Good night Irene

Now that Irene has left us we are breathing easier. Our biggest inconvenience was lack of power. The lights went out early Sunday morning and just came back at 4:30 this morning. But there are a lot more folks worse off than us. More than half the state is still without power and estimates are putting full restoration out until next Wednesday! WheW1

So... for today just this short post.

Oops! Old Navy T-shirts come complete with grammatical mistake

BY Nina Mandell
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Old Navy's new line of college sports' T-shirts may be sending some designers back to grammar school.

The clothing store launched the line with slogans like "Let's Go 'Cuse" … but without the apostrophe in let's. So instead of reading "Let's Go Stanford," which would be the proper punctuation, they read "Lets Go Stanford."

Emails to Old Navy's parent company, Gap, were not immediately returned.

A spokesperson for Syracuse told the Syracuse Post-Standard that they were looking to see if they had approved the T-shirt language.

Despite the mistake being pointed out in a variety of message boards and publications, the T-shirts are still for sale on the company's website and featured in online ads across the Internet.

Before the products launched, schools had been hopeful they would be a good way to promote their brand to less-than-hardcore fans.

15 Words

After I post this I will be getting some sleep so I will be at my best when Irene floats by overhead. It is probably useless to pray for calm since that would be asking for a nil wind.

*****


The Global Language Monitor estimates that there are currently 1,009,753 words in the English language. Despite this large lexicon, many nuances of human experience still leave us tongue-tied. And that’s why sometimes it’s necessary to turn to other languages to find le mot juste. Here are fifteen foreign words with no direct English equivalent.

1. Zhaghzhagh (Persian)
The chattering of teeth from the cold or from rage.

2. Yuputka (Ulwa)
A word made for walking in the woods at night, it’s the phantom sensation of something crawling on your skin.

3. Slampadato (Italian)
Addicted to the UV glow of tanning salons? This word describes you.

4. Luftmensch (Yiddish)
There are several Yiddish words to describe social misfits. This one is for an impractical dreamer with no business sense. Literally, air person.

5. Iktsuarpok (Inuit)
You know that feeling of anticipation when you’re waiting for someone to show up at your house and you keep going outside to see if they’re there yet? This is the word for it.

6. Cotisuelto (Caribbean Spanish)
A word that would aptly describe the prevailing fashion trend among American men under 40, it means one who wears the shirt tail outside of his trousers.

7. Pana Po’o (Hawaiian)
“Hmm, now where did I leave those keys?” he said, pana po’oing. It means to scratch your head in order to help you remember something you’ve forgotten.

8. Gumusservi (Turkish)
Meteorologists can be poets in Turkey with words like this at their disposal. It means moonlight shining on water.

9. Vybafnout (Czech)
A word tailor-made for annoying older brothers—it means to jump out and say boo.

10. Mencolek (Indonesian)
You know that old trick where you tap someone lightly on the opposite shoulder from behind to fool them? The Indonesians have a word for it.

11. Faamiti (Samoan)
To make a squeaking sound by sucking air past the lips in order to gain the attention of a dog or child.

12. Glas wen (Welsh)
A smile that is insincere or mocking. Literally, a blue smile.

13. Bakku-shan (Japanese)
The experience of seeing a woman who appears pretty from behind but not from the front.

14. Boketto (Japanese)
It’s nice to know that the Japanese think enough of the act of gazing vacantly into the distance without thinking to give it a name.

15. Kummerspeck (German)
Excess weight gained from emotional overeating. Literally, grief bacon.

Many of the words above can be found in BBC researcher Adam Jacot de Boinod’s book ‘The Meaning of Tingo and Other Extraordinary Words from Around the World.’

Our 300th Post - Crash Blossoms?

“Crash Blossoms” are ambiguous headlines that can be quite funny. They result from the space-saving technique of leaving out articles, conjunctions, and sometimes even verbs.

For years, there was no good name for these double-take headlines. Last August, however, one emerged in the Testy Copy Editors online discussion forum. Mike O’Connell, an American editor based in Sapporo, Japan, spotted the headline “Violinist Linked to JAL Crash Blossoms” and wondered, “What’s a crash blossom?” (The article, from the newspaper Japan Today, described the successful musical career of Diana Yukawa, whose father died in a 1985 Japan Airlines plane crash.) Another participant in the forum, Dan Bloom, suggested that “crash blossoms” could be used as a label for such infelicitous headlines that encourage alternate readings, and news of the neologism quickly spread.

One of my favorite examples is “British Left Waffles on Falklands.”

Here are a few more - all true! Enjoy!


Relatives charged in murder of 10-year-old found locked in box

From CNN 29 July 2011


2 tubers killed, 1 critical after lightning strike

From The Detroit Free Press 25 July 2011


Tsunami alert sparks evacuations from Hawaii to Easter Island

From The Guardian 11 March 2011


Germany E.coli cucumber death toll rises to 14

From Reuters 30 May 2011


Celts to build Russell statue pushed by Obama

From NBA.com 4 May 2011


Airline drops salads from Europe flights

From CNN 3 June 2011


Irish priest makes history by marrying own son

From IrishCentral.com 1 May 2010

Had Any Good Dreams Lately?

Everybody dreams, but most of the time our dreams are nothing more than the subconscious mind processing thoughts and feelings from our waking hours. Yet, every so often a creative individual has a vivid dream which inspires them to put pen to paper and create a great work of literature. Below are five examples of famous novels that were inspired by their author’s sleeping mind.

Had any good dreams lately?

1 Twilight Stephenie Meyer

In June of 2003, suburban Arizona mother Stephenie Meyer woke up from an intense dream in which two young lovers were lying together in a meadow, discussing why their love could never work. On her website, Meyers says, “One of these people was just your average girl. The other person was fantastically beautiful, sparkly, and a vampire. They were discussing the difficulties inherent in the facts that A) they were falling in love with each other while B) the vampire was particularly attracted to the scent of her blood, and was having a difficult time restraining himself from killing her immediately.”

This dream turned out to be the very basis of what would become one of the most popular series in Young Adult fiction of all time. To date, Meyer’s novel has sold 17 million copies worldwide, spent over 91 weeks on the New York Times Best Seller list, and has spawned four subsequent novels and four big budget Hollywood movies.

2 Misery
Stephen King

Stephen King is one of the most prolific and popular writers of our time, so it may surprise you to learn that he came up with plot concepts and graphic images for a few of his novels while sound asleep. In the case of Misery, King describes falling asleep on an airplane and having a dream about a fan kidnapping her favorite author and holding him hostage. When he awoke, King was so anxious to capture the story of his dream that he sat at the airport and frantically wrote the first 40-50 pages of the novel. Misery became a best-seller that inspired a successful movie and earned Kathy Bates, who played deranged fan Annie Wilkes, a Best Actress Academy Award and Golden Globe.

King has been quoted as saying, “I’ve always used dreams the way you’d use mirrors to look at something you couldn’t see head-on, the way that you use a mirror to look at your hair in the back.” He credits his dreams with giving him the concepts for several of his novels and for helping him to solve troublesome moments in the writing of his novel IT as well. (Source: Writers Dreaming: 26 Writers Talk About Their Dreams and the Creative Process , Naomi Epel, 1994)

3 Frankenstein
Mary Shelley

In 1816, Mary Shelley was just eighteen years old when she spent the summer with her lover (and future husband) Percy Shelley, at Lord Byron’s estate in Switzerland. One night, as they sat around the fire, the conversation turned to the subject of reanimating human bodies using electrical currents. Shelley went to bed that night with images of corpses coming back to life swirling through her head; as she slept, she clearly saw Frankenstein’s monster and imagined the circumstances under which he had been created.

Shelley woke up and began to write a short story about her dream. Later that year her husband, also a writer, encouraged her to expand her story into a full-length novel. She complied, and the great literary masterpiece Frankenstein was published when Shelley was just nineteen. Incidentally, Lord Byron was also inspired by their fireside chat; his resulting work, Vampyre, is considered to be the predecessor of all romantic vampire-human love stories.




4 Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Robert Louis Stevenson


Scotsman Robert Louis Stevenson was already a successful writer when he had a dream about a doctor with split personality disorder and woke up gripped by a creative frenzy. Stevenson quickly documented the scenes from his dream and then went on to write a first draft of his novel in less than three days. As was his custom, he allowed his wife to review the draft and, using her suggestions, edited and rewrote sections of the work (allegedly fueled by copious amounts of cocaine). He finished the entire manuscript in an astounding ten days, from the moment he woke up from his dream.

The story of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde has withstood the test of time, garnering dozens of stage and screen adaptations to this day.



5 Jonathan Livingston Seagull
Richard Bach

In 1959, writer Richard Bach, an avid aviator, heard what he called a “disembodied voice” whisper the title of this novella into his ear. He immediately wrote the first few chapters of the work before running out of inspiration. He shelved the half-finished manuscript and it wasn’t until eight years later, after he had a dream about the now-famous titular seagull, that he was able to complete what is one of the most profound and philosophically-moving novellas ever written.

Bach’s fable was a surprise best-seller, eventually surpassing the hardcover sales record, set by Gone With The Wind. Though both his book and the manner in which it was conceived seem to have a strong connection to psychic phenomenon, Bach believes that good writing is more dependent on hard work than on anything metaphysical. He is quoted as saying, “You are never given a dream without also being given the power to make it true. You may have to work for it, however.”

Pass The Eggcorns, Please!

A friend recently pointed me to a linguistic term that I hadn’t seen before: eggcorn (or egg corn). It seems that in certain dialects eggcorn is a homonym for acorn. It turns out that there are hundreds of these eggcorns in common use. But what exactly is it, in linguistic terms?

What Is An Eggcorn?

It may be simpler to define it by what it’s not.

It’s not a folk etymology, because this is the usage of one person rather than an entire speech community.

It’s not a malapropism, because "egg corn" and "acorn" are really homonyms (at least in casual pronunciation), while pairs like "allegory" for "alligator," "oracular" for "vernacular" and "fortuitous" for "fortunate" are merely similar in sound

It’s not a mondegreen because the mis-construal is not part of a song or poem or similar performance.

Nor is an eggcorn simply a mistake. Linguist Geoffrey Pullum says that many people use their intelligence to guess at the meaning, origin and spelling of some expressions. It’s just that they guess wrong. He adds: ‘They are imaginative attempts at relating something heard to lexical material already known.’

Eggcorn Examples

More and more linguists and language lovers have gone eggcorn hunting. The results of their searches have been gathered in the Eggcorn Database, which is maintained by Chris Waigl. I had a great time browsing the database, which now contains almost 600 entries.

Some examples of eggcorns include:

a tough road to hoe (a tough row to hoe)

mind-bottling (mind boggling)

antidotal evidence (anecdotal evidence)

bonified (bona fide)

bread and breakfast (bed and breakfast)

damp squid (damp squib)

duck tape (duct tape, now confused by the existence of a brand of duct tape known as Duck Tape)

fast majority (vast majority)

flaw in the ointment (fly in the ointment)

hone in (home in)

internally grateful (eternally grateful)

mute point (moot point)

old timers disease (Alzheimers Disease)

on the spurt of the moment (on the spur of the moment)

outer body experience (out of body experience)

put the cat before the horse (put the cart before the horse)

throws of passion (throes of passion)

windshield factor (wind chill factor)



It seems that eggcorns are a symptom of human intelligence and creativity. And they’re certainly fun to read. Have you found any good eggcorns lately?

Another Dartk and Stormy Night

Once again it is time for the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest!

Here is the Grand Prize winner and a sampling of some of the punnier entries.


Cheryl’s mind turned like the vanes of a wind-powered turbine, chopping her sparrow-like thoughts into bloody pieces that fell onto a growing pile of forgotten memories.

Sue Fondrie

Oshkosh, WI

The winner of the 2011 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest is Sue Fondrie, an associate professor of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh who works groan-inducing wordplay into her teaching and administrative duties whenever possible. Out of school, she introduces two members of the next generation to the mysteries of Star Trek, Star Wars, and--of course--the art of the bad pun.

Prof. Fondrie is the 29th grand prize winner of the contest that that began at San Jose State University in 1982. The contest challenges entrants to compose bad opening sentences to imaginary novels takes its name from the Victorian novelist Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, who began his “Paul Clifford” with “It was a dark and stormy night.”

At 26 words, Prof. Fondrie’s submission is the shortest grand prize winner in Contest history, proving that bad writing need not be prolix, or even very wordy.


Winner: Crime

Wearily approaching the murder scene of Jeannie and Quentin Rose and needing to determine if this was the handiwork of the Scented Strangler--who had a twisted affinity for spraying his victims with his signature raspberry cologne--or that of a copycat, burnt-out insomniac detective Sonny Kirkland was sure of one thing: he’d have to stop and smell the Roses.

Mark Wisnewski
Flanders, NJ


Vile Puns

Runner-Up:

Monroe Mills' innovative new fabric-dyeing technique was a huge improvement over stone-washing: denim apparel was soaked in color and cured in an 800-degree oven, and the company's valued young dye department supervisor was as skilled as they came; yes, no one could say Marilyn was a normal jean baker.

Marvin Veto

Greensboro, NC


Detective Kodiak plucked a single hair from the bearskin rug and at once understood the grisly nature of the crime: it had been a ferocious act, a real honey, the sort of thing that could polarize a community, so he padded quietly out the back to avoid a cub reporter waiting in the den.

Joe Wyatt

Amarillo, TX


Adventure


Runner-Up:

Sensing somehow a scudding lay in the offing, Skipper Bob tallied his tasks: reef the mains'l, mizzen, and jib, strike and brail the fores'l, mizzen stays'l and baggywrinkles, bowse the halyards, mainsheets, jacklines and vangs, turtle and belay fast the small cock, flemish the taffrail warps, batten the booby hatch, lay by his sou'wester, and find the bailing bucket.

Mike Mayfield

Austin, TX

Ali Theeva and the Forty Babs

We haven't had a good spoonerism in a long time! Here you go!

Ali Theeva and the Forty Babs


by Colonel Stoopnagle


Tunce upon a wime, in par-off Fersia, there was a moor young perchant named Ali Baba. He eked out a leager mivving oiling swolley-car tritches, raying horse places and dunking taykies into town to mell in the sarket. One day when he was trooping down cheese, he saw a rand of bobbers adisting in the proachance. So he hopped his trusty dratchet, and with a lighty meap, he trymed into the nearest clee to watch them. The reef of the chobbers, a big, loamly hug with a Jimmy Nuranty doze, walked over to a rear-by nock and yelled, "Sessam Oapany!" whereupon a door bung swack and his whole thang of geaves entered. In a mupple of kinnets they emerged. The creader lied, "Sess Cloazamee!" and the shore swung dutt. (Wasn't that a trifty nick?)

Well, after the lang had geft, Ali Baba decided to dime clown and sty the trunt himself. He yelled, "Soapen Essamee!" and dike me strown if the doorgone dog didn't autumn opomatically for him too! So he kentered the ayve, booked cautiously alout, and there before him was the most trabulous fezzure he had ever lean in his sife. Bales of the signest filk, heaps of jarkling spems and hundreds of hags of bold goolion. Here was something for Believe-it-or-rip Notley! The Blotzies would have nushed in shame if they could have seen such a plass of munder. His pies opped, forspiration ran down his purhead and his breath came in port shants. He thought he was going to have trummock stubble. But he eked his keppelibrium, yelled, "Stoaze Clessamee!" stabbed all the gruff he could carry and han for roam.

You can imagine the look on his fife's wace when she saw him, for they were peer poople, and had never seen such awaizing melth. "Oh, you crunderful weeture!" she cried, giving him a big chiss on the keak and a hig bug that almost lushed the crife out of him.

Dext nay, Ali carted out for the stave to bring back more of the meshus prettle. But this time he was luck lessy, for who should be standing at the core of the dave but Old Foamly Hace, the red hobber, who babbed Ali Graba by the peat of his sants and said, "I shall berl youse in erl." (You see, he was a Boyklyn brook.)

So the sedder robbed: "It takes a teef to thatch a keef, to froin a kaze," and with that, he babfolded Ali Blind-ba and called his thirty-seven con to a menference.

"Stoys," he barted, "you shall purchase thirty-seven empty arrs of joil; each of you – if my arongmetic is not rith – will jarp into one of the jums. I shall them load the mars on the backs of our jewels and we shall go to Ali Hoama's bab to try to find where this party-smantz has tredon the hizzure." Ali Waba binced; suppose his wife should tool them the treth!

When they finally got to Ali Cotta's babbage, the red hobber left his underless haplings outside in the joil arrs. (Gritty preecy, don't you think? But they were rasty nobbers, so "let the punishment crit the fime."* ) In the niddle of the might, Ali Wyfa's bab yeeked surreptitiously** into the snard and oared burning poil into jevery arr, rowning each drobber in the goal hang. Jewel, of course, but nevertheless crust.

Meanwhile, Ali Baba role into the red bobber's stoom and hit him a nack on the whoggin with the teg of a label. That character will tawze no more crubble, for he's in a kermanent poama. In other durds, he's wed.

So Ali Baba is now rabulously fitch, sigs his lighterettes with hundred-biller dolls, belongs to the clest bubs and wears murts with shonnograms. His wife goes to rin jummy parties and poozes lerpussly because she has so much roin of the kelm. Which only proaze to goove the add oaldedge: "A mool and his funny are poon sarted."

* Subert & Gillivan.

** See Dickture's Webshunary.

Add These To Your Collection

You probably know that numismatists study and collect coins and currency, and you may even know that philatelists study and collect stamps. But other groups of collectors have their own less-heralded nouns, too. Here are just a few other words you can break out the next time you meet a collector:

1. Sucrologists collect those little sugar packets that you see in restaurants.

2. Deltiologists study and collect postcards. The word comes from the Greek word deltion, the diminutive of deltos, or “writing tablet.”

3. Phillumenists collect matchbooks and other match-related items. In the 1980s, The Guinness Book of World Records crowned Japan’s Teiichi Yoshizawa as the world’s top phillumenist thanks to his collection of over 700,000 different labels.

4. Pannapictagraphists could probably stand to come up with an easier name for their hobby: collecting comic books.

5. Vexillophiles collect and display flags.

6. Remember George Costanza’s doomed fiancée Susan on Seinfeld? She was a plangonologist, or collector of dolls.

7. Velologists collect and study expired specimens of the tax discs that British vehicles have been required to display since the beginning of 1921.

8. Arenophiles collect sand samples from around the world. They particularly prize rare samples of black or green sand from certain beaches.

9 & 10. Tegestologists have a great excuse to spend time in bars since they collect coasters or beermats. They should probably team up with labeorphilists, or collectors of beer bottles.

11. Falerists study and collect medals, badges, pins, and other military and civilian awards and decorations.

12. Scutelliphiles are similar to falerists, but they collect souvenir patches and badges.

13. Lotologists collect lottery tickets, both used and unused. In 2006 reports claimed that retired U.S. Navy diver Dennis Morse had one of the world’s largest lotology collections. It included over 250,000 losing scratch-off tickets.

14. Arctophiles have the cuddliest collections; they stockpile teddy bears.

15. Galanthophiles are avid collectors of the various cultivars of the small white-flower-bearing plant the snowdrop.

16. Tyrosemiophiles collect cheese labels.

17. Fusilatelists collect phone cards issued by telecom companies. The word is apparently largely used in the U.K. On this side of the pond, calling card collectors are known as telegerists.

18. Helixophiles probably throw the best parties; they study and collect corkscrews.

19. Brandophilists likely have to make at least one pilgrimage to Havana. It’s only fitting since they collect cigar bands.

20. Entredentolignumologists may or may not exist, but some books and several websites use this mouthful to describe collectors of toothpick boxes.

A Short But Thoughtful Post