Our Corrupted Blog-Language
Anal grammarians are taking bloggers to task. Take this email sent to Ezra Klein at the Washington Post as an example:
We at Masked Grammarian (a loosely-knit small group of grammar snobs) send corrections to sites on the web when we notice something that bugs us. Almost always, we do this only when it seems worthwhile — a site that we like with a significant error.
In this case, you used the word “impacted” to mean “affected”. Until just a few years ago, “impacted” was used only in a medical sense: unless otherwise stated, it was assumed to refer to fecal impaction. Of course, it could also refer to wisdom teeth, etc.
Due to the rise of MBA-speak, many nouns have become verbified, and we’ve all slipped into using words, such as “impacted”, which were formerly the domain of people who talk of synergy, best practices, 10,000-foot views, and the like.
We just wanted to point out your incorrect (albeit unfortunately well-accepted) use of “impacted” in your 1:08 PM post today. We also hope that we will not be impacted, in the traditional sense, by your light posting schedule, though it will negatively affect our day.
Consider it noted.
Hey bitches
From here.
What Amy Said (Not Deron’s Amy edition)
While lying on the bed naked: “Baby come here. Do you want to pick your pictures for cluster stock flock?”
Somethingnyms (Cindy?)
Before the electric guitar, there was only the guitar, and it was acoustic. The “acoustic guitar” name is a retronym. What, if anything, is the term “electric guitar” known as in this situation?
If the acoustic guitar were to disappear forever, would we still call the electric guitar electric? Would those who have never known an acoustic guitar refer to the electric simply as a guitar? If my naming follows the pattern, the answer to both of the latter questions is “yes.” My father’s mother still calls me “David Adam” always, and Mom’s family refers to me as “Davito” even in the absence of the larger, non-Adam David.
Quote out of context
I was interested in the question of whether my son, going through his first language acquisition process, would acquire it like any human language.
Sum DEconstructive THoughts on bReading into DERRida
the FIrST thing that popped into my bRAIN this morning were the words “I came on her face” | not the actION of it but the WORDs | obvIOUsly a LOaded SENTENCE | most people would probablimMEDIATEly conJURE a bad VISual & regard it with dis taste o if they took PLEASurE from it ‘ it’s in a dirty o pornoGRAPHIC way | but think about the WORDs: I CAME ON HER FACE | an orgasm could be a rich OReCHASM with a sLight shift in your berrain:
A final outburst!
God save little shops, china cups, and virginity!
God save the village green!
Y’all seen this?
There are so many ways this is incredibly appalling, not least of which is the failure to understand basic grammar.
Cliches I particularly hate
“Getting all one’s ducks in a row”
“It’s got all the bells and whistles”
teaching the bible
Dude doing U.K. accents
What is tragedy?
Brooklyn residents answering the question, “What is tragedy?”
(via Gowanus Lounge)
Lexical Analysis of the 2008 Debates
Tons of pretty and interesting graphical analyses of the debates. My favorite is the windbag index. (via infovore).
YouTube Comment Snob
This is the answer to the problem, but I would kind of miss such helpful comments as “y dun’t u suck a bag of dicks,” when trolling the internets.
YouTube Comment Snob is a Firefox extension that filters out undesirable comments from YouTube comment threads. You can choose to have any of the following rules mark a comment for removal:
- More than # spelling mistakes: The number of mistakes is customizable, and the extension uses Firefox’s built-in spell checker.
- All capital letters
- No capital letters
- Doesn’t start with a capital letter
- Excessive punctuation (!!!! ????)
- Excessive capitalization or Profanity
Dear Clusterflock: This is preying on my mind.
What words might you use on a regular basis, in the way you use them, that have become unglued from their original etymology?
Today, I caught myself using the word terrific! to close phone conversations with clients, vendors and employees alike. I use the word all the time! I use it in lieu of “great” or “fantastic” or “perfect!” (Likely, none of which I use for their intended purpose either.)
The use of words, and their original purposes, has been on my mind a little while, so when I had opportunity to comment on Brandon Hobson’s post on August 8, I first wrote “terrifying” but in a moment of realization, I recognized terrific for what it is. The comment takes on a darker color, yes? Honestly! What have I been saying to clients, vendors and employees alike?
Please note, dear angel who watches after me and usually “categorizes” my posts, I made an attempt, this time, to do it myself.
Say My Name
Tonight at Randalls, my cashier’s name was Crystal Glass.
As I was leaving she said, “Thank you Mr. Pizer.”
Mamihlapinatapai
A single word from the Yaghan language of Tierra del Fuego
It describes a look shared by two people with each wishing that the other will initiate something that both desire but which neither one wants to start. Ending up mutually at a loss as to what to do about each other.
— via kottke
At least it’s not Basque
[I]n my early thirties, I went with my parents to the Basque country. . . .
This trip went down as the most colossal linguistic failure in Harris family history. Never mind the fact that Basque has twelve grammatical cases (versus Latin’s cushy five); it’s linguistically unrelated to any other tongue. This means—as I learned when I cracked open the textbook Dad [a famous linguist] and I had each bought—that trying to learn it is like trying to stick Velcro to particle board. I’d do the exercises, biting my lip, and get them all wrong. The moment I’d finish, I’d forget everything. You don’t know how close I came to hurling the damn book off the subway. Me? Unable to learn a language? This was a soul-challenging, humbling, deeply frustrating first.
“Bet Dad can do this,” I thought. I emailed to find out. “How’s the Basque going?” His reply: “Fucking language from hell. This is a waste of my time.”
—“Tongue Tied” by Lynn Harris, at Nextbook, my place of employment
I’m currently attempting to cram a bit of French for a trip, and this article makes me feel a lot better—about French, not my inability to learn it. I could be trying to learn Basque! Or Hebrew!
So, dear Clusterflock, what languages are you competent in, and which ones would you like to learn?
Grammatical Inconsistencies
I say The Dallas Cowboys are and U2 is.
I Love Scottish Accents
This was sent to me from a Scottish friend living in England.
A wee Glesga wummin goes intae a Butchershop, where the butcher has just came oot the freezer, and is staunin haunds ahint his back, wi his erse aimed at an electric fire.
The wee wummin checks oot the display case and asks: ‘Is that yer Ayrshire Bacon?’
‘Naw,’ replies the butcher ‘Its jist ma hauns ah’m heatin.’
as expected
For Jeff:
The role of different modulation frequencies in the speech envelope were studied by means of the manipulation of vowel–consonant–vowel (VCV) syllables. The envelope of the signal was extracted from the speech and the fine-structure was replaced by speech-shaped noise. The temporal envelopes in every critical band of the speech signal were notch filtered in order to assess the relative importance of different modulation frequency regions between 0 and 20 Hz. For this purpose notch filters around three center frequencies (8, 12, and 16 Hz) with three different notch widths (4-, 8-, and 12-Hz wide) were used. These stimuli were used in a consonant-recognition task in which ten normal-hearing subjects participated, and their results were analyzed in terms of recognition scores. More qualitative information was obtained with a multidimensional scaling method (INDSCAL) and sequential information analysis (SINFA). Consonant recognition is very robust for the removal of certain modulation frequency areas. Only when a wide notch around 8 Hz is applied does the speech signal become heavily degraded. As expected, the voicing information is lost, while there are different effects on plosiveness and nasality. Even the smallest filtering has a substantial effect on the transfer of the plosiveness feature, while on the other hand, filtering out only the low-modulation frequencies has a substantial effect on the transfer of nasality cues.
Clbuttic
A clbuttic example unintended consequences. Also this is very nerdy.
People who make buttumptions about their regex scripts, will be embarbutted when they repeat this mbuttive mistake
I like the way
William becomes Will becomes Bill.
it is what it is
For Cindy
