floating on
Posted on January 23, 2009 - Filed Under Crime, Deformities, Language, Movies, Music, Television | Leave a Comment
Screening at Noisepop this year: Seven Signs: Music, Myth and the American South. I think I’m passing on buying the festival badget this year, but I’ll try and check this one out. I’m with Kristina Keyton on this one. Move over William Safire: The Mysterious Origins of “Oh Snap!” “Law & Order officials would neither [...]
Read More..>>last words
Posted on November 22, 2008 - Filed Under Books, Death, Language | Leave a Comment
The OUP Blog brings word of the Oxford Book of Death, with excerpts of notable last words. GIDE (1951): ‘I am afraid my sentences are becoming grammatically incorrect.’
Read More..>>death alert! (language edition)
Posted on November 18, 2008 - Filed Under Death, Language | Leave a Comment
I used skedaddle (in an email at work) just last week! Part of me feels like that guy from the past looking at his photo in the future where he is beginning to disappear.
Read More..>>bad language
Posted on November 9, 2008 - Filed Under Language, Power Rankings | Leave a Comment
Oxford’s 10 most irritating phrases. (BTW, I personally am not absolutely sure how I feel about a single word being counted as a phrase).
Read More..>>Boughten
Posted on November 8, 2008 - Filed Under Language | Leave a Comment
Please read this excellent anecdote at WFMU’s blog surrounding usage of the word “Boughten” (Iowan for “store-bought”). Excerpts would not do it justice.
Read More..>>linguistic
Posted on November 2, 2008 - Filed Under Language, Statistics | Leave a Comment
According to The Internet, I am “linguistically” intelligent. Your result for Howard Gardner’s Eight Types of Intelligence Test… Linguistic 31% Logical, 20% Spatial, 61% Linguistic, 18% Intrapersonal, 8% Interpersonal, 41% Musical, 16% Bodily-Kinesthetic and 39% Naturalistic! “Verbal-linguistic intelligence has to do with words, spoken or written. People with verbal-linguistic intelligence display a facility with words [...]
Read More..>>Owlish Shrubbery
Posted on August 12, 2008 - Filed Under Books, Language, On The Road Again | Leave a Comment
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 [...]
Read More..>>new words
Posted on March 25, 2008 - Filed Under Language, Sports | Leave a Comment
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.
Read More..>>Word Nerds
Posted on February 7, 2008 - Filed Under Language, Movies, Music, Television | Leave a Comment
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 [...]
Read More..>>pelf abounds
Posted on January 24, 2008 - Filed Under Language, Music | Leave a Comment
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.
Read More..>>then there were three
Posted on November 9, 2007 - Filed Under Language, Turf Wars, Writers | Leave a Comment
1. Texarkana 2. Michiana 3. Kerouaciana
Read More..>>New “Favorite” blog
Posted on October 22, 2007 - Filed Under Language, Photographs | Leave a Comment
http://quotation-marks.blogspot.com/
Read More..>>how you say? …. ah yes
Posted on October 4, 2007 - Filed Under Art, Language, Liberal Media Conspiracies | Leave a Comment
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.
Read More..>>words on the march
Posted on October 2, 2007 - Filed Under Language, Liberal Media Conspiracies, Music, Radio | Leave a Comment
“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 [...]
Read More..>>What are we talking bout?
Posted on September 14, 2007 - Filed Under Language, Liberal Media Conspiracies, Politics | 2 Comments
Frank Zappa’s talking about words. via (wordie:errata) cue the obligatory Allen Iverson.
Read More..>>i am i remix
Posted on September 10, 2007 - Filed Under Art, Crime, Language, Stickin' It To The Man, The Man Stickin It To Us | Leave a Comment
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 [...]
Read More..>>Merv Griffin’s Crosswords?
Posted on September 9, 2007 - Filed Under Language, Television | 5 Comments
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 [...]
Read More..>>21 MC’s ate up at the same time
Posted on August 10, 2007 - Filed Under Language, Music, Power Rankings | Leave a Comment
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 [...]
Read More..>>words
Posted on August 7, 2007 - Filed Under Language, Power Rankings | Leave a Comment
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 [...]
Read More..>>crayons will never die
Posted on August 2, 2007 - Filed Under Art, Kids These Days, Language | Leave a Comment
…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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