MetaFilter posts tagged with words

"family, nationhood, verbal imperative, and accountability"

the man of twists and turns — Wed, 29 May 2013 02:24:05 -0800

"Trading Faith for Wonder: On Judaism's Literary Legacy". The LARB reviews Jews And Words, by Amos Oz and Fania Oz-Salzberger.

father and daughter argue that the Jews are best understood as a people with a shared literary history. “Ours is not a bloodline but a textline,” they proclaim. “Jewish history and peoplehood form a unique continuum, which is neither ethnic nor political.” In other words, Jews are not first and foremost a race or a religion but a civilization, one linked by the texts they read, the stories they tell, and the history they’ve chronicled.

Reviwed also in moment: " The new book by Amos Oz and his daughter Fania Oz-Salzberger is not Jews and Words, it’s jews and words. As we shall see, in this case—lower case—size matters." NPR: "Oz, a professor of literature at Ben-Gurion University in Be'er Sheva, and Oz-Salzberger, a writer and historian at the University of Haifa, talk with NPR's Scott Simon about Jews and Words. The father-daughter team explain their ideas about "Jewish atheism," Judaism's evolving traditions and the origins of chutzpah." Haaretz: "Reading between the lines: How Amos Oz views Jewish identity" An extract, a sample on Google Books.

"I love the idea of witnessing the birth of that word."

the man of twists and turns — Mon, 27 May 2013 21:47:03 -0800

"In 1872 two men began work on a lexicon of words of Asian origin used by the British in India. Since its publication the 1,000-page dictionary has never been out of print and a new edition is due out next year. What accounts for its enduring appeal? Hobson-Jobson is the dictionary's short and mysterious title." Dictionaries are pretty weird! How could a dictionary, reasearched, written, printed, contain words that are used today? Why we need to invent new words! Or you could consult The Emotionary, "Words that don't exist for feelings that do." (via)

Speculative Lexography

aniola — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 00:01:54 -0800

POWER VOCAB TWEET. Boost your vocabulary with these fiercely plausible words and definitions. About. [via mefi projects] More interesting projects by aparrish.

Yet another reason books are awesome.....as if we needed one.

littleap71 — Tue, 02 Apr 2013 11:37:18 -0800

Mining books to map emotions through a century. Emotion words aren't consistently used through time, it seems. Things got scary in the 80's.

Compare and contrast, bits vs dead trees

Brandon Blatcher — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 06:32:35 -0800

As lexicographers revel in the capabilities of online dictionaries, one person notes the death of print encyclopedias.

You Can't Say That In English

anya32 — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 10:25:14 -0800

Approximately 375 million people speak English as their first language, and 470 million to over a billion people speak it as a second language (to varying degrees). Even so, there are some words that do not exist in English, even with new word entries periodically being added to the Oxford Dictionary. 25 words that do not exist in English. Additional words that do not exist in English (warning: last link potentially NSFW - alludes to sexual violence).

Word As Image, by Ji Lee

growabrain — Mon, 07 Jan 2013 18:37:03 -0800

Challenge: Create an image out of a word, using only the letters in the word itself.
Rule: use only the graphic elements of the letters without adding outside parts.
From the mind of Ji Lee Previously on M-F

Lousy? Crummy? Fed Up?

pointystick — Mon, 03 Dec 2012 08:13:47 -0800

Trench Talk now entrenched in the English Language - Military historian Peter Doyle and Julian Walker, an etymologist at the British Library, have written Trench Talk about how words from the first World War have become part of everyday English. Walker also has a blog which may be of interest to those who enjoy the history of words and language.

Everything has an end, only the sausage has two. And what would a monkey know of the taste of ginger anyway?

iamkimiam — Sun, 02 Dec 2012 09:44:46 -0800

Alles hat ein Ende, nur die Wurst hat zwei.
Bandar kya jaane adrak ka swad?
...and other foodie figures of speech. A few more to nibble on. Or jump to 27:25 of this week's World in Words to hear butchered renditions of the podcast crew's favorites (iTunes link)

YOLO with it

BlackLeotardFront — Mon, 12 Nov 2012 16:47:52 -0800

Oxford Dictionaries' 2012 words of the year have been chosen: for the US, it's "gif" (as a verb); for the UK, "omnishambles." It contended for this crown with the likes of "YOLO," "superstorm," and "nomophobia." Previous Oxford words of the year can be found here (other notable year-end word lists such as those from Merriam-Webster, the American Dialect Society, and the Global Language Monitor, have yet to appear).

Rapscallion was robbed.

mediareport — Tue, 25 Sep 2012 08:54:25 -0800

Starting with a bracket for every letter of the alphabet, a bracket suggested by readers and a "Fuck" play-in bracket, blogger Ted McCagg just finished a contest for the Best Word Ever. In the running were Umpteen, Eke, Isthmus, Skedaddle and Akimbo. The Final Four. The finals. The champion. [Via The Paris Review & Kottke.]

Claws sharp

netbros — Fri, 14 Sep 2012 17:42:19 -0800

The alphaDictionary Historical Dictionary of American Slang presents a unique way for studying slang. It contains over 2200 slang words with the centuries in which they were first printed. The dates were taken from the Oxford English Dictionary, the Online Etymological Dictionary, or the earliest occurrences the editors can remember. Slang Generation Checkup To be sure the way you speak does not betray your age, you should take Dr. Goodword's Slang Generation Checkup and find out in which era the slang you use comes from. Dr. Goodword's Glossary of Quaint Southernisms If you enjoy our American slang dictionary, you should get a kick out of this glossary of words pronounced with a Southern accent. 26 Beatnik Slang Words and Phrases We Should All Start Using Plenty of phrases from the first self-described hipster generation have lasted into modern conversation: people still get bent out of shape, annoying people bug us and muscular guys are still built, just to scan the b-words. Here are 26 words and phrases that don’t get much use any more but are worth sneaking into conversation. Discuss accents, slang and dialects with others. Now you can talk with others who have an interest in words, how they are pronounced, used, and created in the Alpha Agora forums.

M is for Myriapod

Horace Rumpole — Fri, 14 Sep 2012 09:55:33 -0800

Mysteries of Vernacular is a series of delightful papercraft animations about etymology, by filmmaker Jessica Oreck. Four of a projected 26 videos, one for each letter of the alphabet, have been completed so far: Assassin, Hearse, Pants, and Clue. (via)

Long live logolepsy

stavrosthewonderchicken — Fri, 14 Sep 2012 04:51:06 -0800

Victorious Vocabulary : A Lackadaisical Lexicon for Laggard Logophiles. [possibly nsfw]

A kit for the pen-sucked flap-dragons in your life

Brandon Blatcher — Wed, 29 Aug 2012 11:31:12 -0800

Are the verbal pignuts nipping at thine clay-brained heels yet again? Does your dankish, knotty-ated mind quiver at scouring the bard's odiferous works for suitable defense? Then attend thee to the Shakespeare Insult Kit, where all manner of creations await your dullish wit.

"Grief bacon."

mudpuppie — Mon, 13 Aug 2012 11:04:35 -0800

Wonderful words with no simple English equivalent.

Fearing cacodemonomania from jettatura, the acersecomic leptosome set off a biblioclasm of his scripturient neogenesis on ktenology, unwittingly bringing about hamartia.

divabat — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 04:32:18 -0800

The Project Twins have created bold illustrative posters of unusual words from A to Z. (via)

Dictionary, n. A malevolent literary device for cramping the growth of a language and making it hard and inelastic. This dictionary, however, is a most useful work.

Fizz — Thu, 19 Jul 2012 12:58:37 -0800

Collins Dictionary is seeking suggestions for popular new words that deserve official definitions. Most recent suggestions: blurge, wammocky, dingbat, sloading, and many more.

Technology Enhancements for Sensory Impaired

netbros — Tue, 03 Jul 2012 17:10:07 -0800

Recent technologies developed at American universities are making communication easier for the sight and hearing impaired. Last summer a Stanford undergrad developed a touchscreen Braille writer that stands to revolutionize how the blind negotiate an unseen world by replacing devices costing up to 10 times more. Thanks to a group of University of Houston students, the hearing impaired may soon have an easier time communicating with those who do not understand sign language. During the past semester, students in UH’s engineering technology and industrial design programs teamed up to develop the concept and prototype for MyVoice, a device that reads sign language and translates its motions into audible words, and vice versa.

"Words -- so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become in the hands of one who knows how to combine them."

Fizz — Tue, 03 Jul 2012 14:18:05 -0800

Save the Words: Adopt words that have been abandoned by the English language.

Our heads are round so that our thoughts can fly in any direction. - Francis Picabia

adamvasco — Sat, 30 Jun 2012 17:04:45 -0800

Little Surrealist Dictionary A game of re-definitions.

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.

If you liked the verbal portion of the SAT, but hated the monster portion...

Night_owl — Fri, 25 May 2012 11:13:38 -0800

Kingdom of Loathing creator Jick and the rest of the Asymmetric crew have spent the last four years developing a new game. Next month, the beta for the game is coming out: Word Realms! Make sure to watch the video, it's full of hilarity. Word Realms is an RPG where combat is based on making words from a set of letters in your arsenal. They've posted some sneak peeks on their website. Music warning: autoplaying Quicktime mp3 by Gminor7 from MC Frontalot's band. Previously, they did a panel at DragonCon in 2010 where they talked about and demoed some of the game. While you're waiting, play the recently fixed Krakrox the Barbarian!

Lexcavator

davidjmcgee — Thu, 10 May 2012 12:18:20 -0800

"Lexcavator is an arcade/word game for Mac, PC, and Linux. The goal: guide your guy (@) deeper into an infinite of letters by clearing words from the board! Multiple game modes, detailed record-keeping, online global leaderboards—there's something here for everybody! Pay what you want (even $0, if you are so inclined)." [via mefi projects] No DRM. No in-app purchases. No not having fun. Go! From MeFi's own aparrish.

Need a word for it?

gman — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 09:32:44 -0800

The Lonely Planet has come up with a list of thirty travel terms that aren't in the dictionary.