Language Museum Blog

A new study of word frequencies has found that certain words can shake the political blogosphere in a similar way to an earthquake.

The study, completed by researchers at the Medical University of Vienna, looked at 168 political blogs in the US and tracked spikes in the frequency of individual words. They noticed that some events trigger ‘reverberations’ and can cause social change.

The types of blogosphere responses took two forms, the researchers say. Some words suddenly spiked in popularity in response to a real-world event. Sarah Palin’s nomination as the Republican vice presidential candidate was the most dramatic example.

“Indeed, aftershocks of this event are still trembling and quivering through our society,” Klimek and colleagues wrote. Because these events are triggered from outside the blogosphere, the researchers called them “exogenous.”

Other words gradually grew in frequency and then died down, like the use of the word “inauguration” in the days before and after Barack Obama took office. Such events are called “endogenous” because they seem to arise within the blogosphere itself. (Source: Wired.com)

So what does this have to do with earthquakes? Well, apparently the ‘aftershocks’ of the increase in word frequency fit the equation of Omori’s law for the frequency of earthquake aftershocks.

It’s a pretty interesting concept, but as Duncan Watts says in the article, “it sort of can’t be true” as the analogy is between two unrelated phenomena.

Ah, Valentine’s Day. A day for romance, hearts, flowers and chocolates. A day for heartfelt proclamations of love.

Not all of us are good at the latter however, so here’s a little help. A poll of 2,000 Britons by Warner Home Video showed that a line from Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights is considered the most romantic in English literature. The line? “Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.”

That’s not so easy to drop into conversation, so what of the others in the top ten?

2. “If you live to be a hundred, I want to live to be a hundred minus one day so I never have to live without you” – A A Milne

3.”But soft! What light through yonder window breaks? It is the east and Juliet is the sun” – Shakespeare “Romeo and Juliet”

4. “He was my North, my South, my East and West, My working week and my Sunday rest, My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song; I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong” – W.H. Auden

5. “You know you’re in love when you don’t want to fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams” – Dr. Seuss

6.” When you fall in love, it is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake, and then it subsides. And when it subsides, you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots are become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part” – “Captain Corelli’s Mandolin”

7. “Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be” – Robert Browning

8.”For you see, each day I love you more. Today more than yesterday and less than tomorrow” – Rosemonde Gerard

9. “But to see her was to love her, love but her, and love her forever” – Robert Burns

10. “I hope before long to press you in my arms and shall shower on you a million burning kisses as under the Equator” – Napoleon Bonaparte’s 1796 dispatch to wife Josephine. (Source: Canada.com)

Yeah… maybe these are all best written rather than said.

New tech words are always in the news, but what about anti-tech words?

BBC News asked for submissions, and I really like some of the words the contributors came up with. Here’s the list:

1. Plugthug: someone who’d kill for access to recharging facilities.
Paul, Chester

2. Game-shame: The feeling of slight embarrassment that occurs when you realise what you thought was about half an hour of game play was actually about five hours, especially when you have inadvertently missed an event to which, under normal circumstances, you would have assigned a higher priority than game play.
Ray D, Turku, Finland

3. Spamnesia: failing to reply to e-mails from friends, because your computer thinks they’re spam.
Rob, Australia

4. Meanderthal: someone who tries to drive or walk while using a mobile phone.
Dave Case, Wokingham

5. Sheeple: people who have to go out and buy the latest gadget (usually one whose name starts with an “i”) just because they believe that everyone else is getting one, and they can’t bear the thought of being left out.
Mike Plunkett, Fleet, Hampshire

6. Memail: e-mail I send to myself to remind me to do things. Everyone else spends all day reading and sending e-mail to each other, I prefer mine to be private.
John Dolan, Cambridge

7. Nerds-nest: the tangle of cables behind your TV or desk.
John, Wellington

8. Faceless: what happens when you get either vindictive or drunk and post on Facebook, someone finds it offensive and your account is suspended.
Tim Ellam, Ashburton

9. Dot con: the process of making money from the internet.
Robert, Rochester

…and, to end on a more uplifting note…

10. My word isn’t exactly anti-tech, but it does fill a gap in the language. When I have a friendly conversation by e-mail with a new acquaintance, I finish the e-mail with “nice to have intermet you.” A smiley emoticon is optional. If the Oxford English Dictionary is interested, please give them my number.
Kaylie, Runcorn

My favourite of these is memail – I’m always sending myself reminder emails! I also mail myself interesting news items that could interesting for this blog (I emailed this story to myself for instance!). Can you think of any other anti-tech words?

I’ve managed to avoid posting about any ‘word of the year’ lists, so this is a nice alternative: Lake Superior State University has come up with a list of words it would like banished in 2011.

Officially known as the “List of Words Banished from the Queen’s English for Mis-use, Over-use and General Uselessness”, the list is now in its 36th year and received over 1,000 nominations for words to ban. The number one word? Viral. As one nominator eloquently put it: “This linguistic disease of a term must be quarantined.”

Take a look at the Huffington Post’s slideshow of some of the other words that made the list.

Last month I posted about the Evolving English exhibition at the British Library. Now a linguist who’s lead consultant to the project has been proclaimed one of the Guardian’s “Heroes of 2010”.

David Crystal is Honorary Professor of Linguistics at the University of Wales, Bangor and author of well, a lot of books on language (including the Cambridge Encyclopaedia of the English Language). He’s also a champion of endangered languages, not just the English language as in the sub-heading of the article.

In the piece Michael Rosen writes:

People are sure that txtng is bad. “Is it?” asks Crystal. Millions who weren’t writing anything are now writing and inventing new ways of writing, he says. QED, not bad. Good.

Crystal summarises his position more clearly in a blog post:

It is the role of schools to prepare children for the linguistic demands that society places upon them. This means being competent in Standard English as well as in the nonstandard varieties that form a part of their lives and which they will frequently encounter outside their home environment in modern English literature, in interactions with people from other parts of the English-speaking world, and especially on the internet. They have to know when to spell and punctuate according to educated norms, and when it is permissible not do so. In a word, they have to know how to manage the language – or to be masters of it (as Humpty Dumpty says to Alice in Through the Looking Glass). And, one day, to be champions of it – all of it.

I guess that puts Emma Thompson in her place then!

It’s something Britons have become too familiar this winter – headlines screaming “transport chaos” and “travel misery”. Why are chaos and misery so popular with the nation’s journalists?

The Independent’s Errors and Omissions page may have the answer:

The trouble is that “chaos” is a short word, and short words tend to elbow their way into headlines. So “chaos” has become a mere code for difficulties on the roads. One odd thing is that “chaos” happens only on the roads. Disruption of rail and air travel produces not “chaos” but “misery”.

I suppose we see this a lot in newspapers – a bold and short statement makes for an eye-catching headline after all. It seems to be straying into cliche now though, so congratulations to the reporter who wrote a story in the Independent that omitted both chaos and misery. Impressive.

Here is his opening sentence: “Britain is gritting its teeth and its roads today in anticipation of the return of Arctic conditions, with heavy snow and ice-storms likely to bring wide-scale disruption.” He has made up his own word-play on “gritting”. He knows what “anticipation” means – not expecting something, but taking action about it. And he has called disruption disruption, not chaos.

The third edition of the Oxford Dictionary of English has announced new entries, including the word “vuvuzela”.

Released on August 19th, the dictionary contains 2,000 new words and 200 new phrases, including “on the naughty step”. “Vuvuzela” made an impact during the recent World Cup – it is a horn instrument blown by football fans – because of the controversy surrounding the noise it makes.

Oxford University Press uses a constantly updated “word bank” to ensure the dictionary is up to date – the first edition published in 1998 included “alcopop” and “eye candy” while the second edition additions included “Ruby Murrary” (rhyming slang for a curry) and “chav”. Other entries for this edition include “microblogging” – the posting of short entries on a blog and “staycation” – a holiday in your own country.
Climate change and the financial crisis also impacted on the dictionary – with the introduction of “toxic debt” and “carbon capture”.

The aim of the dictionary is to reflect current trends in the usage of English words. What words would you add?

(Source: BBC News)

How well do you know the English language? That’s the question asked by this quiz in The Guardian today.

The ‘weird words’ quiz tests your knowledge of English slang, dialect and old usage. For each definition, you have to choose the correct word. How many can you get right? (I got a miserable three out of ten). Test your knowledge here.

Classic children’s books by author Enid Blyton are getting a linguistic makeover to appeal to the new generation, according to a report at thebookseller.com Whilst the publisher of the Famous Five series puts annual sales at over half a million, research has shown that parents are put off buying their children these books because of the ‘dated’ language.

Hodder said that the changes will affect the dialogue in the stories with the narrative left “largely untouched”. Publishing director Anne McNeil said: “Very subtle changes have been made to remove the barriers that stood between readers and the story.” In the original text, for example, Dick says: “She must be jolly lonely all by herself” which has been updated to read: “She must get lonely all by herself.” “Mother and father” become “mum and dad” and “school tunic” becomes ‘uniform’.” McNeil said that the changes were not intended to make the Famous Five books “modern” but to place them in a “timeless” age. She said: “We have not introduced any slang or colloquial language that would place the characters in today’s world.” (Source: The Bookseller.com)

Although this is not the first time the books have been updated, the move has still provoked anger from the public. Personally, I think the update is taking away some of the character of the books. I read them as a child in the eighties and nineties, and they were pleasant escapism – the language used did not affect my enjoyment of the story. What do you think?

Think dictionaries are just for homo sapiens?

Think again.

Researchers from St Andrews University have been hard at work creating a kind of ape dictionary. Orangutans at Durrell Wildlife Trust in Jersey have been the subjects of the research, and have apparently been very useful.

The senior keeper at Durrell, Gordon Hunt, told BBC Jersey the research had proved very helpful as it confirmed what they had already seen happening.

Gordon said: “We see anecdotal stuff every day but it is difficult for us to convince people that they are actually talking to each other.

“This is the start of the ape dictionary, what researchers do is confirm what is seen in a scientific manner.

“We see a lot of actions, a lot of gestures and we are anthropomorphising those into what we think they are
“Researchers are statistically analysing these and coming up with pretty much the same theory.” (Source: BBC News)

You may soon be seeing a new OED (Orangutan English Dictionary) next to the original (Oxford English Dictionary)!