Libertine: On the Prowl

Vidi, vici, veni -- I saw, I conquered, I came. _______________________________________________________________

Kids and College Students

01:06, 2008-Aug-9 .. Posted in language .. 6 comments .. Link

I frequently hear a radio commercial for the United Negro College Fund. In this commercial, a college student describes her busy course schedule that goes from early morning well into the evening. At the end, she says "thank you", as she is presumably a recipient of funds from this organization. Then an announcer comes on and says, "If a kid is willing to do what it takes to get through college...".

I may be nitpicking, but I don't think of someone who is of legal age engaged in responsible activity as a "kid". If I'd been the writer of this ad, I'd have replaced "kid" with "student".

This is a kid

This is a college student.

See the difference?

A Collection of Neologisms

12:59, 2008-Apr-18 .. Posted in language .. 3 comments .. Link

Not too long ago, I found an interesting site, Word Spy, that is a collection of neologisms coined in the last 20 years or so. Following is a list of some of these words, complete with definitions.

corporate anorexia
n. A business disorder, marked by an extreme fear of becoming inefficient that leads to excessive cost-cutting to the point of serious loss of business and sometimes bankruptcy.

bozo explosion
n. The large number of inept employees that a company ends up with when it hires an incompetent executive, who in turn hires incompetent managers, who then hire incompetent workers.

clue stick
n. A metaphorical stick used to "hit" a person in an effort to remedy that person's ignorance or incompetence. In the same vein:

"The Top 10 things to say to the terminally clueless:

10. Step into the rain and let a few clue drops hit you.
9. Go to a restaurant and order something off the clue menu.
8. Open up a book and read a clue chapter.
7. Step on the elevator and get off at the clue floor.
6. Pick up the clue phone.
5. Buy a ticket on the clue train.
4. Hit the road and go to the clue outlet mall.
3. Take a dip in the clue end of the pool.
2. Make like a detective and find a clue.
1. Take a hike in the clue forest."
—"Send a movie executive to clue camp," The Orlando Sentinel, October 21, 1994

ignoranus
n. A person who is both stupid and extremely rude or obnoxious.

floordrobe
n. A pile of discarded clothes on the floor of a person's room. [Blend of floor and wardrobe.]

earworm
n. A song or tune that repeats over and over inside a person's head. Also: ear-worm, ear worm.

videophilia
n. A sedentary lifestyle focused on screen-based activities, particularly television, the Internet, and video games.

Frankenfood
n. Food derived from genetically modified (GM) plants and animals.

completist
noun. A person who obsessively gathers the complete collection of a particular set of items (such as a musician's recordings or an author's books).

Frankenstein veto
n. A veto in which the words in a bill are deleted or rearranged to form a new bill with an entirely different meaning.

buzzword bingo
n. A word game played during corporate meetings. Players are issued bingo-like cards with lists of buzzwords such as paradigm and proactive. Players check off these words as they come up in the meeting, and the first to fill in a "line" of words is the winner.

toilet-side
adj. Relating to something positioned beside or within reach of a toilet.

trustafarian
n. A jobless person who has access to money — especially a trust fund income — and who affects a laid back, bohemian lifestyle.
—adj. Relating to such a lifestyle.

splog
n. 1. A fake blog containing links to sites affiliated with the blogger with the intent of boosting the search engine rankings and ad impressions for those sites. 2. Spam links added to the comments section of a blog. [Blend of spam and blog.]
—splogger n

stink lines
n. In an illustration or cartoon, the wavy lines that appear over an object to indicate that it smells bad; the metaphorical stench emanating from something that is extremely bad. Also: stinklines.

barfmail
noun. An e-mail message spewed out in all directions.

barking head
noun. A pundit or commentator who speaks in a loud voice and whose comments tend to be abrasive, aggressive, and partisan

butt bus
n. A bus parked near a pub or restaurant that is used as the establishment's smoking section.

SINK SCUM
acronym. Single, Independent, No Kids: the Self-Centered Urban Male. Used to describe the growing number of heterosexual men who have little or no interest in marriage and children.

--I guess that would be me

inloviduals
noun. Lovers who maintain their independence and individuality. The writers Michael Holroyd and Margaret Drabble, who for the first 15 years of their marriage lived in separate houses, provide the archetype.

--this one fits me pretty well, too.

A Few Language Rants

02:47, 2008-Feb-3 .. Posted in language .. 7 comments .. Link

I haven't done a language rant for awhile, so here are a few language related peeves:

Thinking back the other day, I remembered that one of my first language peeves was people who say "hahhhh?" or "huh?" instead of "what?" or "excuse me?"

It irritated me because I thought how lazy could someone be if they couldn't open their mouths completely to say a real word, instead of a noise that sounded like a pregnant cow with indigestion or like half a laugh.

I remember being a teenager and wanting to slap my idiot sister in law because she did this all the time.

_____________________________

In relation to the post I made the other day about people who use blogging mainly as a way of making money, I've often come across the neologism "monetize".

This one annoyed me immediately as it sounds like it's going to be the next trendy business-speak buzz word in the tradition of such gems as "interface", "solutions", and their ilk.
____________________________

I'm sure every one of you has been asked countless times in your life, "Where do you live?"

What a person actually means by this is "Where do you sleep?", "Where do you keep your belongings", and/or "Where do you get your snail mail?"

They cannot mean it literally because wherever a person happens to be at any given moment is where they live. It's not as if you're dead the moment you step out of that place where you sleep, keep your belongings, and get mail.

When I'm at work, I live in my car. When I want to buy a book,I'm living at the bookstore. And so on.

Banned Words for 2008

11:54, 2008-Jan-1 .. Posted in language .. 13 comments .. Link

Michigan's Lake Superior State University has released its annual "List of Words and Phrases Banished from the Queen's English for Mis-Use, Over-Use and General Uselessness." Following is the 2008 list:

• perfect storm

A cliche plundered from the title of a book, this expression is overused on TV to mean just about any coincidence.

• Webinar

I've not heard this one, but it apparently is a seminar that takes place online.

• waterboarding

I don't know about you, but when I hear this, I think of surfing and water sports, not torture.

• organic

When misused to describe not only food, but computer products or human behavior, and when used to describe something as "natural".

• wordsmith/wordsmithing

A pretentious cliche for "writing"

• author/authored

When used as a verb. We don't say that an artist "paintered" a painting, so we shouldn't say that an author, "authored a new best seller".

• post 9/11

I'm long been against reducing this tragedy to a sound bite. We don't refer to the attack on Pearl Harbor as "12/7", so I don't see why we refer to the terrorist attacks as 9/11.

• surge

When used to refer to a military build-up. Storms surge, not armies

• give back

When used to refer to the more fortunate members of society performing acts of charity. It makes me want to ask, "What did they steal and who are they giving it back to?"

• `blank' is the new `blank'

As in "50 is the new 30". I wish!

• Black Friday

To refer to the day after Thanksgiving as the first shopping day for Christmas.

• back in the day

I have to admit I'm guilty of this one.

• random

Mainly teenage use, as in, "You are so random!" It's used out of context much in the same way teens say "awesome", which was on last year's list.

• sweet

One that I love to hate. Used mainly by teens to mean, "Great!" or "Wonderful" or the ever-ubiquitous, "Awesome".

• decimate

A common exaggeration. "Decimate" means to "reduce by one-tenth", but most who use it mean "nearly completely wiped out".

• emotional

Used in a vague fashion commonly by news reporters, "It was an emotional day when they lost their home in a fire". Instead of referencing actual emotions, such as "distraught", "stunned", and so on, they simply say "emotional" to refer to all emotions.

• pop

I've not heard this one, but it refers mainly to decorators who say such drivel as "the addition of the red really makes it POP." Bleargh.

• It is what it is

A meaningless phrase used to avoid actually answering a question. Heard mainly in sports.

• under the bus

I'm guilty of this one too, as it makes me laugh. But I agree that it's getting worn out.

I made several suggestions of my own for last year's list which you can read on my New Year's Day entry of last year. I've only got one new suggestion for 2008:

• Pony up

Meaning to contribute money, usually after some prodding. As in, "He ponied up 20 bucks to pay his share of the bar tab." This one should be stampeded to death by a herd of wild horses.

Feel free to add words or phrases you love to hate.

I Say....And You Think?

02:50, 2007-Nov-25 .. Posted in language .. 8 comments .. Link

I'm not really in a writing mood today -- it's overcast and all I want to do is go back to bed and sack out for awhile. So I leave you with a few word association memes:

I Say....and You Think?

1. Filthy :: Squalor
2. Therapist :: Shrink
3. Duck :: Head
4. Slant :: Bias
5. Artist :: Painter
6. Lease :: Apartment
7. Wish :: List
8. Doormat :: Unassertive
9. Global :: Warming
10. Apartment :: Noisy neighbors

1. Cluster :: Bomb
2. Announcement :: Bad news
3. Respect :: Is earned
4. Incident :: Happening
5. Accordion :: Cheesy
6. Drunk :: Idiot
7. If :: Maybe
8. Dexter :: Right-handed
9. Wedding :: Sentence
10. Gambling :: Waste

1. Illicit :: Relationship
2. Go :: Home
3. Jacket :: Yellow
4. Blow :: Job
5. Coach :: Football
6. Effort :: Attempt
7. Leadership :: Role
8. Snore :: Zzzzzzzzzzzz
9. Fearless :: Gutless
10. Network :: TV

1. Inaugural :: Speech
2. Pledge :: Of Allegiance
3. String :: Along
4. Trot :: GI trots
5. Fitness :: Suitability
6. Cinder :: Block
7. Edge :: Of night
8. 31 :: Flavors
9. Blue :: Cell phone
10. Leather :: Jacket

1. Las Vegas :: Cheesy
2. Linus :: Peanuts
3. Struck :: Lightning
4. Movie :: Popcorn
5. Anxious :: Worried
6. Bandit :: Robber
7. Picks :: Lottery
8. Lasso :: Rope
9. Dinner :: Food
10. Bargain :: Basement

Let's see your reaction to the words.

Grammar Test

11:15, 2007-Sep-8 .. Posted in language .. 0 comments .. Link

You Scored an A

You got 10/10 questions correct.

It's pretty obvious that you don't make basic grammatical errors.
If anything, you're annoyed when people make simple mistakes on their blogs.
As far as people with bad grammar go, you know they're only human.
And it's humanity and its current condition that truly disturb you sometimes.

The It's Its There Their They're Quiz

The Word is Absurd

02:57, 2007-Jul-28 .. Posted in language .. 0 comments .. Link

Normally when I write about language, about words and phrases, it's to rant about the ones that I think are polluting the English language.

Today will be a bit different. There are a couple of expressions I've heard people using more and more lately that I get a kick out of.

The first is "throwing (name) under the bus", meaning to push blame onto someone else and let them take the blame. It refers to making a scapegoat out of someone, sometimes shifting the blame off oneself. It also means not sticking up for or trying to help someone who has done something wrong. Someone thrown under the bus is a sacrificial lamb.

I don't know why I find this expression so amusing, but I can't help but laugh whenever I hear it.

The second is "trainwreck", to mean something that turns out to be a total disaster. I recently heard someone say that they thought the 7th Harry Potter movie would be a real "trainwreck", because they thought that no one will be able to do justice to the book.

For me, getting married years ago was a real trainwreck. You get the idea.

But I can't end this entry without a couple of language rants. It just wouldn't be right.

The other night while listening to the radio I heard a badly made-up word that made me cringe.

"Impactful". The person who uttered this abomination meant "Influential". "Impact" used when "affect" or "influence" is called for is bad enough, but to embellish it into a non-word makes me grind my teeth.:hairtear:

Also on the radio, I heard someone say "canceller" when they meant "counselor": "You can arrange to see a "canceller"....". :doh:

No thanks. I think I'll counsel people not to see the canceller and cancel seeing the counselor.

Thoughts?

Catchphrases in Conversation

12:39, 2007-Jul-5 .. Posted in language .. 0 comments .. Link

Everyone who watches TV and movies hears catchphrases and bits of dialogue they find funny and/or apt. Some of these catchphrases stick in our memories and, many times, show up in our conversations, even when we've forgotten the original sources of such phrases. Following are a few of the ones in my vocabulary, along with their sources.

You can't really *buy* beer... you can only rent it.

This sentiment was expressed by Archie Bunker on All in the Family, after Edith commented about his multiple trips to the bathroom over a short space of time.

I've gotten a lot of mileage out of this one over the years, especially when I used to drink.

There's a lot of THERE over there!

This one comes from MASH, though I don't remember from which episode. Hawkeye made this comment after he asked someone where a particular item was located and the person answered him by gesturing vaguely in one direction and saying, "It's over there."

I've used this phrase ever since in the same type of situation, as a way of asking the person to be more specific.

When my son first saw the episode in question, he turned to me and said, "So THAT'S where you get your sarcastic sense of humor from!"

...since Hitler was a corporal

This one comes from Hogan's Heroes. In one episode, Newkirk (Richard Dawson) tripped over a German woman and said, "Excuse me, Fraulein." He took a closer look at her, and added, "Oh, you haven't been a Fraulein since Hitler was a corporal!" In other words, it was a gibe about her age.

I've used this one occasionally, but not to insult a person. For example, one time my son was going through the fridge looking for leftovers to eat. He held something up and I said, "Don't eat that. It's been in there since Hitler was a corporal." Another time, I picked up a huge, ancient cell phone at the flea market and said, "They were using this one when Hitler was a corporal."

Oooooo neee way.....That's ONE WAY!

This one is from the Flintstones. Fred and Barney were driving round and round on a complicated highway cloverleaf and they couldn't find the ramp to get back on the main road. Fred ended up driving the wrong way on a one way ramp. Barney saw the sign and sounded it out slowly as Fred encountered a several cars coming at them: Ooooooo Neeeeeeee Way.....THAT'S ONE WAY!"

I've said this one a time or two when riding shotgun with someone and they're about the commit the same error.

Resistance is Futile

Anyone who is over the age of ten knows that this one comes from Star Trek: the Next Generation in reference to the Borg.

I've used this one several times in a tongue in cheek fashion when engaged in seduction.
:devilgrin:

Feel free to add any TV/movie catchphrases that have wormed their way into your conversations.

Banned Words for 2007

07:03, 2007-Jan-1 .. Posted in language .. 0 comments .. Link

Yesterday, Michigan's Lake Superior State University released its 30th annual "List of Words and Phrases Banished from the Queen's English for Mis-Use, Over-Use and General Uselessness." As a language lover and a hater of inane words and expressions, I read the list with great interest. Following is their current list, with my suggestions for their 2008 list:

GITMO -- slang for Guantanamo Bay Naval Base. This one doesn't bother me if used sparingly.

COMBINED CELEBRITY NAMES -- as in "Brangelina", "TomKat", and "Bennifer". Yep, this one's puke-worthy.

AWESOME -- When used as to refer to things of a mundane or banal nature, to refer to anything that is not worthy of "fear mingled with admiration or reverence; a feeling produced by something majestic". The overuse of this word betrays a lack of vocabulary.

GONE/WENT MISSING -- Is this anything like going on vacation?

PWN/PWNED -- An overly used internet typo for "own/owned" from the gamer world. Not being a gamer, this is the first time I've heard this one.

NOW PLAYING IN THEATERS -- As opposed to those movies now playing in gas stations?

WE'RE PREGNANT -- This is one of my favorite love-to-hate expressions. A couple may both be expecting, but only SHE is pregnant. Puke.

UNDOCUMENTED ALIEN -- PC term for illegal alien. To use this expression is like calling a drug dealer and "undocumented pharmacist".

ARMED ROBBERY/DRUG DEAL GONE BAD -- another inane euphemism

TRUTHINESS -- this is a new one on me, and I hope I never hear it again.

ASK YOUR DOCTOR -- From prescription medication ads. How stupid do they think people are? Do they think if they have a question about a medication that they'd ask their auto mechanic instead?

i-ANYTHING -- Something else I don't see often

SEARCH -- As opposed to "google". I think this needs to be reversed.

HEALTHY FOOD -- If the chicken you had for lunch was still healthy, it would be out clucking in the hen house, not lying on your plate. The word needed in this instance is "healthful".

BOASTS -- As used in real estate ads; “master bedroom boasts his-and-her fireplaces — never ‘bathroom apologizes for cracked linoleum,’ or ‘kitchen laments pathetic placement of electrical outlets.’'

Here's my list of suggestions:

PROLLY — purposeful internet misspelling of probably. We don’t even SAY it that way.

TEH — purposeful internet misspelling of the. Seeing it once is funny, seeing it consistently is annoying.

IMPACT — when used to mean “affect” or “influence”.

SOLUTIONS — used in recent years as part of business names. “Sleep Solutions” for a mattress company, “Car Solutions” for a used car lot, “Senior Solutions” for an adult day car center.

HOT — when used to mean sexy. Sexy is sexy and hot needs an air-conditioner.

FREE GIFT — if it’s a gift, then of course it’s free. Who ever heard of a gift you had to pay for?

FLAVORFUL — as used in grocery store ads. Just because something is full of flavor, it doesn’t necessarily follow that it is a GOOD flavor.

GARDEN APARTMENT — Used to describe a type of apartment. Trouble is, whenever I’ve seen one of those, there is never a garden anywhere on the premises.

ARTIST — when used to refer to a musician, singer, or band. These are three precise words to describe a musical performer, where “artist” is more vague. Let’s reserve artist for the visual arts.

Any concocted word ending in -LICIOUS — Delicious is fine, anything else is cringe-worthy.

BEHIND BARS -- Jails and prisons with actual bars have gone the way of the black and white striped prison suit.

Feel free to add any words or phrases you think belong on this list.
___________________
To see their lists from previous years:

http://www.lssu.edu/banished/archive...e/2002.php

Garbled Transmissions

01:12, 2005-Dec-22 .. Posted in language .. 0 comments .. Link

Ever play the game “Whisper Down the Line” when you were a kid? That’s when one person whispers something to another, who in turn whispers it to the next person, continuing down the line until everyone has heard it. The purpose of this game is to see if the message survived intact, word for word, after having been repeated several times. Usually, it doesn’t.

Sometimes it doesn’t take this much for what someone has said or sung to be misunderstood by a listener.

Children, especially, tend to have “creative ears”, many times with amusing results. I can remember hearing reports on the news about euthanasia. Considering that I was a little kid during the sixties, what my ears heard was “Youth in Asia”, and I thought they were talking about kids in Vietnam. You have to admit that it made sense. I also heard electoral vote as “electrical vote”, which I thought meant voting by machine. Again, perfectly logical.

My creative hearing extended to music as well. All during school, we frequently sang “God Bless America” in music class. For the longest time, I thought the actual lyrics were, “And guide her, through the night, with a light from a BULB”. It made perfect sense to me.

Of course, adults mishear things as well, for a variety of reasons. Some of the most common reasons are being hard of hearing, but fairly often it’s because of regional dialects. Back in the sixties, Volkswagen put out a car called “Karmann Ghia”. Growing up with an r-dropping New England accent, my mind pictured this as “Common Gear”. Years later, when I first moved to my current home, I’d hear radio commercials promoting “Mills on Wills”. It took me a moment to realize that they meant “Meals on Wheels”.

Sometimes the confusion comes with not the words themselves, but the emphasis. Take the song “Home on the Range”. The line, “Seldom is heard a discouraging word”, can be taken two ways. It could either mean that “seldom” is a discouraging word heard often, or it could mean seldom does one hear discouraging words.

And this brings me to one of the biggest sources of garbed transmissions -- music. All sorts of music is heard in ways that the singers never intended, usually with hilarious results. Here are a few of my favorites:

Louis Armstrong -- What a Wonderful World

The actual words: “The bright blessed days, the dark sacred nights”
What I heard: “The bright blessed days, the dogs say goodnight”

CCR -- Bad Moon on the Rise

The actual words: “There’s a bad moon on the rise”
What I heard: “There’s a bathroom on the right”

Elton John -- Island Girl

The actual words: “Island Girl, what you wanted with the white man’s world”
What I heard: “Island girl, what you wanted with your wife’s Aunt Pearl”

Manfred Mann -- Blinded By the Light”

The actual words: "Blinded by the light, revved up like a deuce, another runner in the night”
What I heard: "Blinded by the light, wrapped up like a douche, had a boner in the night”.

Well, at least for that last one, I think my words made about as much sense as the original ones.

Here’s a funny collection of misheard lyrics I found that you might enjoy:

http://www.kissthisguy.com/

A Bit of Language Trivia

02:44, 2005-Dec-20 .. Posted in language .. 0 comments .. Link

A pocketbook is not a book, a pocket, or a book you put in your pocket. Wonder how such a strange word came to mean “purse” or “handbag”?

______________________________________________

“Belated”, a word invented just for birthdays

______________________________________________

“Tardy”, a word invented just for schools

______________________________________________

Children and brethren: probably the only two words in English that take the plural -ren.

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Don’t is “do not”. Why isn’t won’t “woo not”?

______________________________________________

If a duckling is a baby duck, then why isn’t a dumpling a baby dump?

______________________________________________

German has different words for “no” meaning the opposite of yes, and “no” meaning “not any”: “nein” and “kein”. Makes better sense than English. After all, we say, “I have no bananas”, but we can’t say, “I have yes bananas”.

______________________________________________

Why do people refer to musicians as “artists” when there are several perfectly usable and more specific words, such as singer, musician, and band? Using the term "artists" for musicians has always seemed more than a little pretentious to me.

______________________________________________

We talk about “eyesight”. Why don’t we talk about “earhear”, "tonguetaste", "nosesmell", or "fingertouch"?

The Language of Relationships

12:01, 2005-Dec-1 .. Posted in language .. 0 comments .. Link

(Originally posted on 1 October 2004 at Blog City)

Quite often, the English language has not kept pace with current realities in our ever-evolving society. Take the language of relationships, for example.

When referring to the person with whom one is having an unmarried intimate relationship, the terms most overwhelmingly used are “boyfriend” or ”girlfriend”. These words are universally used, regardless of the age of those involved, circumstances, or type of relationship.

Am I the only one who finds the idea of a grown woman referring to a man in his 40s as her “boyfriend” to be totally ludicrous? Does anyone agree that a man who is not married to the mother of his children but refers to her simply as his “girlfriend” to be making more than a little bit of an understatement?

To me, the words “girlfriend” and “boyfriend” bring up visions of fifteen year olds “going steady”, exchanging class rings, and going to the prom. These terms are both absurd and inadequate to refer to adult relationships.

“Boyfriend” and “girlfriend” hearken back to a time when most people got married in their late teens and stayed married until death do us part. There weren’t enough unmarried adults in the many different types of relationships we see today to need having terms that described mature, unmarried, non-platonic relationships.

Despite the fact that new words are routinely coined to reflect changing realities, the English language has not evolved much in the realm of relationships. From time to time, there have been attempts to address this lack of appropriate relationship terms, but such attempts haven’t succeeded to any great degree.

“Partner” enjoys some popularity in the gay community, but has not caught on among heterosexuals largely because many view this word as referring only to gay relationships, and others think it sounds too businesslike. “Significant other” is awkward to use, “paramour” sounds too hoity-toity, “fuckbuddy” is too blunt, and so on.

Personally, I prefer to use the word “lover”, because that’s what they are to me. I also will refer to lovers simply by their names, without explaining the type of relationship. Or I merely call them a “friend” and let the person I’m talking to figure out just what kind of friend they are to me on their own.

Thoughts?