We left off last month on the horns of the dictionary publishers' dilemma: how do you keep a flagship title in print when it costs far more to produce it than it will ever generate in sales? We noted the lure of electronic licensing rights as a factor that might influence the way dictionaries are put together and marketed in the future; and we heard from a few readers who, not unpredictably, lamented any future in which dictionaries in book form were not available. Continue reading...
I've spent 81.7% of my life watching Seinfeld, but I just realized I never mentioned a Seinfeldian euphemism in one of my columns. Bagel technician, meaning someone who makes bagels, is the preposterous title on Kramer's business card during "The Strike" episode, which is better known for launching the holiday Festivus. Continue reading...
If you've spent time lately in the world of startup brands, as I have, you've almost certainly noticed a conspicuous trend. Maybe the penny dropped as you searched for recipes on Yummly or bought home-delivered meals from Feastly. Perhaps you've skimmed headlines on Reportedly, Collectively, or Newsly. Or you've played games on Scopely, tracked gasoline usage with Fuelly, or researched colleges on Admittedly. Continue reading...
Laughter is always good medicine, and today the Internet has put at our disposal the ability to draw it out through the combination in unexpected ways of two things that pervade modern culture: pictorial representation and vernacular language. Continue reading...
Over the last 35 or so years, journey has become one of our culture's dominant metaphors, a handy stand-in for experience, ordeal, process, test, investigation, story, and series of events.Continue reading...
One of the ways in which massive corpora (databases of natural language examples) have revolutionized lexicography is by providing access to a level of statistical analysis of language that was never before possible. The data in a corpus can tell us, with the effort of a few keystrokes—and backed by the effort of hundreds of person-hours of software development—all we need to know about the most frequent uses and collocations of words. Continue reading...
On the latest episode of the Slate podcast Lexicon Valley, I take a look at a classic Yiddishism: kibitz, which can mean "make unwanted comments (as a spectator at a card game)," or something more general like "chitchat." While it's a word with a rich history, its origins are ultimately mysterious. Continue reading...
With the final Harry Potter movie opening this weekend, many are reflecting on the last legacy of J.K. Rowling's oeuvre. In print and on screen, the Harry Potter franchise has been incredibly successful, and it's only natural that such a mass phenomenon would leave its imprint on popular culture, including the popular lexicon. Rowling's inventive use of language has been a key to conjuring the fantasy world of the Potterverse, and that language has seeped into real-world usage as well. Continue reading...
Lexicographer Hugh Rawson died recently. Among other accomplishments, he wrote Rawson's Dictionary of Euphemisms and Other Doubletalk, a monumental, essential look at euphemisms that every language-lover should own. I can't recommend it enough. Continue reading...
When Oxford Dictionaries announced that its quarterly update would include the word twerk, a term for a particularly racy dance style, the timing was perfect: just two days earlier, Miley Cyrus had created a sensation by "twerking" at MTV's Video Music Awards. The result, writes our own Ben Zimmer, was a "perfect lexicographical storm." Continue reading...