Translation Difficult
At least we can be sure that Meursault's mother died. Right?
19
Question-Begging
"So, what about 'beg the question'? This is probably the most widely misused expression in the language. I don't propose to explain what it means. People with degrees in philosophy have no trouble understanding it. The rest of us find it virtually ungraspable. There are only two things you need to know about 'beg the question'. The first is that it is not the same as 'raise the question'—which is the expression the writer of the Johansson item should have used. The second is this: don't write 'beg the question' – ever."
1
Enough With "Iconic"
"The other day somebody said 'dichotomy' and I was transported back half a century. You hardly ever hear that word nowadays, but back in the Sixties everything seemed to be a dichotomy. Words go in and out of fashion like anything else. May we hope that the irritating 'iconic' is at its apogee, and will soon decline?"
6
The Fat List
Here you will find 28 synonyms for fatness. Your goal is to arrange them in order of formality. The winner gets to be an administrator in the Miami-Dade public school district.
4
Man Unsettled By Word Choice In Obituary
"Eve Brent, a veteran character actress whose most recognizable role was Jane to Gordon Scott’s Tarzan, died on Aug. 27 in Sun Valley, Calif. She was 81…. Ms. Brent rebooted the character of Jane, Tarzan’s civilized love interest, in the 1958 films 'Tarzan and the Trappers' and 'Tarzan’s Fight for Life,' after Jane was left out of the two previous Tarzan movies." —Okay, I have accepted the word "reboot" in its modern sense of "we are all out of original ideas so we're going to try to wring some more cash out of this old one," but it is kind of jarring to see it applied to the actions [...]
7
"Are You Airminded?" The Slang Of War
"Airmindedness” is a term that used to be everywhere and now it's nowhere. The word, as defined by the OED, means an interest in and enthusiasm for the use and development of aircraft. The expression emerged with the development of the airplane in the early twentieth century, during which an entire generation struggled to expand their conceptual boundaries skywards. Prompted by the invention of mechanical flight, this airminded cultural moment was sustained by the military incentives that ceaselessly pushed for improvements to air power.
As media critic Friedrich Kittler proposes, technologies repeatedly find their ancestry in the mouth of war: “war was called the father of all [...]
13
Copy Editors Have Sad, Lonely Lives
Sounds like swell times: "During the recent gathering of the American Copy Editors Society, a lot of 'hyphen' jokes made the rounds." [Related: Destroy all hyphens]
6
Secrets Of The 'Hustler' Style Guide
"Well, of course every publication has its own internal style guide, and ours was more than hilarious. We had lists of euphemisms, paragraphs of them, for every body part you could think of. Phrases like cover girl, which in Webster’s are two words, were one word at Hustler. Blow job was blowjob. (See here for more examples.) And the style guide had been in progress since the 70s, so many things had changed over time. For instance, there was an entry under 'Goddamnit' that said the expression was never to be used in a Flynt publication without editorial approval — which I thought was kind of strange, considering everything [...]
13
Girls Teach Rest Of Population To Talk
A couple weeks ago, I walked passed a group of high school-aged girls on the street. One of them was talking about another girl, who was not in their group. "She needs to CHILL the fuck DOWN!" the girl said, gesticulating. A slip of the tongue, I thought. A malapropism, like something George W. Bush might have said while giving a speech in front of thousands of people. But then the girl repeated herself. "Seriously," she said. "She'd better chill down."
12
Apostrophe Impractical
If even bookstores are giving up on the apostrophe, does the imperiled piece of punctuation have any hope of survival?
38
A Joyful & Malicious History Of 'Schadenfreude'
In an interview with Martha Stewart shortly before her 2003 indictment, Jeffrey Toobin asked the visibly exhausted celebrity if she felt herself the victim of “schadenfreude.” He didn't expand upon the Germanism, and Stewart certainly didn't need it defined.
Schadenfreude? I asked. “That's the word,” she said. “I hear that, like, every day.” And she added, in her precise way, “Do you know how to spell it?”
While spelling the thing might be an issue, writers assume nowadays that when they say “schadenfreude,” readers know exactly what they mean. It’s defined as the “malicious enjoyment of the misfortunes of others” in the OED, which first included the word [...]
12
Words Added To Thing Your Grandparents Might Have Used
"'Retweet', 'sexting' and 'cyberbullying' are officially words, according to the latest edition of" a book no one reads anymore because they can find anything they need online. Also 'woot.'
3
Trawling V. Trolling
There is a difference between "trawling" and "trolling." Apparently one of them involves a net.
7
Whammies Explained
In case you were wondering about what a whammy is: "Ian Mortenson writes that he still possesses an old record called 'The Whammy' on which Screamin' Jay Hawkins tells the tragic tale of meeting a 'big woman' with a 'mojo bone' which she uses to "put the whammy" on him. Screaming Jay ends up 'walking sideways, my mind in neutral'. This makes the whammy sound like some kind of Caribbean voodoo spell. Mr Mortenson concludes: 'I presume a double whammy is a lot worse.'"
8
The Idiot's Guide to Reading Korean
This is either helping me or really messing me up. (Koreans: weigh in angrily below!)
8
Is Facebook Devaluing Words?
Are you worried about "the linguistic semantic detritus of our particular phase of oligarchical consumerism"? Because you probably should be.
4
"Pix" Words Will Mess You Up
There is a difference between "pixilated" and "pixelated." Apparently fairies are involved.
4
What Words Mean
"'Interesting' means 'I’m about to spend a paragraph on this, bear with me, it’s a bit obvious but needs to be in there. 'Fascinating' means 'Actually this bit is interesting.'"
11
Some Guy From Black Book Says Word Doesn't Mean What You Think It Means
Heteronormativity: you're doing it wrong.
42
The Dirty Talk Of The Town: Profanity At "The New Yorker"
Famous story, here recounted by The Daily News:
Harold Brodkey used to tell the tale of how legendary New Yorker magazine editor William Shawn handled his use of a four-letter word: It's up to you, Shawn said, but would you rather be remembered for your story or the first use of that word in this magazine? Brodkey spiked the offending expletive.
Shawn was indeed vigilant against vulgarity. It's said that, being afraid of elevators, he used to carry a hatchet in his briefcase in case he was ever trapped inside one. But I like to think the weapon served also as a warning to staffers who did not get [...]
