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Behind the DictionaryLexicographers Talk About Language
Nobody Likes a Whistleblower (or a Wrayer, Quadruplator, or Emphanist)
A law firm that specializes in defending whistleblowers has started a petition on Change.org to persuade dictionaries and thesauruses to ditch their derogatory synonyms for whistleblower in favor of positive terms.
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Meryl Davis and Charlie White made history this week as the first Americans ever to win the Olympic gold medal in ice dancing. But for language watchers, an even more interesting question than who would take first place was this: What's a twizzle?
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Behind the DictionaryLexicographers Talk About Language
Snownados in Hothlanta: The World of Weather Blends
In just about every city, people repeat variations of the saying, "If you don't like the weather, wait an hour." And for good reason. Weather is an ever-changing — and, on our stressed-out globe — increasingly extreme phenomenon. Weather never stops: it just keeps shifting and mutating into something else. That sounds like another natural phenomenon I know: language.
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Blog Excerpts
Remembering the "Gear" Language of The Beatles
When the Beatles invaded America 50 years ago, it wasn't just their music and hairstyle that struck Americans as novel, but their Liverpudlian language as well. In his latest column for the Wall Street Journal, Ben Zimmer looks at how words like "gear" and "fab" emerged out of the Liverpool dialect known as Scouse. Read the column here.
Blog Excerpts
Dog Blends, from Wienerhuahuas to Peekapoos
One of the commercials run during the Super Bowl this year was one from Audi featuring an imagined "Doberhuahua," a cross between a Doberman and a Chihuahua. But as VT contributor Mark Peters explained on OUPblog, real-life canine hybrids often have blended names that are just as fanciful, whether it's "wienerhuahua" or "peekapoo." Read Mark's blog post here.
Word RoutesExploring the pathways of our lexicon
"The Twelfth Man": A Football Phrase with Disputed Roots
After the Seattle Seahawks shellacked the Denver Broncos in the Super Bowl last night, the Seahawks players, coaches, and owners all made sure to thank "the twelfth man," as the team's boisterous fans have come to be collectively known. But the Seahawks only have the right to use that phrase because of a licensing agreement worked out with Texas A&M University, the trademark holders. Texas A&M claims the expression goes back to a legendary 1922 game, but its true history is far more complex.
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The great folk-music pioneer Pete Seeger died on Monday at the age of 94. He's best known for such classics as "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?," "If I Had a Hammer," and "Turn, Turn, Turn!" But we're particularly fond of a song that he performed about the irrationality of the English language, "English is Cuh-Ray-Zee."
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