy (think "pterodactyl" with out the "ptero") is the science of counting on your fingers. That's right, I said science. Nice try, haters, who think I am just bad at simple math.

If you think I'm just trying to get off not admitting that I never remember the sum of 7 and 3 with looking at my, um, dactyls, then you should read this explanation of the art of dactlonomy from World Wide Words, which notes the historical significance of the art based on descriptions of methods from the Middle East, Asia and other places (and by the Venerable Bede from the north-east of England in the eighth century AD if you must know). Paintings exist from more than four thousand years ago showing Egyptians finger counting and we know it was common in classical Greece and Rome so it can't be too good for you.

The word is from Greek "daktulos" meaning "finger", plus "-nomia" which is related to nomos, "law", that we use to mark some specified area of knowledge. Which leads me to a very similar, but little recognized science that I just made up, "Grammenomy", from Greek "gramme" meaning the stroke or line of a pen or mathematical figure, plus "-nomia", well you know the rest. It's the science (or art if you have it) of counting on the brush strokes of mathematical figures. Here's the system I devised in the third grade, mostly to keep my fingers out of the eyes of datylonomy bigots (haters).


Now, the next time someone gives you the evil eyeball for counting on you fingers, just turn up your nose and say, "I'm a dactylonomist, actually. It's very difficult to be a good one."