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The week in words
From horse idioms to ATMs that speak Cockney rhyming slang, the highlights from our favorite language blogs and the latest in word news and culture
Earlier in the week, the Oxford Dictionaries blog celebrated Presidents' Day by comparing the language of President Obama's inaugural address to that of Abraham Lincoln's time. Slate showed us the president's handwritten edits of his speech, and The Atlantic discussed dialect and when presidents say "y'all."
Join more than 350,000 subscribers and keep yourself informed with a selection of The Week’s most interesting, enlightening and entertaining stories - plus daily puzzles.
Join more than 350,000 subscribers and keep yourself informed with a selection of The Week’s most interesting, enlightening and entertaining stories - plus daily puzzles.
Stan Carey looked at peppercorn rent and the controversy that has arisen in the UK when "a Teesside school principal asked parents to 'correct' their children's informal speech – phrases such as it's nowt (it's nothing), I seen (I saw, I have seen), and gizit ere (give us it here = give it to me)." The Dialect Blog had a thing or two to say about it too. In other dialect news, ATMs in East London now speak Cockney rhyming slang.
Making sense of the week's political news, delivered every Wednesday
Fritinancy explored the recent proliferation of Xs and Os and the fictional drug brand name, Ablixa. In words of the week, her selections were dudeoir, male boudoir photography, and doxing, "the practice of investigating and revealing a target subject's personally identifiable information, such as home address, workplace information and credit card numbers, without consent."
Erin McKeannotedjammer, a skater on a roller derby team who "tries to lap the other team's skaters"; jughandle, a type of traffic-control feature; anddecalcomania, in art, "two wet surfaces pressed together and then pulled apart."
The Word Spyspotted second screening, "using a mobile device to monitor and post social media comments about what you are watching on TV or at the movies," and sick-lit, "a literary genre that features individuals dealing with fatal or devastating diseases."
Once upon a time there was a young woman called Belle who fell in love with a library. Sure, there was a guy and a rose and a particularly talkative tea set, but mostly there were books. And they all lived happily ever after.
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.
