Welcome to this week's Language Blog Roundup, in which we bring you the highlights from our favorite language blogs and the latest in word news and culture.
At Johnson, Robert Lane Greene, inspired by Ben Yagoda's post on the historical present, discussed tenses in jokes of different languages. At Lingua Franca, Allan Metcalf time traveled through the English language, and Anne Curzan considered the slash (not Slash) as slang.
Fritinancy's words of the week were swatting, "calling 9-1-1 and faking an emergency that draws a response from law enforcement," and Zajonc effect, "the tendency of people, after repeated exposure to an unfamiliar thing, to reverse their initial feelings of dislike or distaste and like the thing more over time."
Erin McKean's verbacious choices included white money, "money that is legitimately earned, and fully reported for tax purposes"; lob, a long bob; and smartpig, a robotic device which detects flaws in oil pipelines. WordSpy noted nanofacture, "to manufacture something at the molecular level using nanotechnology," and organ recital, "a long-winded recitation of one's ailments."
Angela Tung's essays on language and culture have appeared at Mental Floss, Quartz, Salon, The Week, The Weeklings, and Wordnik. Her personal essays have appeared at The Frisky, The Huffington Post, and elsewhere.
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