Owlish Shrubbery

Posted on August 12, 2008 - Filed Under

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I like it when writers go after other writers, and you can hardly blame Alex Von Tunzelmann here:
These weak chapters show up the worst of Meyer and Brysac’s writing style, which is sometimes pretentious to the point of incomprehensibility and becomes more so when they seem to lack interest in their subject matter. The thesaurus [...]

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new words

Posted on March 25, 2008 - Filed Under

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As a Royals fan, you (should) have a low bar, taking little victories wherever available. Why not use the 2008 Royals as a lexical learning device?
Or if you hear that Royals manager Trey Hillman KIND of wants to have Ross Gload hit in the No. 3 spot, you hope that’s a velleity.

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Word Nerds

Posted on February 7, 2008 - Filed Under

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May be interested in this article in the January 31, 2008 issue of New Scientist.
Another amateur site that the pros turn to is the Wordlustitude blog, written by Mark Peters (see “How Wordlustitude feeds my obsession”). He has tracked the use of infixes - words inserted into the middle of other words. Some of the [...]

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pelf abounds

Posted on January 24, 2008 - Filed Under

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For all y’all conspiracy theorists out there:
12/22/2007: This is the day of my gym locker code (12-22-07).
12/27/2007: PELF = WSJ Law Blog word of the day
12/28/2007: I attend a Mayday concert where the song Pelf Help is performed.
1/10/2008: I forget my lock at the gym.

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then there were three

Posted on November 9, 2007 - Filed Under

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1. Texarkana
2. Michiana
3. Kerouaciana

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New “Favorite” blog

Posted on October 22, 2007 - Filed Under

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http://quotation-marks.blogspot.com/

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how you say? …. ah yes

Posted on October 4, 2007 - Filed Under

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I think the word the AP is struggling for is “penis”
One acrylic-on-canvas work titled “Tulip Butts” shows the red imprint of a backside representing the open petals of a tulip with an imprint between them from an adjacent body part that represents a flower’s stamen.

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words on the march

Posted on October 2, 2007 - Filed Under

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“WBAI program director Bernard White fears that the FCC will fine the station $325,000 for every one of Ginsberg’s dirty-word bombs. If each Pacifica station that aired the poem - and possibly repeated it - were to be fined for airing “Howl,” it could mean millions of dollars in fines.”
Anywho…it will be posted on http://www.pacifica.org/.
And [...]

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What are we talking bout?

Posted on September 14, 2007 - Filed Under

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Frank Zappa’s talking about words.

via (wordie:errata)
cue the obligatory Allen Iverson.

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i am i remix

Posted on September 10, 2007 - Filed Under

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At apophenia “pointer remixing“:
We craft our identity through pointing all the time. Language is mostly about pointers (”signs”). The list of favorite TV shows, movies, and music on social network sites are a linguistic pointer to these cultural referents. Yet, in a multimedia world, instead of having to just reference them by name, I can [...]

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Merv Griffin’s Crosswords?

Posted on September 9, 2007 - Filed Under

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Apparently the target demographic for Merv Griffin’s Crosswords is the same as Sunday Night Football viewers. Who knew? This is the first I’d heard of it and just set up a Tivo season pass for the new game show (premiering tomorrow). I don’t have very high expectations for this show. just. doesn’t. feel. right.
But I’ll [...]

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21 MC’s ate up at the same time

Posted on August 10, 2007 - Filed Under

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At Lit Kicks, Levi has an interview with Brian Coleman, the author of Rakim Told Me and Check the Technique. The two titles ignited a suspicion that we would have similar tastes emcee-wise. This suspicion was soon confirmed as the Levi & Brian discussed MC’s from what I consider the golden-era of hip-hop — a [...]

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words

Posted on August 7, 2007 - Filed Under

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in the semi-recent past, it seems to me these words enjoyed a brief spike in usage, only to be used not-so-much nowadays.

gobsmacked
de rigueur
detritus
nonplussed

In other news, I continue to subscribe to google news alerts for the words “sincerity” and “authenticity” and it still seems that most hits come from Asia. Could it be that Asians are [...]

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crayons will never die

Posted on August 2, 2007 - Filed Under

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…just multiply
crayons
via Maud.
bonus points for making me wonder if I say “cray-on” or “cran”. I think something closer to “cran”, but not quite.

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not only are they’re stupid people, they’re stupid words (i.e., “natch”)

Posted on August 1, 2007 - Filed Under

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Common ways words advertise your stupidity.

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where was i again?

Posted on July 19, 2007 - Filed Under

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In the last couple of years, I’ve started a few books that I was thoroughly enjoying but for various reasons1 I did not finish. Of these, there are 3 that I am going to try and finish. In sequence of the amount I was enjoying them when last put down:

The Recognitions
Underworld
Infinite Jest

I am pretty sure [...]

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OTT…NOT / Power Rankings: Hated Cross Words

Posted on July 9, 2007 - Filed Under

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“OTT”, “ALAI” not NY Times top 300 crossword answers.

So while we’re at it, I’ll throw in my top 5 most hated crosswords (as of right now):

ETE
ERNE
OLLA
ERLE 1
ERAT

Though to be honest, I can’t get terribly worked up over 4-letter crosswords … I guess familiarity breeds contempt after all.
1Not sure why, some of my happiest afternoons were [...]

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y’all - “it’s science”

Posted on June 29, 2007 - Filed Under

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Grammar Girl, in a discussion of speech regionalisms, etc…
And, here’s an aside about y’all. Most sources agree that y’all should only be used to address groups (8, 9), and Southerners say that Northerners give themselves away as Yankees when they use y’all to address one person (8). In addition, I’m not absolutely certain about this, [...]

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grammar podcast

Posted on June 27, 2007 - Filed Under

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I just ran across the podcast blog Grammar Girl. Looking for concise, fully transcribed podcasts covering language & grammar? Look no further. Now the question remains, did I come across this blog on accident or by accident?
Answer next week.

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“plagiarize” likely a given

Posted on June 5, 2007 - Filed Under

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100 words every high school graduate should know. I’ll come back later and quantify my lexical deficiencies.

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keep looking »