Link Banana

I debated for a while whether to Twitter or post this new-to-me neologism (discovered here), I obviously chose the latter.

The etymology of this is a little vexing; my guess is that it grew out of the belief that the people who make or serve dogfood should try it before giving it to canines. Ah, Wikipedia confirms.

I can’t count the number of times I’ve wondered what the difference was. By way of analogy:

When you talk about how much you like a tune, you don’t say: “That’s a great MP3”; you say: “That’s a great song”. An MP3 is the delivery mechanism, not the creative work, just as a font is the delivery mechanism, and a typeface is the creative work.

(via Cameron.io)

Though this quiz is a tad on the detail-oriented side, I did enjoy it. I’m guessing you can do better than 23, but you’ll need to be able to tell an Estonian accents from a Lithuanian. Or a Canadian from an American.

(via Passport)

I wasn’t aware of the massive unpopularity of semicolons among male literary types; apparently only the effete are supposed to use them.

Ben McIntyre, writing in the Times of London a couple of months later, added to the collection of semicolon snubbers: Kurt Vonnegut called the marks “transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing.” Hemingway and Chandler and Stephen King, said McIntyre, “wouldn’t be seen dead in a ditch with a semi-colon (though Truman Capote might). Real men, goes the unwritten rule of American punctuation, don’t use semi-colons.”

From Tierra del Fuego’s Yaghan language, the definition of this “world’s most succinct word”:

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. This could perhaps be translated more succinctly as “eye-contact implying ‘after you…’”. A more literal approximation is “ending up mutually at a loss as to what to do about each other”.

(via kottke)

Tyler Cowen points to another astounding fact from this book:

Behavioral scientist Ellen Langer and her colleagues decided to put the persuasive power of this word to the test.  In one study, Langer arranged for a stranger to approach someone waiting in line to use a photocopier and simply ask, “Excuse me, I have five pages.  May I use the Xerox machine?”  Faced with the direct request to cut ahead in this line, 60 percent of the people were willing to agree to allow the stranger to go ahead of them.  However, when the stranger made the request with a reason (“May I use the Xerox machine, because I’m in a rush?”), almost everyone (94 percent) complied…

Here’s where the study gets really interesting…This time, the stranger also used the word because but followed it with a completely meaningless reason.  Specifically, the stranger said “May I use the Xerox machine, because I have to make copies?”

The rate of compliance was 93 percent.

My best attempt to write the proper pronunciation.

(via Snarkmarket)

Why refrain from calling terrorists jihadis?

First, to call a terrorist a “jihadist” or “jihadi” effectively puts any campaign against terrorism into the framework of an existential battle between the West and Islam. This feeds into the worldview propagated by Al Qaeda. It also serves to isolate the tens of millions of Muslims who condemn the violence that has been perpetrated in the name of Islam.

Second, these words locate the ideological battle exactly where the extremists want it to be. The terms of discussion are no longer about the murder of innocents in terrorist acts; they are about theology.

Third, when American leaders use this language it sends a confusing message to the Muslim world, showing ignorance on basic issues and possibly even raising doubts about American motives. Why, after all, would we call our enemy a “holy warrior”?

Joseph Bottum’s neologism for words with a ” kind of poetic, extralogical accuracy.” Some exploration:

In a logical sense, of course, some words are literally true or false when applied to themselves. Words about words, typically: Noun is a noun, though verb is not a verb. Polysyllabic is self-true, and monosyllabic is not. And this logical notion of autology can be extended. If short seems a short word, true of itself, then the shorter long must be false of itself.

But what about jab or fluffy or sneer, each of them true in a way that goes beyond logic? Verbose has always struck me as a strangely verbose word. Peppy has that perky, energetic, spry sound it needs. And was there ever a more supercilious word than supercilious? Or one more lethargic than lethargic?

(via Coudal)

Another reason to love Wikipedia.

Speaking of language, Portugal has given in and accepted Brazilian spellings of words. (Also, congratulations to the BBC employee that came up with the title: “Reform spells change for Portugal.” Get it?)

The agreement standardises numerous spellings and adds three letters - k, w and y - to the alphabet.

A large majority of lawmakers backed government proposals to phase in the changes during the next six years.

(via Passport)

Not terribly surprising, but still interesting:

“In this sense, we may regard dyslexia in Chinese and English as two different brain disorders,” Dr. Tan said, “because completely different brain regions are disrupted. It’s very likely that a person who is dyslexic in Chinese would not be dyslexic in English.”

(via brijit, though I should note that this was on clusterflock a month ago)

We’ve all heard this at least once in the last decade, but Rabih Alameddine’s exploratation of Arabic words in English deserve a hearing. The bit most likely to be controversial:

We never say the French pray to Dieu, or Mexicans pray to Dios. Having Allah be different from God implies that Muslims pray to a special deity. It classifies Muslims as the Other. Separating Allah from God, we only see a vengeful, alarming deity, one responsible for those frightful fatwas and ghastly jihads — rarely the compassionate God. The opening line of every chapter in the Koran is “Bi Ism Allah, Al Rahman, Al Rahim”: In the name of God, the Gracious, the Merciful. In the name of Allah. One and the same. […]

In these troubled times, creating more differences, further parsing so to speak, is troubling, even dangerous. I suggest we either not use the word Allah or, better yet, use it in a non-Muslim context.

Otherwise, the terrorists win.

Grant Barrett’s column about the practice is a worth a look. I do this one all the time:

However, a lot of people are now calling the regular Internet the Internets, plural, with an ‘s’ at the end. 

He also mentions “liberry” for “library,” a long time personal favorite.

(via kottke, who’s allowing comments on this one)

David Bromwich’s piece in the New York Review of Books feels like the extension of the argument made by Ed Ruggerio about My Lai. His — decidedly anti-Bush — conclusion:

Yet nothing so much as language supplies our memory of things that came before today; and, to an astounding degree, the Bush and Cheney administration has succeeded in persuading the most powerful and (at one time) the best-informed country in the world that history began on September 12, 2001. The effect has been to tranquilize our self-doubts and externalize all the evils we dare to think of. In this sense, the changes of usage and the corruptions of sense that have followed the global war on terrorism are inseparable from the destructive acts of that war.

Serge Schmemann, after an entertaining riff on mispronunciations, explains how to say the name of the new Russian President in a way even I can understand.

With time, we will learn to cope with Medvedev. We overcame Khrushchev, adopted Rostropovich and cheer hockey players, ballerinas and tennis stars. Medvedev is as elemental as “medved,” Russian for bear. So: Launch with “med” as in “he’s off his med”; put the accent on the “VEH” as in “venomous,” and trail off with a lazy “dev” with just a hint of “z” and “i”: “dziev.” Altogether now: “Med-VEH-dziev.” Whatever.

Though I think Mr. Hitchen’s remarks aren’t much truer today than they are at any time during any campaign, I am tempted to agree with this point:

It is cliché, not plagiarism, that is the problem with our stilted, room-temperature political discourse. It used to be that thinking people would say, with at least a shred of pride, that their own convictions would not shrink to fit on a label or on a bumper sticker. But now it seems that the more vapid and vacuous the logo, the more charm (or should that be “charisma”?) it exerts.

This is impressive. Though I’m sure linguists and others will quible that some of her accents may be a little off, it’s rather mesmerizing to see a single person do so many accents end to end.

(via Neatorama, whose comments answer your burning question about where Ms. Walker is actually from)

I just found this too hilarious not to share. This AP story’s groundbreaking headline — “Clinton says Obama relies on ‘words’” — made me stop, think of the title of this post, and then laugh more than I did all day. Other options:

• Clinton relies on ‘words’ to say that Obama relies on ‘words’
• BREAKING NEWS: John McCain also relies on ‘words’
• Clinton says all communication relies on ‘words’
• The AP relies on ‘words’ to share Clinton’s ‘words’ condemning Obama’s ‘words’

PS: I would not be surprised to learn that you don’t think this is funny. I had to share it anyway.