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November 20, 2019 @ 5:39 pm
· Filed under Psychology of language, Words words words
The latest episode of the new podcast Subtitle is about "Words we love to hate". Full disclosure: Kavita Pillay interviewed me for the program, and so you can hear my voice from time to time. More later — I'm off to Washington DC for a workshop on "Digital Cognitive and Functional Biomarkers" organized by the […]
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April 1, 2015 @ 4:45 pm
· Filed under Prescriptivist poppycock, Usage advice
Oxford University Press has published the fourth edition of Fowler's Dictionary of Modern English Usage. The name "Fowler" has been retained as a source of prestige, but this is really the work of editor Jeremy Butterfield (as the third edition was the work of Robert Burchfield). Butterfield has already been getting some press attention for […]
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January 28, 2011 @ 11:00 am
· Filed under Peeving
In a recent post at Jezebel, Sadie Stein documents the usage of literally as in intensifier, and the often-intense negative reaction, both to the word-sense itself and to its sometimes-spectacularly-frequent deployment ("Saying 'Literally' All The Time Is Literally An Issue").
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July 17, 2010 @ 11:31 am
· Filed under Peeving
By Mitchell and Webb: [Hat tip to Steve Fitzpatrick]
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July 12, 2009 @ 11:28 am
· Filed under Language and culture
A few days ago, Michelle Pauli in the Guardian's Books Blog asked "Which words make you wince?": 'What word do you hate and why?' is the intriguing question put to a selection of poets by the Ledbury festival. Philip Wells's reply is the winner for me – 'pulchritude' is certainly up there on my blacklist. […]
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May 2, 2009 @ 9:40 am
· Filed under Humor, Peeving
In previous postings on word rage, we've noted (mock) threats of punching, slicing, bludgeoning, shooting, hanging, and lightning strikes. Commenting on Ron Charles, "1 Millions Words! But Who's Counting?", Washington Post, 4/29/2009, someone identifying himself as andrewsalomon added judicially-sanctioned electrocution: I don't know anything about the million-word business, but is there any chance of getting […]
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September 22, 2024 @ 1:48 pm
· Filed under Borrowing, Creoles and pidgins, Intonation, Slang, Spelling
I was in a Salt Lake City shop called Caputo's that bills itself as a Market and Deli, Purveyors of Regional Italian and Southern European Foods. It reminds me somewhat of the great Di Bruno Bros. in Philly, but more on the "paisan"* side (sort of like the South Asian word "desi" as used in […]
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November 2, 2019 @ 8:29 am
· Filed under Psychology of language
Below is a guest post from Kavita Pillay, co-host of the new Subtitle podcast. Do you hate a seemingly normal word for reasons that you can't quite pinpoint? Or, are there words that you love to say out loud? If so, the Subtitle podcast (more on us below) wants to hear from you! On Nov. […]
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November 2, 2016 @ 11:33 am
· Filed under Borrowing, Language and food, Translatese, Translation
Helen Wang writes: I have a question – what's the etymology of the English word "mouthfeel"? In the last few weeks in the UK I have heard the word "mouthfeel" several times, spoken very naturally as though it's an established English word. I was surprised because I remember kǒugǎn 口感 (lit. "mouth-feel") as being "untranslatable" […]
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August 26, 2016 @ 10:12 am
· Filed under Peeving
Alison Flood, "Oxford Dictionaries halts search for most disliked word after 'severe misuse'", The Guardian 8/26/2016 The #OneWordMap, an online survey soliciting readers’ least favourite words, is abandoned after site is flooded with offensive choices It was intended to be a lighthearted quest to find the least popular word in the English language, but only […]
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September 7, 2015 @ 9:33 am
· Filed under Errors, Language and technology
Making the rounds on Twitter is this discovery by @KingRossco, from the UK Kindle edition of The Great Leader and the Fighter Pilot by Blaine Harden:
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August 7, 2013 @ 6:27 am
· Filed under Peeving, Words words words
Anne Curzan, "What to do about 'impactful'?", Chronicle of Higher Education, 7/19/2013: If I were asked to rate new words on a scale from 1-10 based on their aesthetic appeal (note: words’ aesthetic appeal in my opinion—this scale cannot possibly be objective), with 10 being the most appealing and 1 being the least, I would […]
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June 6, 2013 @ 5:26 am
· Filed under Linguistics in the comics
From Head Trip for 7/6/2006, someone who feels strongly about spelling:
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