I like a bit of language fun, and also think llamas are awesome. So I thought I’d share with you the amazing Llama Font!
The website is very simple – just type in whatever you like and click ‘llamify’ and the site will convert into cute llama letters. Here’s an example.
For me, alpacas are superior to llamas. Anyone know of an alpaca font website??
Naval slang words and phrases are known as “Jackspeak”, and a collection of these has just been published.
It’s surprising how many of slang phrases have made it into modern English, including “running the gauntlet”. For the past 40 years one man has been collecting the words and phrases coined by the Royal Navy, which have been published in a new book. Rick Jolly OBE is a former Surgeon Captain in the Royal Marines who served in the Falklands War and was decorated by both the British and Argentineans for his service.
His years on board ship, both in the marines and later on cruise liners, have given him a passion for slang.
Part of its charm, he feels, comes from its exclusivity, because the terminology used is only understood by fellow naval comrades.
“For instance, this description of a crusty old sailor’s toothache needs some nautical knowledge, but then has a perfect and startling clarity: ‘Tis from the aftermost grinder aloft on the starboard side…’,” he says.
He believes the humour of nautical slang is an essential coping strategy for people dealing with the multiple uncertainties and dangers of war.
“During my own 25 years in a dark blue uniform, I had several opportunities to confirm that fact,” he explains.
“In addition, as a direct result of my misunderstanding of a term used by one of my Royal Marine patients, I set out in 1971 to make a new collection of slang terms.
“From the start, I tried to take each word or phrase in context, giving an example of its usage as well as a definition.” (Source: BBC News)
Some examples of Jackspeak:
“Green Death” – 3rd Commando Brigade, Royal Marines
“Snotty” – midshipman
“Order of the Golden Toecap” – redundancy
“Whitehall Puzzle Palace” – Ministry of Defence
I love travelling. I’ve even been known to throw in some travel lingo when out with non-traveller friends to try and impress them. But I’m pretty sure I’d never use any of the ridiculous travel terms that MSN has compiled. Here’s the list:
– Bleisure travel
– Glamping and tramping
– Minimoon, weddingmoon, babymoon
– Staycation
– Flashpacking, gap-packing and brokepacking
– Daycation
– Haycation
– Mancation
– Gramping
– Traincation
You can probably guess what most of these are, but if not, take a look at the article. What’s the most ridiculous travel term you’ve heard?
Apparently there’s a new craze in London, and it’s to do with words. “Newlogism” is splicing together two unrelated words to make a new one (see what they did there?).
According to Dan Clayton, English language researcher on UCL’s Survey of English Usage, these words circulate very quickly because of the way people use technology (particularly social networking) but also disappear very quickly, with 80% of new slang words disappearing within a year.
Examples of newlogisms that you should know include “psycho-lists – those mad bikers ready to run over pedestrians with the temerity to cross the road”, “email courier …the time-waster who trots over to your desk across the office just to ask if you’ve seen their latest missive in your inbox” and “x-sessives… people who Won’t. Stop. Sending. Xs”. (Source: This is London)
And what’s a childibore? It’s a parent who won’t stop going on about their offspring.
The weather’s been miserable this week, there’s no hint of summer, and we all need a little something to cheer us up. So how about a quiz on commonly confused words?
The quiz is on words from Hollywood Comedies, and you can view it here. Answers are near the bottom of the page (no cheating!). There are also links to other quizzes if Wimbledon isn’t holding your attention this afternoon.
Do you have any examples of words that you confuse? Perhaps in songs?
The latest edition of Collins Official Scrabble Words has been released. Nearly 3,000 new words have been added – which will you use to perplex your opponent?
A small selection:
BREDREN: brother
GOBI: cauliflower
INBOX: email folder for incoming mail
INNIT: isn’t it
NANG: cool
QIN: a Chinese zither
TWIGLET: wheat snack
VLOG: video blogging
WAGYU: a breed of cattle
(Source: The Guardian)
What words would you like added to the book to help you win a game?
An interesting piece in the Guardian looks at urban dictionaries (well, mainly at the Urban Dictionary). Whilst well-known print dictionaries like the OED can take years to update, urban dictionaries are on the web and can be updated as and when new words and phrases appear.
But, as the article suggests, there are issues with this:
“..slang expert Green’s problem with Urban Dictionary isn’t that it contains offensive words. “It’s amateur hour. They set themselves up as an authority and I don’t believe they are. There aren’t 2,000 new slang words a day – they don’t exist. It undermines the whole point of a dictionary. If you want to have something called The Book Of Amusing Words That Young People Come Up With, then fine, let’s have that. I’ll stick with [Viz comic’s] Roger’s Profanisaurus.”
Over 3,500 volunteers edit submissions to Urban Dictionary – but there are masses of them. According to the article, “in the past 30 days 67,000 people wrote 76,000 new definitions”. As Jonathon Green points out, there can’t be that many new words created constantly.
One thing urban dictionaries do better than traditional dictionaries though, is to publish slang words and definitions, and keep them up to date. When the new OED is published (around 2037), many of the slang words we use today will likely have fallen out of favour. In the meantime, we can use Google or the Urban Dictionary to satisfy our curiosity.
.Another day, another amusing language-related story from NewsBiscuit. This one is about the government removing the letters ‘m’ and ‘n’ from the alphabet due to cuts.
The real cleverness is in the writing of the article though – it contains no ‘m’s or ‘n’s:
David Caero ade the shock aouceet i the house of coos today that the alphabet would shrik to just twety four letters with iediate effect, sayig that “Labour left us owig billios ad billios of pouds ad tough decisios have to be ade”.
Ed Illibad was the first of the Labour P’s to code the ove as cyical ad uecesary, sayig that agai the goveret had got it wrog cuttig too quickly ad to deeply affectig the poorest ad ost vulerable i society. Ick Clegg supported the coalitio lie o this issue sayig, “I kow i proised ot to reduce the uber of letters before the electio but I had y figers crossed” leadig to shouts of Resig! Resig! from the labour beches.
Surprisingly it’s still fairly easy to read these paragraphs. It reminds me of the internet meme saying a researcher at Cambridge University had found that you can still read words where the letters are jumbled up, as long as the first and last letters are correct. More on the science (and truth) behind that here
In my RSS reader I came across an article from Wired.co.uk intriguingly titled ‘Jargon Watch – April 2011’. It took me a moment to realise (slow morning) but it’s still only March, isn’t it*?
So here’s the new jargon you can start using (from next month):
Peep-holing
pp. Driving a snow-covered vehicle with only a small hole cleared on the windscreen. Also called peephole driving. Many people don’t have time or are just too lazy to clear the whole screen, so they scrape a space on the driver’s side and then aim in the general direction of work.Entomological terrorism
n. The use of insects as a weapon. According to the US Army Medical Department Journal, the practice can be organised into three categories: attacking people directly (killer bees), destroying crops (locusts), and spreading sickness (disease vectors).Gutenbourgeois
n. The people who maintain a smug belief in the primacy of print, particularly books, over digital works as a cultural driver, and the supremacy of professional writers, editors and publishers over amateurs. Coined by Paul Ford, writer and contributing editor at Harper’s.Aflockalypse
n. The sudden death of a large number of birds. This year there has been a spate of mass bird deaths: 5,000 blackbirds in Arkansas; 300 turtle doves in Italy; up to 100 jackdaws in Sweden. Experts are unflapped: in North America, 50 million birds die every year.
*OK, there’s a simple explanation – the article’s from the April 2011 print issue of Wired, but that’s no fun, is it?
We all use this one simple word many times every day, in many different contexts, without even thinking about it.
“Is that OK?”
“OK! That sounds great!”
“Oh, OK.”
But why do we use OK and not something else? According to Allan Metcalf, author of a new book on the history of OK, one reason is that it provides neutrality, “a way to affirm or to express agreement without having to offer an opinion”.
The use of OK used to be restricted to business contexts (o.k. meant that a document was “all correct”) and was associated by some people with illiteracy. Now however, it’s used by everyone in except in formal settings – speeches and reports for example. If you’re interested, it’s well worth reading the rest of the article by Metcalf over at BBC News.
