YGBKM!*

OMG! Online abbreviations make Oxford dictionary


Mar 25, 2:48 PM (ET)

By JILL LAWLESS

LONDON (AP) - OMG! LOL! The venerable Oxford English Dictionary approves of the three-letter, Internet-inspired expressions you use for "Oh, my God!" and "Laughing out loud."

It is adding them to the authoritative reference book's latest online update.

You can now text the news to your BFF. That's "best friends forever."

All three expressions - and IMHO, or "in my humble opinion" - are among 900 new words included this week. Cracking the dictionary, however, is no easy task.

"The OED is quite cautious," said Graeme Diamond, OED's principal editor for new words.

Terms made popular online are only included among the dictionary's 300,000 entries when they have crossed over into everyday use, Diamond said.

Although the new abbreviations are associated with modern electronic communications, some are surprisingly old. The first confirmed use of OMG was in a 1917 letter by a British admiral.

"Things people think are new words normally have a longer history," Diamond said.

Editors publish updates to the online Oxford every three months.

The OED's Internet version was launched in 2000 and gets 2 million hits a month from subscribers. It may replace the mammoth 20-volume printed edition, last published in 1989.

The new update also includes:

- "muffin top,""a protuberance of flesh above the waistband of a tight pair of trousers."

- wag, "wives and girlfriends." It was first used in 2002 to describe the female partners of members of the England soccer team. Now it denotes the glamorous and extravagant female partners of male celebrities.

"By our standards, wag is a real rocket of a word," Diamond said. "To go from being coined in 2002 to being included in 2011 is quite unusual."

- "heart" as a verb, a casual equivalent of "to love" that is represented with a symbol, as seen on millions of souvenirs proclaiming "I (heart) New York."

It may be the first English usage to come from T-shirts and bumper stickers. "At some point, people started to vocalize what the symbol was rather than what the symbol stood for," said Fiona McPherson, another editor. "People now talk about hearting things left, right and center."

Well, the latest update hearts the Road Runner cartoon character. The word "meep" - a short high-pitched sound - made the cut.

There are other new terms from the online world, including ego-surfing (the practice of searching for your own name on the Internet) and dot-bomb (a failed Internet company).

Diamond said the Internet has revolutionized the way lexicographers work, giving them a huge amount of new evidence of word use.

Which brings us to another new online-inspired word: TMI, "too much information."

#####


* = You Gotta Be Kidding Me! Although many users substitute an S for the K...


Gotta run! Meep, meep..................zoom!

---

The Diagram Prize?

Genghis Khan Dentists Beat Welders, Dog Trainer in Odd Title Book Contest


By James Pressley - Mar 24, 2011 8:00 PM ET





Genghis Khan-inspired dentists overcame welders, a Hollywood dog trainer and an Italian love child to win one of Britain’s quirkiest literary contests, the annual Diagram Prize for Oddest Book Title.

“Managing a Dental Practice: The Genghis Khan Way” received 58 percent of 5,032 votes cast by the public, according to the Bookseller trade magazine, which runs the contest.

The runner-up, with 24 percent, was “8th International Friction Stir Welding Symposium Proceedings,” a collection of papers presented at a gathering in Germany. The other four finalists garnered just 8 percent to 3 percent of the vote each, Bookseller editors said in an e-mailed statement.

The winning title comes from a how-to guide on “survival and empire-building in the dentistry business,” as its publisher, Radcliffe, calls it. The author, former dentist and practice owner Michael R. Young, describes the Mongol conqueror as “one of history’s most charismatic and dynamic leaders,” arguing that dentists can learn from his tenacity, intelligence gathering, and willingness to adopt new technologies.

The award’s administrator, Philip Stone, called the book timely, given Prime Minister David Cameron’s plans to restructure the U.K.’s state-run National Health Service.

“Some practice owners may well have to adopt a more warlord-ish approach to oral health care in order to survive,” Stone said in the statement.

Other finalists included “What Color Is Your Dog?” by Hollywood dog trainer Joel Silverman, with 8 percent of the vote, and romance novel “The Italian’s One-Night Love-Child” with 4 percent. “Myth of the Social Volcano,” a book on inequality in China, and “The Generosity of the Dead,” a study on organ procurement, got 3 percent each.
Claret Bottle

The contending titles were nominated by publishers, booksellers, authors, agents and librarians. This year’s winner was spotted by former biochemist and science writer Michael Gross, who will receive a bottle of “fairly passable” claret.

First awarded in 1978, the contest was conceived as a way to avoid boredom at the Frankfurt Book Fair, Bookseller editors say. The inaugural prize in 1978 went to “Proceedings of the Second International Workshop on Nude Mice.”

Since 2000, the prize has been put to a public vote, allowing “the unwashed masses to decide,” as a past Bookseller release put it. Since then, winning titles have included “Living With Crazy Buttocks” and “If You Want Closure in Your Relationship, Start With Your Legs.”

Eccentricity overcame vulgarity over the past two years, as the prize went to “Crocheting Adventures With Hyperbolic Planes” and “The 2009-2014 World Outlook for 60-Milligram Containers of Fromage Frais.”

The prize has become an institution, generating two bound collections of winning jackets, including “How to Avoid Huge Ships: And Other Implausibly Titled Books.”

Rules Grammar Change

From The Onion


WASHINGTON, DC—The U.S. Grammar Guild Monday announced that no more will traditional grammar rules English follow. Instead there will a new form of organizing sentences be.

U.S. Grammar Guild according to, the new structure loosely on an obscure 800-year-old, pre-medieval Anglo-Saxon syntax is based. The syntax primarily verbs, verb clauses and adjectives at the end of sentences placing involves. Results this often, to ears American, a sentence backward appearing.

"Operating under we are, one major rule," said Joyce Watters, president of the U.S. Grammar Guild. "Make English, want we, more archaic and dignified sounding to be, as if every word coming from the tongue of a centuries-old, mystical wizard, is."

Brief pause Watters made then a. "Know I, know I," said she. "Confusing sounds it, but every American used to it soon will be."

At a press conference recent greeted warmly the new measure by President Clinton was.

"No longer will we adhere to the dull, predictable structure of our traditional grammar system. This nation will now begin speaking, writing and listening to something fresh, exciting and different," said Clinton.

"Excuse me," added he pause long after a. "Meant I, the dull, predictable system our traditional grammar of adhere to no longer will we. Speaking, writing and listening to something fresh, exciting and different will this nation now begin."

This week beginning, America across, all dictionaries, thesauruses and any other books or objects with any sort of writing upon it or in it revised to fit the new syntax will be. Libraries assure people wish to that the transition promptly begin will, but that patient people should be, as so much to change there is.

"Feel good it will make people to know for all these changes that, librarians cold, crabby and as paranoid and overprotective of their books and periodicals as ever remain will," said Yvonne Richter, Director of the Library of Congress.

The enthusiasm of government officials despite, many Americans about the new plan upset are. "Why in the world did they do this?" a New Canaan, CT, insurance salesman, said Brent Pryce. "There's absolutely no reason. It's utterly pointless and will cause total chaos throughout the country, not to mention the fact that it will cost billions of dollars to implement. And what's this U.S. Grammar Guild, anyway? I've never heard of it."

When of this complaint informed, government officials that they could not the man's words understand said, because of the strange, unintelligible way of speaking he was.

10 Loanwords To Enjoy

A loanword is a word borrowed directly from another language to express something which has no accuarate word in English. This is a list of the ten most common loanwords.

10. Ennui

From French. Boredom of the soul.

9. Schadenfreude

From German. Taking joy in the suffering of others.

8. Wanderlust

From German. A strong longing or desire towards wandering.

7. Sehnsucht

From German. A self-destructive or addictive yearning for a time, place or thing that one can’t explain.

6. Saudade

From Portuguese. A feeling of longing for something that one is fond of, which is gone, but might return in a distant future, although deep down you know it probably wont.


5. Doppelganger

From German. The ghostly double of a living person.

4. Weltschmerz

From German. The pathological suffering felt by one who has realised that physical reality can never truly satisfy the demands of the mind. A melancholy sense of anguish about the nature of being.

3. Zeitgeist

From German. Something that captures the spirit of the era.

2. Ad Hominem Pronunciation: add om-in-im

Argument

From Latin. Replying to an argument or factual claim by attacking the person who made it, and not what he said.

1. Déjà vu

From French. The sense of having already seen or hear something being experienced for the first time.

Do You Hate Any Word?

Jonathan Swift hated the word bowels. Gloria Swanson, the faded silent movie star in Sunset Boulevard, hated the word glamor, while the character she played, Norma Desmond, hated comeback. Chicago newspaper columnist Mike Royko hated the word relationship ("the kind of sterile word used by lawyers and sociologists and other menaces"). Carson McCullers hated the words prose and poetry, though she wrote both.

British novelist V.S. Naipaul hates the word novel, documentary filmmaker Irving Saraf hates documentary, and news anchor Katie Couric hates the word panties ("a cheesy word for underpants"). Of course, many of us claim to hate the word hate.

People have various reasons for disliking (or downright loathing) certain words. It may be a buzzword that has worn out its welcome (such as paradigm or proactive). Or an overly familiar redundancy (added bonus, future plans), mispronunciation ("nuc-u-lar" for nuclear), or usage error ("between you and I").

Some of us have "zero tolerance" for elision (definally for definitely), malapropisms (mitigate for militate), blends (bromance), or verbing (to effort or incent). All of us have words that make us want to bang our heads on the desk.

I decided to collect my verbal peeves for a couple of months. These come from many sources - newspapers, web pages, sports broadcasts and even weather reports on the radio. There are many, many more where these came from!

Awesome, isn't it?



actual

agree to disagree

Aim high.

a.m. in the morning

And you are?

anomalous

anywho

Are you serious?

ASAP

as everyone knows

at the end of the day (It gets DARK!)

axe (instead of "ask")

back at you

basic fundamentals

beside her/himself

big society

body of work (as used by sportscasters)

bored of (instead of "bored with")

buy-in (management-speak for "agree")

card (used as a verb)

chillax

co-branded

cold slaw (instead of "cole slaw")

come on board (instead of "join")

completely forget

continue on (instead of simply "continue")

conversate (instead of "converse")

de-thaw

dialogue (used as a verb)

die for (as in "a dessert to die for")

Do the math! (I was an English major - YOU do the math!)

drug (instead of "dragged")

empower and empowered

epicenter (misused as a synonym for "center")

even (as in "I don't even know what to think")

exscape (instead of "escape")

face time

for all intensive purposes (instead of "for all intents and purposes")

free gift

FYI

ghetto (used as an adjective)

ginormous

gots (as in "I gots no)

ground-breaking

grow (as a transitive verb for anything in the business or financial world, as in "grow our audience")

have a dialogue

I heart (anything)

I said to her I said

I thought to myself

ice tea (instead of "iced tea")

iconic

if I would have (instead of "if I had")

if you will

illegal alien (instead of "illegal immigrant")

I'm good

in actual fact

in a sec

invite (as a noun instead of "invitation")

It goes without saying.

It's all good.

just so you know

kumbayah moment

last (instead of "most recent")

long story short

of a certain age

partner (as a verb)

personally (as in, "I personally . . .")

price point (instead of "price")

refudiate

seriously

should of and would of (instead of "should have" and "would have")

Shut up! (in response to an interesting bit of information)

small little

solution (in a business context)

so over it

speak to (an issue)

teachable moment

that being said

there you go (instead of "thank you")

the thing is is

throw (somebody) under the bus

a time when and a time where

try and (instead of "try to")

undoubtably (instead of "undoubtedly")

up (used as a verb, as in "You should up your efforts.")

veggies

verse (instead of versus)

vice a versa (instead of "vice versa")

wanna (instead of "want to")

wax paper (instead of "waxed paper")

way more (and any other use of "way" as an adverb)

We're done here.

Where are you at?

whether or not

white stuff (instead of "snow")

whole 'nuther

win-win for everyone

with regard to and with respect to (instead of "about")

with that being said

xerox (instead of "copy" or "photocopy")

You can't be serious!

you guys

A Post From "The Economist"

The Economist is a great blog. In this blog, named after the dictionary-maker Samuel Johnson, correspondents write about the effects that the use (and sometimes abuse) of language have on politics, society and culture around the world.

Recently, this item was posted. Do you care?


"On Language" switched off

Mar 1st 2011, 19:17 by R.L.G. | NEW YORK

FOR several decades the New York Times Magazine hosted America's most prominent bit of linguistic punditry: the "On Language" column, written by William Safire for most of those years. When Safire died several years ago, the column was taken up by Ben Zimmer, who took on the serious and the silly in language with wit and verve undergirded by a vast amount of knowledge. This blog has often found reason to rely on him. Now the column is no more; the magazine's new editor axed it, along with several other features. Every new editor has the right to a shake-up, but with no disrespect to those others, though, "On Language" was a long-lived and beloved institution, the only place in American journalism where language was given such prominence. Cutting it was a mistake.

Irate readers have started a Facebook page, and even as I was composing this post ("3 minutes ago", says Facebook), word from the group is that Hugo Lindgren, the magazine's new editor, might be wavering, saying that the column is "on hiatus", not dead. If you're going to miss the column, "like" the Facebook page or write to the magazine: magazine@nytimes.com.

Taking A Look At Paradox

A paradox is a figure of speech in which a statement appears to contradict itself.

Adjective: paradoxical.

Etymology:

From the Greek, "incredible, contrary to opinion or expectation"

Examples and Observations:

* "The swiftest traveler is he that goes afoot."

(Henry David Thoreau, Walden, 1854)


* "If you wish to preserve your secret, wrap it up in frankness."

(Alexander Smith, "On the Writing of Essays." Dreamthorp, 1854)


* "I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love."

(Anon)


* "War is peace."
"Freedom is slavery."
"Ignorance is strength."

(George Orwell, 1984)


* The Paradox of Catch-22 (My personal favorite!)

"There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that concern for one's own safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he didn't want to he was sane and had to."

(Joseph Heller, Catch-22, 1961)


* "Perhaps this is our strange and haunting paradox here in America--that we are fixed and certain only when we are in movement."

(Thomas Wolfe, You Can't Go Home Again, 1940)


* "Yes, I must confess. I often find myself more at home in these ancient volumes than I do in the hustle-bustle of the modern world. To me, paradoxically, the literature of the so-called 'dead tongues' holds more currency than this morning's newspaper. In these books, in these volumes, there is the accumulated wisdom of mankind, which succors me when the day is hard and the night lonely and long."

(Tom Hanks as Professor G.H. Dorr in The Ladykillers, 2004)


* Kahlil Gibran's Paradoxes

"At times [in The Prophet by Khalil Gibran], Almustafa’s vagueness is such that you can’t figure out what he means. If you look closely, though, you will see that much of the time he is saying something specific; namely, that everything is everything else. Freedom is slavery; waking is dreaming; belief is doubt; joy is pain; death is life. So, whatever you’re doing, you needn’t worry, because you’re also doing the opposite. Such paradoxes . . . now became his favorite literary device. They appeal not only by their seeming correction of conventional wisdom but also by their hypnotic power, their negation of rational processes."

(Joan Acocella, "Prophet Motive." The New Yorker, Jan. 7, 2008)


* "Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again."

(C.S. Lewis to his godchild, Lucy Barfield, to whom he dedicated The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe)


* Love's Paradox

"You will notice that what we are aiming at when we fall in love is a very strange paradox. The paradox consists of the fact that, when we fall in love, we are seeking to re-find all or some of the people to whom we were attached as children. On the other hand, we ask our beloved to correct all of the wrongs that these early parents or siblings inflicted upon us. So that love contains in it the contradiction: the attempt to return to the past and the attempt to undo the past."

(Martin Bergmann as Professor Levy in Crimes and Misdemeanors, 1989)

Did You Remember?

Yesterday Was National Grammar Day

Did you march forth?


Me, Myself, and I


A recent story on the local news show ended with the interviewee saying, "It was good for the neighborhood and myself."

I was glad that things had worked out for the community, but, being as concerned as I am with grammar, I couldn’t help thinking, Why is that grammar error becoming more common?

The error of which I speak, of course, is the incorrect use of the pronoun myself. The –self pronouns are called either reflexive or intensive depending on their function in a sentence. What’s important here, though, is that in either case, myself shouldn’t be used unless there’s an I previously in the same sentence.

* I prepared it myself.
* I saw myself in the mirror.
* I consider myself fortunate.
* I, myself, haven’t had that problem, but I know someone who has.
* They asked whether I, myself, had ever encountered that particular problem.

Don’t use –self pronouns when a nominative or objective pronoun is in order.

* It was good for the neighborhood and me (not myself).
* He gave the book to him and me (not myself).
* She and I (not myself) are going to the opera.

It might be easier to determine the correct pronoun if you separate each pronoun into its own sentence. For example:

* He gave the book to him. He gave the book to (I, me, or myself). It’s clear that the correct pronoun is me, so the sentence is He gave the book to him and me.

* She is going to the opera. (I, me, myself) am going to the opera. The correct pronoun is, of course, I, so the correct sentence is She and I are going to the opera.

It’s interesting to note that there have been reputable writers who have used the reflexive pronouns incorrectly (as is true with all grammar errors), so if you, yourself, are an offender, you’re in good company.

*****

I also found the following on The Economist -

Language
Johnson
National Grammar Day
What is grammar anyway?

Mar 4th 2011, 18:12 by J.P.

GRAMMAR is a strange and wonderful thing. It is also fuzzy. At least the word "grammar" is. So fuzzy, in fact, that linguists rarely invoke it, other than in the broad meaning of "language". They tend instead to plump for the narrower terms. And so morphology deals with the bits of words, like affixes and roots, that contribute to meaning; syntax looks at how morphemes are arranged in utterances; semantics hones in on meaning, be it of single words or more elaborate linguistic constructs; finally, pragmatics tries to understand how context in which words appear affects their interpretation. (Some linguists—a notoriously fractious bunch—will no doubt take exception to this taxonomy.)

So, is there anything sensible to be said about grammar? Theorists' finicky distinctions aside, few would object that it is a set of rules that govern the way bits of speech come together to become meaningful utterances. That, of course, raises the question of who sets these rules. Here the bickering begins. Some institutions, notably the French Academy, seem to think they do. Then there are the linguists. Mercifully, they rarely claim to be rule setters. But they do often give the impression of believing that they know them better than "ordinary" speakers.

True, language scholars pore over pages of books, peruse transcripts, listen to endless reels of recorded speech. If all goes to plan, they will come up with a set of rules that predicts how non-linguists actually speak. But it is, at best, a belated snapshot. Should enough people run afoul of these theoretical findings, they do not deserve to have their wrists slapped—with a rule or anything else. Rather, it means that the linguists described a grammar as it once was, not as it now is.

Both académiciens and grammarians may, then, have got things the wrong way round. Grammar is subject to majority rule, not autocratic decree. If a speaker does not abide by the same rules as most others, he is, by definition, not speaking the same language. It does not matter one bit that he happens to be a member of an academy or a prominent linguist; minorities are excluded. (More precisely, no two people, let alone all the members of a community, follow the exact same set of grammatical rules; the key is a big enough overlap.)

National Grammar Day can, therefore, be viewed as celebrating consensus and inveighing against tyranny (other than the tyranny of the majority that is language). Now, here is something everyone, not just language buffs, can cheer.

A Sad Day

It was a sad day. My pet bookworm, Tome, has gone to the Great Library In The Sky.

I had given him a new book to get into and digest. He smiled as he sat down at the table of contents and dug in. About 30 minutes later he looked very ill. I called for help and hoped for the best. But it was too late. The doctor removed the appendix but Tome had passed.

I sat down and tried to write his obituary. As I wrote, a drop of ink fell to the paper. Another wave of sadness washed over me. The poor drop sat there, all alone. He looked up and realized that his parents were still in the pen and he had no idea how long the sentence was.

:(