Tag Archives: tgif

TGIF: That Gerund Is Funky (Nov 1)

Words and language in the news during Hallowe’en week, including Obama’s (allegedly) ungrammatical tweet, Hallmark rewriting verse for the sake of political correctness, Star Wars bloopers, and more …

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No-one was madder than him about his Affordable Care Act web site’s glitches, Barack Obama tweeted. But the Twittersphere erupted. “Madder isn’t a word!” the Twitterati exclaimed. Well, in fact, it is: it’s the comparative of mad. As Kory Stamper wrote in The Guardian, you can’t win when you’re a president: we hold our leaders to an impossible standard, especially when it comes to their choice of words and language “registers” in certain contexts and situations. If they’re correct, they’re accused of snobbery; if they use slang or acceptable informal vernacular, they’re just wrong.

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Is Hallmark taking political correctness to ridiculous extremes? Adorning its new ugly holiday sweater ornament (sic) is a line from the Christmas carol Deck the Halls — adulterated. “Don we now our fun apparel”. Huh? Can’t holiday sweaters be ugly AND gay? We’ve been singing about our gay apparel since 1866, and people doth protest about this surprising edit. According to the Associated Press, Hallmark issued a statement in its defense: “‘Hallmark created this year’s Holiday Sweater ornament in the spirit of fun. When the lyrics to “Deck the Halls” were translated from Gaelic and published in English back in the 1800s, the word “gay” meant festive or merry. Today it has multiple meanings, which we thought could leave our intent open to misinterpretation,’ the statement read. ‘The trend of wearing festively decorated Christmas sweaters to parties is all about fun, and this ornament is intended to play into that, so the planning team decided to say what we meant: “fun.” That’s the spirit we intended and the spirit in which we hope ornament buyers will take it.'” Hallmark updated its statement yesterday, adding: “In hindsight, we realize we shouldn’t have changed the lyrics on the ornament.”

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In a piece about how infants learn languages, Time explores how language acquisition can vary wildly between children, depending on the nature of the native tongue being mastered. For example, one important factor is the relative balance between nouns and verbs in the language being learned.

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And in another article about babies and language, Popular Science reveals how the language you hear growing up affects how you learn to count. “English-speaking toddlers learn the idea of the number one faster than Japanese- and Chinese-speaking kids, while Slovenian-speaking babies learn “two” sooner than English-speaking ones.”

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A Star Wars blooper reel that surfaced on Reddit this week shows Harrison Ford — aka Luke Skywalker — asking for reassurance about how to pronounce the word “supernova”, according to Salon.com. See the video here.

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As Oscar season approaches, we want to be able to join in all the erudite discussions about who’s going to win which award. But some of those names — of people both behind and in front of the camera — can be hard to pronounce. Have no fear: Slate’s culture blog shows us how …

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Controversy continues to rage over the pronunciation of the acronym GIF. As Mediabistro reported, “Complex decided to ask Philip Corbett, the Times’ standards editor, if “jif” was the official Times way. He wouldn’t say. “I wasn’t involved in the discussions about today’s story and I think I want to steer well clear of the heated debate over the pronunciation of GIF,” Corbett told Complex. “I know a no-win situation when I see one.” Well, “The Oxford English Dictionary accepts both pronunciations,” the GIF’s inventor, Steve Wilhite, said in the New York Times back in May. But he was willing to stick his neck out. “They are wrong. It is a soft ‘G,’ pronounced ‘jif.’ End of story.”

TGIF: That Gerund Is Funky (Oct 25)

That Gerund Is Funky: Words and language in the news during the week ending Oct 25.

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NPR took us on a linguistic journey through the word glitch … What is a glitch, anyway? Meaning everything from a catastrophe to a mere flaw, the word that began in the groovy 60s to describe uneventful snafus in space might now spell peril for Obama’s affordable healthcare act.

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“School Makes Parents Sign Contracts Promising Students Won’t Twerk or Grind at Homecoming Dance.” Yes, that’s a real headline in Time magazine. “It’s hard enough to explain twerking to parents. Now Maryland high schoolers have to explain twerking contracts.” The straight-faced magazine added this caption to the article’s accompanying photograph: “People who twerk or grind will get judgy looks.” Judgy?

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The Guardian‘s David Marsh called for the appointment of a Language Czar, to outlaw ugly business and political lingo, as reported in Prospect magazine. March also argued, in the New Statesman and the New Republic, that “the golden age of grammar is a myth. … Just think about the gay times we had in the old days, when spam was something that went into fritters and you kept your mouse in a cage. The belief that all change is for the worse is invariably accompanied by the conviction that standards of literacy are falling. Such fears date from at least the 18th century.”

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Huffington Post identified 9 words or phrases in everyday use that have racist or prejudiced origins (or murky historical pasts). Who knew that “uppity” once had more repugnant connotations?

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An appalled Daniel E. Jones wrote a letter to the editor of Baton Rouge’s The Advocate, complaining that the paper’s bad grammar (on the first two pages of its Metro section) seems to reflect a lack of education. Joan E. McDonald of Lethbridge up in Canada directed a similar complaint at her local paper, the Lethbridge Herald. But here’s a juicy one: the Washington Post must have hung its head in shame when it received this letter from one of its readers, complaining about an especially egregious ungrammatical utterance — by a penguin no less — in one of the paper’s recent editions. “’It’s me and my wife’s 20th anniversary.’ Listen, kids may be reading this stuff,” warned Jack Fretwell from Reston.

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It’s OK to retweet, but not to copy and paste on Twitter. CNBC Africa has been accused of Twitter plagiarism by its competitor, Business Day Television (BDTV), after it admittedly lifted messages posted by BDTV during South African finance minister Pravin Gordhan’s midterm budget speech. “As far as I know, publishing someone’s content as your own is plagiarism. Or does the Twittersphere have a different set of rules?,” BDTV boss Vernon Matzopolous wrote, according to TechCentral.

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When is it OK to use incorrect punctuation? When you’re listing something on eBay, explained Angus Kidman on LifeHacker. “When you’re listing items for sale on eBay and the product name includes punctuation, you should not include it in the headline. The reason? Most people find stuff to buy by searching rather than browsing, and most people are too bloody stupid to use correct punctuation. They will type the punctuation-free version. If you want to top those search results, you have to use the incorrect rendering.” Perhaps this is wise advice for anyone posting a searchable internet listing?

TGIF: That Gerund Is Funky (Oct 18)

That Gerund Is Funky … Language in the news …

As The Guardian pointed out, when British journalists add synonyms to add clarity to reports from across the Atlantic, they should make sure they’re choosing the correct words …

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As reported by Yahoo! Canada’s OMG blog, singer-songwriter Sufjan Stevens joined the queue of Miley Cyrus critics, taking issue not with her twerking but with the grammar in one of her songs, “#GETITRIGHT”. As Stevens pointed out: “One particular line causes concern: ‘I been laying in this bed all night long,’ Miley, technically speaking, you’ve been LYING, not LAYING, an irregular verb form that should only be used when there’s an object, i.e. ‘I been laying my tired booty on this bed all night long.'”

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An exhibition named after a famous shoe named in turn after a punctuation mark has recently opened in Paris: “Virgule etc. … In the Footsteps of Roger Vivier” has the “Comma” shoe (otherwise known as the “Virgule”) as its top billing. Style.com reports.

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The English language, according to linguist Dennis Preston, “makes up a great big gob of who you are.” People tend to use voices and accents to make determinations — often inaccurate — about age, gender, social status and race. The Holland Sentinel reported on his speech about the other “-ism” that we don’t often think about: language …

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In the news … (Oct 11)

Where language was in the news this week …

Grammar Girl (aka Mignon Fogerty) appeared on the Today Show on Wednesday. Take her quiz that contained all the discussion topics she suggested to the producers. (I couldn’t find a correct answer to Question No. 2; please comment below if you think one of the answers to that question was grammatically correct – and why…) Continue reading →

TGIF: That Gerund Is Funky (4 Oct)

Welcome to “TGIF: That Gerund Is Funky”, a new weekly feature on Glossophilia. Every Friday, you’ll find a digest of some of the week’s best offerings about language, literature, grammar, usage and abusage — on the web and on the wire. Some of it will make you laugh, some might make you cry. Some will be genuinely useful, a lot of it won’t, and there will be stuff you just won’t believe. Enjoy (it).

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On Facebook, Grammarly posted some incorrect word definitions offered by creative and lateral-thinking students. One of my favorites is Adamant: “pertaining to original sin” …

The Guardian reassured us that there are 10 grammar rules we no longer need to worry about. And one of those is starting sentences with a conjunction; another is all about what you should and shouldn’t end them with.

You think “OMG” or “srsly” are 21st-century inventions? You might have to think again, as Jen Doll, in The Atlantic‘s October issue, takes a look at the not-so-recent history of today’s hottest expressions (not yet online).

The Associated Press reported on the rise in heritage language programs — and why the need for them has grown. “Dorothy Villarreal grew up dreaming in Spanish, first in Mexico and later in South Texas, where her family moved when she was six. She excelled in school — in English. But at home life was in Spanish, from the long afternoon chats with her grandparents to the Spanish-language version of Barbie magazines she eagerly awaited each month. She figured she was fluent in both languages. Then the Harvard University junior spent last summer studying in Mexico and realized just how big the gaps in her Spanish were.”

Pride’s Purge offered us a very useful document: a pocket guide to Toryspeak – ie. what Tories (aka members of the British Conservative Party) say vs. what Tories mean. When they say they’re reforming the NHS, what do they REALLY mean? And what does everyone understand by it?

Keith Houston gives us a sneak peek [see Stealth Mountain below] of his new book, Shady Characters: The Secret Life of Punctuation, Symbols, and Other Typographical Marks, when he describes “four scandalously overlooked typographic outliers” in the Financial Times.

You might not want to try singing like David Bowie – but now you can read like him. As part of the exhibition “David Bowie Is”, which recently opened at the Art Gallery of Toronto, a list of the legendary singer’s top 100 books has been compiled. Open Book Toronto has the list.

The writer Margaret Atwood is among a group of prominent Canadian women who have launched a campaign to make the English-language lyrics to Canada’s national anthem more gender-neutral, as the BBC reports.

Oliver Moody wrote in The Times (UK) that “many teachers do not have adequate knowledge of English grammar to teach the new curriculum, according to the architect of a government-funded teaching programme. Bas Aarts, a professor of English linguistics at University College London, … said that the English tests for pupils up to the age of 14 introduced by Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, demanded more knowledge of grammar than many teachers possess.”

mental_floss brought us 9 colorful words and phrases from Breaking Bad‘s final season. (Here’s what I learned: The next time someone offers to send you on a trip to Belize, run in the other direction. Fast.)

On The Guardian‘s U.S. comment site, self-confessed accent geek Erica Buist asks whether Britain is becoming a nation of accent snobs. If we Brits don’t take the trouble to pronounce foreign words like bruschetta correctly, do we have the right to judge those who communicate less comfortably in English?

If you read literary fiction, you’ll become more empathic. That’s what a new scientific study shows, according to a New York Times science blog post. Apparently “reading literary fiction – as opposed to popular fiction or serious nonfiction – leads people to perform better on tests that measure empathy, social perception and emotional intelligence.” Um – do we really need scientists to tell us that? I hear a big resounding ‘duh!’ echoing through the chattering book groups of the world …

And finally, I think I’ve found my favorite Tweeter. Here is how Stealth Mountain @stealthmountain advertises his or her mission: “I alert twitter users that they typed sneak peak when they meant sneak peek. I live a sad life.” The replies to Stealth’s tweets are even funnier than the tweets themselves. Thanks to Reddit for the tip-off.