MetaFilter posts tagged with spelling

An Elegant Weapon For A Less Civilized Age

Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 12:39:11 -0800

They were the finest European swords the day, superior to almost any other on the battlefields of the Viking Age. Made from steel no one in Europe would know how to make until the Industrial Revolution. Stronger, more flexible, almost magical in combat, engraved with the mysterious name "+ULFBERH+T" by unknown makers, these swords were the both fearsome weapons and incredibly expensive prestige possessions. Only 171 have every been identified. And no one had made one from start to finish, using only hand tools, for over 900 years. The "Ulfberht" swords were viking swords made between ~800 and 1100 C.E. of crucible steel. Crucible steel is made by heating iron ore with a source of carbon (often charcoal or bone) close to 3000°F until almost all the impurities ("slag") are removed from the iron and the carbon is absorbed, leaving a purer steel. The technique for crucible steel was unknown in Northern Europe at the time the Ulfberht Swords were forged, but it was known in places like Afghanistan and Iran. By the Viking Age, warriors to the East had been fighting with superior weapons made of Damascus Steel for centuries. The theory is that Viking traders plying the Volga Trade Route brought back crucible steel ingots. When the Volga Trade Route was closed by the Russians around the 12th century, the making of Ulfberht swords ceased. Swords in general were prized possessions to the vikings, as most warriors would be armed with spears and axes. Any sword was a much greater investment in time and materials, and the crucible steel of the Ulberhts made them sharper and (importantly) less likely to chip and break in battle like swords made of lower-grade steel. In a testament to how good the Ulfberht swords were, people went to the trouble of making fakes of lower-quality steel with the Ulfberht brand name on them. And as is usual with brand-name fakes, the details matter. The name "Ulfberht" is not Norse, it's Frankish. Also, the two "+" in "+ULFBERH+T" would, in that age, have been associated with a Bishop's name, or someone else in the Church hierarchy. And Christians (as the Franks were since Clovis I) were forbidden from trading with the Pagan vikings. But Church armorers would not have access to crucible steel from the East like the vikings, so the mystery of the name reamins unsolved. PBS site

Literally?

the man of twists and turns — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 07:25:01 -0800

"10 Words You Literally Didn’t Know You Were Getting Wrong" The Millions:Prescriptivists vs. Descriptivists: The Fifth Edition of The American Heritage Dictionary The Atlantic: A Call for Spelling Standardization (or Is That Standardisation?) Language Log: The New Yorker vs. the descriptivist specter

Enough with the ad homonyms

divabat — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 10:20:44 -0800

Literacy Privilege: How I Learned to Check Mine Instead of Making Fun of People’s Grammar on the Internet. Also Part 2 and Part 3.

It's Linguistastic! Or Linguistalicious!

oneswellfoop — Fri, 16 Nov 2012 05:45:24 -0800

Arika Okrent (previously here on sign language interpreters and her 352-page book about 'Invented Languages') is currently kicking ass and taking etymologies at the Mental Floss site with a flurry of listicles* on the 'invention' of today's English/American language:
The solidly informational "11 Weirdly Spelled Words—And How They Got That Way"**
The entertainingly snarky "11 Creative Suffixes That Inspire New Words"
The just plain fun "From Y’all To Youse, 8 English Ways to Make “You” Plural"
plus one non-linguistic piece of pure pedantry: "11 Movie Chess Scenes Where The Board Is Set Up Wrong"*** *a term she MUST dissect sometime
**which SHOCKINGLY does not include an explanation why the word "weird" does not comply with the "i before e" rule. Well, maybe in a future post...
*** come on, if Bergman did it "wrong", doesn't that make it right?

EYYyyyWWWww

netbros — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 15:12:43 -0800

Sound-Word Index — Emotions and their sound can invade our digital messages. Our words become flexible and vibrate according to the volume of our voices, transforming their written form into an expressive and resonating language. Without the help of body language, words can sometimes fall short in our digital conversations. However, sound, volume and rhythm can influence the spelling of our words, helping to translate our emotions hidden behind our screens.

As she is spoked

infini — Sat, 26 May 2012 00:15:23 -0800

The myth of English as a global language One would have to say that English, far from being a pure maiden, looks like a woman who has appeared out of some distant fen, had more partners than Moll Flanders, learned a lot in the process, and is now running a house of negotiable affection near an international airport

supercilious daiquiri

freshwater — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 06:59:36 -0800

Who wants to be in a spelling bee? Tricky and difficult are neither, but fiendish is a way to spend too much time. It does have quite a few words adopted into English, but everyone should know how to spell burrito.

The Fruit of Dionysuis Thrax

unliteral — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 17:55:05 -0800

Best Grammar Blog of 2011 has been announced - A Clil To Climb. The competition was intense.

The best dong in the world

MuffinMan — Wed, 04 May 2011 13:49:09 -0800

The beast obnoxious responses to misspellings on Facebook

A rheometer designed to measure the amount and speed of blood flow through an artery

twoleftfeet — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 02:39:39 -0800

Anamika Veeramani just won the national spelling bee with stromuhr, continuing a long Indian-American streak which has included such memorable spelling bee moments as the Numb What? and the Pass Out.

Open Source Language Checking Technology

brundlefly — Mon, 03 May 2010 13:23:11 -0800

After The Deadline is an open source spell/style/grammar checker from Automattic for WordPress, Firefox and other stuff. Here's a demo of the Firefox plugin and here's a (rather poor quality) presentation from WordCamp NYC 2009. I saw this guy's presentation at WordCamp SF and thought it was pretty neat.

Now bons broaken all is well all in Love

GenjiandProust — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 06:40:49 -0800

Timothy Dexter was an 18th Century American entrepreneur from Newburyport, MA who made his money in fairly baffling ways. He successfully sold coal in Newcastle and shipped stray cats and mittens to the Caribbean at a sizable profit. Self-described as "First in the East, First in the West, and the Greatest Philosopher in the Western World," he is listed in an entry in the notably hoax-filled Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography, but NPR believes that he existed. Besides his mercantile "acumen," Dexter is probably best known for his prose style, which lacked punctuation and consistent spelling. When criticized about the former, he reissued his text with a DIY punctuation element. His best-known work is A Pickle For The Knowing Ones (available in a variety of formats here; this helpful page includes the text and a "translation"). This site is an excellent resource, and almost as much fun to read an navigate as Dexter's prose. [Previously]

MétaFiltre!

Shepherd — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 06:21:54 -0800

The Canadian Government’s Translation Bureau recently made its French/English/Spanish technical terminology database, Termium, free to access after over a decade as a subscription-based service. While off-the-cuff translations are often available from free services like BabelFish, Termium focuses on technical terminology such as scientific, medical and legal terms. Of equal interest to the core service are other tools like The Canadian Style, the government’s official rules for how to write "Canadian" (an odd hybrid of British and American styles), HyperGrammar 2, a series of educational grammar modules developed for self-directed learning, and Word Tailoring, an attempt to create a translation database for idiomatic French words and expressions that don't necessarily offer a single literal translation. There are also a wealth of French-language tools for learning grammar, improving your writing style, and seeking alternate terms for common verbs and expressions. Also worthy of note is the always-free Grand Dictionnaire, the product of the Quebec government's Office de la langue française, which is far less robust than Termium but has a stronger focus on "proper" language for Quebec. And, if you're struggling to improve your French writing skills, Bon Patron is a (frequently slow-loading) Java-powered tool that will check your French spelling and grammar and offer correction suggestions in real time.

hi cutie ur realy sexy. msn?

Kadin2048 — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 22:05:25 -0800

How (not) to write an online-dating message, based on a sample of 500,000 "first contact" messages. The average message from a man to a woman on OK Cupid has a 32% chance of getting a response. (Although longer is apparently better. Also, women seeking men, men seeking men, and women seeking women have somewhat better odds.) But not all messages are created equal: “netspeak, bad grammar, and bad spelling are huge turn-offs,” while the “top three most popular ways to say ‘hello’ were all actually bad beginnings.” OkTrends, the OK Cupid development/statistics blog, has come up previously. [Via Hacker News.]

The Misspelled Signs of New York City

milquetoast — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 08:29:15 -0800

"Even though my glory years of competitive spelling are long past, some things stay with a person. As I explore, I can't help but notice signs which contain spelling errors. I capture them for posterity with my handy digital camera and present them here for our collective education and entertainment." Thirty-two pages of misspelled signs in the New York metropolitan area -- each one lovingly annotated.

Dynasty

Joe Beese — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 16:47:44 -0800

Coincidental to the publishing of her memoir, Candy Spelling - the widow of legendary television producer Aaron Spelling - is selling her Beverly Hills mansion for $150 million. (Daughter Tori Spelling is not expected to share in the proceeds.)

Children's Letters to God? Check.

Lacking Subtlety — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 11:03:02 -0800

Children's Letters to God? Check. Came across this and if they're real, they're very funny. Even if they're faked, they're very funny... That is all.

another time sink

netbros — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 19:44:55 -0800

another day, another word

That's Dum

blue_beetle — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 16:04:32 -0800

Ed Rondthaler on english pronounciation. (Quicktime Video)

I can’t believe that posting corrections to comments takes that much time away from real work.

blasdelf — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 11:59:53 -0800

So apostrophree corrects these kinds of errors before people see them, preventing employees from spending time posting corrections and engaging in online flame wars about English usage?

Scroo Grammer. Hows Yer Speling.

ericb — Fri, 30 May 2008 17:33:53 -0800

In honor of tonight’s Scripps National Spelling Bee final, take a stab at these spelling tests – Scripps Test, MSNBC Test. Previous Spelling Bee posts -- A, B, C, D.

Errin' USA

Rhaomi — Wed, 21 May 2008 21:54:20 -0800

Immediately, Herson spotted an offense—a second-floor awning outside a tarot shop that advertised "Energy Stone's." They climbed the stairs to the second floor and approached a middle-age women with a quizzical expression. "We happened to notice the sign for energy stones," Deck said, "and there happens to be an extra apostrophe. 'Stone's' doesn't need the apostrophe."

"And?" she asked, her voice flat with annoyance.

"And we wanted to bring it to your attention," Deck said.

A look inside the daring lives of Jeff Deck and Benjamin Herson, vanguards of the Typo Eradication Advancement League.

Get Your Red Pens Ready.

laconic titan — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 16:48:26 -0800

Zip up that dangling modifier--it's National Grammar Day! Let the ranting begin...

eBay Arctic Ale Ouchy

East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 08:12:40 -0800

Man buys Allsop, relists it as Allsopp - proving that on eBay, presentation is everything. via b3ta

I HAVE TO KNOW THE LANGUAGE IT IS IN!

exlotuseater — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 22:01:28 -0800

Evan M. O'Dorney, a 13-year-old speller from Danville, Calif., won the 2007 Scripps National Spelling Bee, with the final word "serrefine". Here is an interesting interview with the winner. Did you say my name wrong?