TGIF. In grammar, language and usage news this fortnight: the uber-ubiquity of uber; what little words reveal about us; how economic development is driving the extinction of languages; and who was it that made up the word supercalafragilisticexpialidocious?
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In what some might call an ironic twist of fate, the ride-sharing company Uber faces a ban on one of its services in the country from which the company gets its name: Germany. Linguist Ben Zimmer talks in the Wall Street Journal about the growing ubiquity of uber: it’s uber all of us — and not just in the word’s native land.
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Our use of little words can reveal hidden interests. James Pennebaker, a psychologist interested in the secret life of pronouns, has recorded, transcribed and analyzed conversations that took place between people on speed dates. “We can predict by analyzing their language, who will go on a date — who will match — at rates better than the people themselves,” he says. And he found that “when the language style of two people matched, when they used pronouns, prepositions, articles and so forth in similar ways at similar rates, they were much more likely to end up on a date.” NPR reports how our use of little words can, uh, reveal hidden interests.
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Economic development is driving the extinction of some languages, scientists believe. A study has found that minority languages in the most developed parts of the world, including North America, Europe and Australia, are most at threat. The researchers found that the more successful a country was economically, the more rapidly its languages were being lost. The BBC reports.
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Was the word supercalafragilisticexpialidocious really made up by the Mary Poppins writers? According to mental_floss, there were others who claimed ownership. “Though the Sherman Brothers claimed they made the word up themselves, a 1949 song called “Supercalafajaistickespeealadojus” would seem to say otherwise. The writers of the song, Barney Young and Gloria Parker, sued for $12 million. They lost because lawyers were able to present evidence showing that the nonsense word had been around, in some form or another, for decades. Indeed, the Sherman Brothers later claimed that their made-up word was a variation on a similar word they had heard at summer camp back in the 1930s: ‘super-cadja-flawjalistic-espealedojus.'”
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Another word, knish, was explored on WNYC’s Brian Lehrer Show a few weeks ago.
