not only are they’re stupid people, they’re stupid words (i.e., “natch”)
Posted on August 1, 2007 - Filed Under Language, Perception | Leave a Comment
Common ways words advertise your stupidity.
Read More..>>where was i again?
Posted on July 19, 2007 - Filed Under Books, Language, Music, Now Reading, Personal Victories, Religion | Leave a Comment
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 [...]
Read More..>>OTT…NOT / Power Rankings: Hated Cross Words
Posted on July 9, 2007 - Filed Under Language, Power Rankings, Statistics | Leave a Comment
“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 [...]
Read More..>>y’all – “it’s science”
Posted on June 29, 2007 - Filed Under Language, Music, Turf Wars | Leave a Comment
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 [...]
Read More..>>grammar podcast
Posted on June 27, 2007 - Filed Under Language | Leave a Comment
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.
Read More..>>“plagiarize” likely a given
Posted on June 5, 2007 - Filed Under Kids These Days, Language | Leave a Comment
100 words every high school graduate should know. I’ll come back later and quantify my lexical deficiencies.
Read More..>>I will DARE
Posted on May 18, 2007 - Filed Under Books, Language, Turf Wars | Leave a Comment
44 Years in the making, the final volume of DARE (Dictionary of American Regional English) will soon* be upon us, Andy Erdman reports in the Wisconsin State Journal: For example, DARE explains that the children’s game most Wisconsinites call “duck, duck, goose” is called “duck, duck, gray duck” in Minnesota and “duck, duck, drake” in [...]
Read More..>>confusing laws
Posted on May 9, 2007 - Filed Under Crime, Language | Leave a Comment
I’m no lawyer but…how can one simultaneously be guilty of “malice murder” and “involuntary manslaughter”. As in: “I didn’t mean to hurt them, but the murder was malicious” PS: what’s the deal with grape nuts?
Read More..>>so fucking not funny
Posted on April 16, 2007 - Filed Under Language, Television | Leave a Comment
Maybe I’m too dense, for I now see that the “sofa king” sketch from last weekend’s SNL is, in fact, funny because “Sofa King” sounds like “So Fucking”. Sweet. Then again, it’s proven and fact that I never tire of Uranus jokes. So there’s that.
Read More..>>student paper covers racial issues, school system panics
Posted on April 13, 2007 - Filed Under Kids These Days, Language, Liberal Media Conspiracies, Perception, Race, Statistics | Leave a Comment
Ahhh…the crucible that is high school journalism. Benson (Omaha) High School’s student newspaper ran an apparently thoughtful and well-received issue about the so-called n-word (that would be ‘nigger’ for those scoring at home). OPS assures the community that “Appropriate action will ensue upon the completion of the investigation.” Uh, okay. Other fun facts from the [...]
Read More..>>good vs. potential evil
Posted on March 15, 2007 - Filed Under Language | Leave a Comment
Reading Tim O’Reilly’s response to [Lauren Weinstein's response to Google's privacy policy change], he mentions that, “balancing the good vs. potential evils is essential” (emphasis mine). I assume by not qualifying good with potential, possible, or the like he means only demonstrable good. (which would be significantly lower than potential good) and rating that against [...]
Read More..>>Merrier than Merrier
Posted on December 23, 2006 - Filed Under Language, Photographs | Leave a Comment
I’m heading back to the Big-O for a week of holiday fun with the family. My gift to you, Internet, is this photo from my neighborhood which never ceases to delight me with it’s grammatical, punctual & spelling kung fu.
Read More..>>There’s telemarketing going down in the middle-west
Posted on November 29, 2006 - Filed Under Language, Turf Wars | Leave a Comment
From Jeff… and what’s with quizzes giving, GIVING us crappy HTML? What American accent do you have? Your Result: The Midland “You have a Midland accent” is just another way of saying “you don’t have an accent.” You probably are from the Midland (Pennsylvania, southern Ohio, southern Indiana, southern Illinois, and Missouri) but then for [...]
Read More..>>Table Scraps
Posted on November 27, 2006 - Filed Under Books, Language, Music | Leave a Comment
Kevin Smith posts his never-published iTunes playlist, as loquacious as you’d expect. – Spurred by Thomas Pynchon (and Mark Twain), the folks at Language Log ask for your favorite prescriptivism in literature. – Gwenda leads the way to an NYT piece by Jonathan Safran Foer about the relationship he shares with his dog. Which is [...]
Read More..>>I’m In Love With The Living And The Dead
Posted on November 16, 2006 - Filed Under Books, Crime, Death, Language, Movies, Sex | Leave a Comment
Dave Eggers next book: How We Have Very Low Food Security? George Bush’s next book: How I Might Have Killed Thousands of Iraqis? The new Bond, Daniel Craig … a British Steve McQueen? The Tom Green / Bill Clinton defense? Prosecution of a case involving alleged sexual contact with a dead deer may hinge on [...]
Read More..>>Damn Yankees
Posted on November 5, 2006 - Filed Under Language, Sports | Leave a Comment
Favorite use of baseball characters in an analogy this week (so far): “to call Lakoff a Chomsky disciple is like calling Dave Winfield a disciple of George Steinbrenner.”
Read More..>>How do you say “Greasy”? … and MORE!!!
Posted on October 26, 2006 - Filed Under Food, Language, Perception, Television | 2 Comments
One of the spoils of married life is a re-acquisition of Cable Television — something I’d gone a few years without. Couple that with Tivo and I have a nice stash of shows for rainy days. To get to the point, lately I have been watching a lot of one of my favorite shows, Good [...]
Read More..>>Monday, Monday
Posted on October 16, 2006 - Filed Under Drinking, Language, Music, Turf Wars | Leave a Comment
Miami football game breaks out at Houston Two Gallants concert. – Johansson sings Waits, which is all well and good, but I would have gone for Johansson sings Nilsson sings Newman … I’m just sayin’. {via} – New Yorkers have no sack. – I’ll be seeing Cursive in a few days. Here’s a review of [...]
Read More..>>Yahoo! No Google?
Posted on September 5, 2006 - Filed Under Language, Robot Brains, Turf Wars | Leave a Comment
I rarely spell-check, but found myself using the embedded spell-checker in Yahoo’s web email. Curiously (or not), Yahoo! did not recognize “Google”, instead thinking I meant “Go ogle”. Luckily, Yahoo was able to recognize itself as a word (even though Merriam-Webster does not, at least as a web company — “a boorish, crass, or stupid [...]
Read More..>>Super-Duper Really
Posted on August 29, 2006 - Filed Under Language, Music | Leave a Comment
Too $hort: “When I make a song, I actually literally talk to one person on purpose…”
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