Lists: ver. 2010

It’s a universally acknowledged fact that if you are traveling through time, year end lists are your friend. They allow you to discover what year it is, as well as what happened in the previous 12 months, without attracting attention to yourself by asking such strange questions as ‘What year is it?’ or ‘Could you sum up the last year for me, in a nice top 10 list of soundbites or video clips?’, which is by far a newbie time traveler mistake.

Perhaps the most telling, if you read deep enough, are end of the year word lists. Not only do they tell us what was on our collective consciousness, they give insight into the happenings of the previous year.

For the past 35 years, Lake Superior State University released a list on New Year’s Day of the list of words they would like to ban for the coming year. The biggest source of publicity for LSSU, each year’s list is submitted by the public. In an effort to stay positive, i won’t get into the nitty-gritty of the list. Suffice it to say, they agree with me about refudiate, as well NPR’s Simon Scott concerning the phrase ’i’m just saying’. Check out the list for yourself, if you’d like: http://www.lssu.edu/banished/current.php

More interesting to me is the list compiled by the American Dialect Society. Their list is much more positive. For your enjoyment, the winners (with commentary).

Word of the Year
APP: I find it a bit amusing that the winner won’t be found in any dictionary apps on your smart phone.

Most Useful
NOM: Did you know it was based on the noise Cookie Monster makes when he destroys his food?

Most Creative
PREHAB: It’s descriptive of going into rehab to prevent a relapse. I like the second place better; the suffix -sauce, like in ‘lamesauce.’

Most Unnecessary
REFUDIATE: Did anyone like this word?

Most Outrageous
GATE RAPE: The TSA didn’t make many friends this year. They had another entry on this list under Most Euphemistic: enhanced pat-down.

Most Euphemistic
KINETIC EVENT: Who in the military thought calling a violent attack a ‘kinetic event’ would make it sound better? Also, ‘bed intruder’ had an entry in the last two categories. Google ‘Antoine Dodson’ if you have no idea what that’s talking about.

Most Likely To Succeed
TREND: Twitter is going mainstream, it seems. At least, accord to the ADS.

Least Likely To Succeed
CULTUROMICS: Try saying it. It’s awkward on the tongue. It’s supposed to describe a historical analysis of culture and language by Google. All it does it make my mouth hurt.

Fan Words
GLEEK: We can thank Dead Heads (fans of the Grateful Dead) for starting this trend of nicknaming the fans based on the source of the fandom.

So if you do happen to stumble through time and come across this list, recently published, remember the year it came from and you will reserve those crackpot looks for another time.

Christmastime is here...

I recognize i tend to go off on miniature rants, or at least take more of a negative spin on language as i find it addressed in life around me. In light of the season (as well as taking into account my thoughts my thoughts on a typographic video of Stephen Fry), i thought it would be nice to elucidate and illuminate the meanings of words we toss around willy-nilly at the end of the year, often without knowing what in angels we heard on high we are talking about.

Advent: It comes from the Middle English, from the Latin word adventus which means 'arrival;' it's used to mark the arrival of Jesus as a baby. Quite appropriately, it's also used in some circles to talk about his return. Seems Jesus is all about the advent.

Myrrh: Most of us don't even know how to spell this one, let alone what it is. (I had to use google's autocorrect to get the proper spelling.) It's an aromatic resin that comes from trees found in eastern Africa and Arabia (the around called the Horn of Africa). The Egyptians used it on their mummies, but most everyone else considered it a medicine, equal to its weight in gold.

Frankincense: Like myrrh, frankincense is a resin from a tree, also from the Horn of Africa. It is used as an incense, hence its name, and because the smell is said to represent life, it's often used to anoint newborns or individuals entering a new spiritual phase of life.

Yule: Comes from the Old Norse 'jōl', a pagan midwinter festival. Still called 'Jul' by Scandinavians today.

Christmas: The origin of the word is in Old English, that language that predates the English as we know it. Christmas, or Cristes mæsse, literally means 'Christ's Mass.' There is probably not a singular source for the cause of celebration on December 25. There were a plethora of winter feasts during the winter months: Roman Saturnalia, Scandinavian Yule, Germanic feasts and celebrations. Most pointed was a later Roman festival which took place on the specific date we now take to be Christmas Day. It was a celebration called Dies Natalis Solis Invicti and it centered around 'the birthday of the unconquered sun,' or as we call it, the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year. The way the Romans they saw things, Sol invictus, the 'unconquered sun,' would be born anew and take back the heavens, slowly reclaiming winter's kingdom. Some early scholars link the festivals with the birth of Jesus, calling him the 'unconquered' one.

Nativity: It means, at its simplest, 'the process of being born.' So this isn't really a holiday word, except when we add 'the' to the beginning of it. My own nativity was in September, and my roommate's was in June. There might not be Christmas in July, but nativity in July, very possible.

Noel: This is the French word for Christmas. It comes from the Latin natalis, meaning 'birth.' When it's not capitalized, it also refers to a Christmas carol. Not sure how that fits in with 'birth.'

Grinch: Invented by Dr. Seuss specifically for his beloved Christmas story, 'How the Grinch Stole Christmas,' it refers to someone who's a killjoy. BONUS: Seuss also invented the word 'nerd' for his story 'If I Ran the Zoo.'

Merry Yule, and happy New Year to all.

In case this wasn't enough on language, a recent poll described 'whatever' as the most irritating word. Discuss.

I Refudiate the Use of This Word

A couple weeks back, the New Oxford American Dictionary released their words for 2010. Various dictionaries, worldwide, release words every year that came to prominence. The fact a word makes it on the list means nothing in regard to usefulness, longevity, newness or even correctness. The criterion that most matters, in the words of NOAD's Ammon Shea, is whether a word 'has attracted a great deal of new interest' that calendar year.

The word NOAD picked as this year's top word was 'refudiate.'

Thank you, Sarah Palin.

It started when she used it on a cable news show, asking Michelle Obama to 'refudiate' that the Tea Party movement is racist. That same weekend, she tweeted the following:

'Ground Zero Mosque supporters: doesn't it stab you in the heart, as it does ours throughout the heartland? Peaceful Muslims, pls refudiate.'

I've already touched on the use of the moniker 'Ground Zero mosque' in another post, so i don't feel the need to say anything more on that subject.

She didn't initially mean to use the word. Her original tweet was taken down and replaced with

'Peaceful New Yorkers, pls refute the Ground Zero mosque plan if you believe catastrophic pain caused @ Twin Towers site is too raw, too real.'

*emphasis mine

. She originally acknowledged that her use was wrong. Then, as politicians tend to do, she stood her ground that English is alive and ever-changing.

' "Refudiate," "misunderestimate," "wee-wee'd up." English is a living language. Shakespeare liked to coin new words too. Got to celebrate it!'

I agree. English is alive, fluid and changing, and nothing can stop that. It's a natural evolution to any language that is only prevented once the language dies, as it has with Latin.

She also grouped herself with Shakespeare, the originator of over 1,000 new words to the English language. Not to belittle Sarah Palin any, but the words he coined--the likes of 'eyeball', 'apostrophe,' and 'obscene'--he truly invented, purposefully. Palin did not.

Refudiate is by no means a new word. The New Oxford American Dictionary blog lists the first recorded use in a Texas newspaper in the late 1800s. It is also mentioned in a headline in the 1920s, and, more recently, by a senator in 2006. What brings Palin's use to prominence in both her personality, as well as her continued insistence upon using the word.

I take issue with her use of both the 'living language' argument as well as the 'Shakespeare: word maker' argument. If she had intended to use 'refudiate' from the beginning, that pairing would make sense. However, she did not.

Given that her impact on American society has been so prevalent, regardless that she's only been in the spotlight for 3 years, it amazes me she can have such an impact, even accidentally, as to make a misspoken word a national news story.

Correct me if i'm wrong...

The video above us here is of Stephen Fry reading a piece he wrote, which was then typographically animated by Matt Rogers. (You may remember Fry from my post Nouns and Verbs back in July.)

There are two things that immediately come to mind when i'm watching this. The first is wondering if Stephen Fry was the voice of the Guide in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. (He was.) The second is how much i both agree and disagree with his thoughts on language.

He talks of those he calls pedants acting more like dictatorial school masters than lovers of language. I agree that those of us who know the rules need not run around like we have the blessing of Lynn Truss (who's books i thoroughly enjoy), Sharpie in hand correcting the obvious-to-us mistakes of billboards, advertisements, highway signs and store-front windows. (I'm not talking about this guy specifically, but he did come to mind.) More can be done to promote proper use of language through illustration than correction.

Even where i disagree, it's only because i don't agree fully with his assertion that these pedants who fight for the clarity of language don't give a hoot about clarity at all. It's true that the sign reading '10 items or less' is just as clear as the grammatically correct '10 items or fewer.' Yet we are surrounded by many who's daily lives are inundated with the use and manipulation of language, yet even they are often failing to illustrate accurate meaning through their words.

I'm talking of course about those who work in the fast-declined newspaper business. I would dare to say, as a group they are more often responsible for the lack of clarity in language than those in any other profession, and their jobs are directly tied to the handling of language! I realize there are many constraints, from editors to time to space. Yet so very often, we still read headlines like 'Briton killed by drone tied to Times Square bomber.' What they meant to say was 'linked,' not 'tied.' Sometimes it's not clarity they lack, but specificity. 'The nuclear submarine USS Seawolf surfaced after spending 60 days submerged in water' is clear enough, but with a specific body of water listed, the sentence becomes far less silly.

On one hand, Fry states that using language well is more beneficial than correcting those who don't, yet those who use language most aren't always using it well themselves. I think where Fry finds himself frustrated is the way in which correction often happens. Most often we are corrected with the air of self-righteous indignation that language herself has been abused, when, in fact, it's mostly mistakenly misused. Very rarely is language actually abused and where it is, we should stand up with indignation (leaving the self-righteousness at home locked in the basement where it belongs). But when mistakes occur, as they so often do, correction should be done with care and gentleness, then we won't need to hide behind any sort of mask of clarity.

Edit: Finally got the video above to fit into the page parameters.

Prepositions

There has been a lot of discussion recently concerning a certain building in a certain location. Some call it the 'mosque at Ground Zero,' others use the more simple moniker 'Ground Zero mosque,' and still others say it is the 'Cordoba House on Park Place.'

The building in question is slated to be a cultural center, complete with a prayer room for Muslims in need of a place to pray one of the 5 times a day they are required. Being located in the heart of New York City is not why this building is being discussed ad nauseum on cable news and the internet. It's the exact location that caused the debate. The Cordoba House is being constructed two blocks from the former site of the World Trade Center, now known as Ground Zero, which is itself under construction to build a monument to the victims of the September 11 attacks.

Much of the debate centers around the location of this building. Many of the framers of the debate label the Cordoba House as a mosque being build at Ground Zero. Without placing myself on the political spectrum, i want to illustrate the problems with this label.

Firstly, there is simple matter of the preposition. Prepositions are small, but powerful, words we use to describe an object's placement in a three dimensional world. (Even in four dimensions: with the use of words like 'after' and 'before' we place the object in time.) It might only be a two letter word such as 'in' or 'by' or 'at,' yet it helps us to orient our world.

A baseball coach asking his player to 'throw the ball to first base' would be rightfully upset if the player's definition of the word 'to' was more akin to 'near'. Traveling to Grandma's house, we must go 'over the river' and 'through the woods,' because any other way leads us not to Grandma's house, but to getting lost, or in the case of 'into the river,' drowned.

Saying the Cordoba House is 'at' Ground Zero places it within spitting distance of the soon to be constructed Freedom Tower. In reality, it's two blocks away. The correct preposition is 'near' or 'by' or even the hybrid, 'nearby.' It may seem like semantics, but when location is the reason behind the debate, it's interesting to note how often people against the center are using the wrong preposition.

Not only is the preposition wrong, but they tend to call it a mosque. This is where English shortchanges the Arabic. Muslims have two words for mosque, one for the place where daily prayers are held and another for the location where not only daily prayers are held, but also Friday sermons are preached. The Cordoba center will only be the former, not the latter.

This is a notable distinction. Devout Muslims pray five times every day, preferably in groups. To do so, they need a reliable place to gather to pray, privately. To call such a place a mosque is accurate, but misleading. The term 'cultural center' better describes the mission of the Cordoba Center. The word 'mosque' paints a picture which include minarets, Friday services, teachings on the Qur'an, and calls to prayer. None of those things will be present.

Whether or not it's cold-hearted to set up the building in the coming shadow of the Freedom Tower, the framers of the debate have twisted the facts into minor inaccuracies which in turn color the discussion an entirely different color. An inaccurate use of language can be just as powerful rhetoric as any.

Nouns and Verbs

This week i found out about a five-part series on language, titled Planet Word. That it will air on BBC2--meaning without cable or satellite i'm unable to watch it--doesn't considerably quell my excitement.

The creator of the series, Stephen Fry, is nationally renowned (in Britain) as the quizmaster of QI and was voted the most intelligent man in 2006 by the readers of RT.

In a recent interview, he said something intriguing, yet profound. 'We are not nouns, we are verbs,' said Fry. 'I am not a thing – an actor, a writer – I am a person who does things – I write, I act – and I never know what I am going to do next. I think you can be imprisoned if you think of yourself as a noun.'

How often do we think of ourselves as nouns? We use nouns to describe ourselves relationally as brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, co-workers, friends, classmates, roommates and neighbors. We use nouns to talk about our vocations: fire fighter, chef, salesman, street vender, exterminator, construction worker. Even some of our accomplishments are listed as nouns. We talk about being high school or college graduates, environmental advocates, philanthropists, investors, artists and gardeners.

When we use nouns to describe ourselves, we are using inactive words to describe active people.

We may be brothers, daughters, neighbors and classmates, but if we don't act as a brother, daughter, neighbor or classmate, we aren't truly fulfilling the meaning of the word.

Additionally, our jobs should not define us as inactive nouns. A job is active and moving, even if it takes place at a desk in a cubicle.

Especially when we talk about our accomplishments, what we say should be full of the life and activity only verbs can give language. There is subtle difference between a 'graduate' and one who 'graduated,' but that subtlety is crucial. Like the man who exercises every day, the difference fails to manifest immediately. Gradually, a new picture is painted of a man who is healthier, more fit, and more energized.

Our lives are not defined by what we are, but what we do. Our language and the words we use to describe ourselves should reflect as much.

Acronyms

It's been said many times before that the world continues to become busier and move faster. It's our own doing, really. We push to expand our profits, our margins, our customer base; we drive fast cars to fast food in fast forward lives. Our company names reflect that.

Recently, the world-renowned YMCA (and it's sister, the YWCA) changed their corporate name. What was once four letters drops to one, the Y. It seems the impetus behind the name change came from the people who belonged to the organization.

The New York Times quotes Kate Coleman, senior vice president and chief marketing officer, as saying it was how they decided to become 'warmer, more genuine, more welcoming' by calling themselves what everyone else calls them.

(It wasn't a complete change over. The individual clubs will retain the full acronym.)

What does it mean when an organization changes their official name to their nickname? There must be some need for companies and organizations to sound more friendly through nicknames, it's becoming a wicked habit.

Proctor & Gamble keeps their full name, but in all the marketing, they dropped down to P&G.

British Petroleum, after acquiring a few other oil companies, dropped everything but the letters, BP.

Kentucky Fried Chicken is legally KFC, but uses both in promotions. Might have something to do with the rumor they changed their name due to a lack in chicken in their food.

General Electric, like Proct....P&G, keeps their full name for official business, but gets buddy buddy with the consumer through the initials GE.

AT&T, NPR, and countless others use their initials for marketing purposes, or officially changed their names to only letters. Some, like IBM, used their initials from the beginning, leaving consumers in the dark to their meaning all along. (For the record, IBM stands for Industrial Business Machines.)

I'm frustrated by a nation that feels the need to officially shrink the names of businesses in order to reach out to customers. It's one thing to accept and embrace a nickname; it's entirely different to take that moniker as your official title.

Shortening the names that once stood for something is taking out the meat between the bones. All that's left is a skeletal structure of a name. I might as well change my name to mb and be done with it.