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BLOGROLL
A perfect storm of webinar waterboarding
"The wordsmiths at Lake Superior State University are giving back to English speakers everywhere with their 33rd annual List of Words Banished from the Queen's English for Misuse, Overuse and General Uselessness."You read that right: Lake Superior State University, baby, has done what Harvard, Stanford and The Wharton School don't have the guts to do: put out a list of idiotic (mostly) bizspeak words and phrases that if used any longer should get students tossed out of MBA programs and cubicle-wads sacked from their consultant jobs.Check out the 2008 list of Banished Words, which includes the word that most makes me want to seek out fingernails scratching a blackboard for relief: webinar.
Posted by
Jay on Tuesday, July 22, 2008 @ 1:14 PM
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Pet name trendwatch
Snark Hunting has a nice summary of the shift in pet name trends from 1998 to 2007. As pets have become child surrogates for many people, they have begun to get the same names that kids are getting. That's certainly true for our family cat Pirate.
Posted by
Jay on Saturday, June 28, 2008 @ 12:24 PM
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Words that sound dirty but they're not
Here's a discussion thread that should be of interest to the Wordlab community: Words that sound dirty, but they're not. A sampling of the gems to be found here:Aer LingusAshramassonancebuttresscumincummerbundDick ButkusdictiondonglefluctuategherkinkumquatmasticaterectifytitmousevibratoWankel Rotary EngineThis looks like a natural thread to pick up on the Wordboard, if someone would like to start one.
Posted by
Jay on Tuesday, June 17, 2008 @ 1:12 PM
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How language colors perception
Can you tell which aliens are good and which are evil, the Smoothheads or the Bumpyheads, based on whether they are called "leebish" or "grecious"? If so, you're a good candidate for testing at Carnegie Mellon, where researchers have shown that naming things with labels creates mental categories, helping people learn faster. So reports today's New York Times, in the article, When Language Can Hold the Answer:The finding may not seem surprising, but it is fodder for one side in a traditional debate about language and perception, including the thinking that creates and names groups.In stark form, the debate was: Does language shape what we perceive, a position associated with the late Benjamin Lee Whorf, or are our perceptions pure sensory impressions, immune to the arbitrary ways that language carves up the world?The latest research changes the framework, perhaps the language of the debate, suggesting that language clearly affects some thinking as a special device added to an ancient mental skill set. Just as adding features to a cellphone or camera can backfire, language is not always helpful. For the most part, it enhances thinking. But it can trip us up, too.The gist is that language "greases the wheels of perception." However, after that initial greasing, it can then get in the way:In another experiment, Dr. Lupyan showed subjects a series of chairs and tables using pictures from the Ikea catalog. Some subjects were asked to press a button indicating that the picture was of a table or a chair. Other subjects pressed a button to make a nonverbal judgment about the pictures, for example, to indicate whether they liked them or not. Dr. Lupyan found that the subjects who used words to label the objects had more trouble remembering whether they’d seen a specific chair before than subjects who had only pressed a button in a nonverbal task.Language helps us learn novel categories, and it licenses our unusual ability to operate on an abstract plane, Dr. Lupyan said. The problem is that after a category has been learned, it can distort the memory of specific objects, getting between us and the rest of the nonabstract world.
Posted by
Jay on Tuesday, April 22, 2008 @ 11:10 PM
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Calling all prattling gabblers, lubberly louts, flouting milksops, noddy meacocks, blockish grutnols, doddipol-joltheads, and jobbernol goosecaps
Looking for just the right invective to hurl at someone? Give old François Rabelais a go. Specifically, Sir Thomas Urquhart’s 1653 translation of Rabelais’ classic satirical adventure, Gargantua and Pantagruel (written 1532-1542). Here's a sample:The bun-sellers or cake-makers were in nothing inclinable to their request; but, which was worse, did injure them most outrageously, called them prattling gabblers, lickorous gluttons, freckled bittors, mangy rascals, shite-a-bed scoundrels, drunken roysters, sly knaves, drowsy loiterers, slapsauce fellows, slabberdegullion druggels, lubberly louts, cozening foxes, ruffian rogues, paltry customers, sycophant-varlets, drawlatch hoydens, flouting milksops, jeering companions, staring clowns, forlorn snakes, ninny lobcocks, scurvy sneaksbies, fondling fops, base loons, saucy coxcombs, idle lusks, scoffing braggarts, noddy meacocks, blockish grutnols, doddipol-joltheads, jobbernol goosecaps, foolish loggerheads, flutch calf-lollies, grouthead gnat-snappers, lob-dotterels, gaping changelings, codshead loobies, woodcock slangams, ninny-hammer flycatchers, noddypeak simpletons, turdy gut, shitten shepherds, and other suchlike defamatory epithets; saying further, that it was not for them to eat of these dainty cakes, but might very well content themselves with the coarse unranged bread, or to eat of the great brown household loaf.A shout out to World Wide Words for scratching at this slubberdegullion of the English language.
Posted by
Jay on Wednesday, March 26, 2008 @ 10:39 PM
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Kluster to capitalize on the wisdom of crowds
There's an interesting article in today's New York Times – Putting Innovation in the Hands of a Crowd – about a new startup called Kluster, "the newest in a lineup of companies using the Web to channel the collective wisdom of strangers into meaningful business strategies." That has been the Wordlab philosophy for a decade now, minus that bit about having a meaningful business strategy.The mention in the article of ideas "proudly found elsewhere" taps right into the ethos of Wordlab and our free community forum, the Wordboard:Don Tapscott, the business strategy consultant and co-author of the book “Wikinomics,” said executives were quickly warming to the strategic value of “P.F.E.” ideas, or those “proudly found elsewhere.”“Throughout the 20th century, we’ve had this view that talent is inside the company,” Mr. Tapscott said. “But with the Web, collaboration costs are dropping outside the boundaries of companies, so the world can become your talent.”Mr. Tapscott, who credited Procter & Gamble with the P.F.E. concept, said executives can go overboard with the idea of outsourcing innovation if, in seeking such help, they expose too much of a company’s trade secrets. But so far, he knows of no business that has done so.“They always err on the other side,” he said. “They don’t do enough.”So, if you are in need of free or incentive-lubricated naming help for your company, product or goldfish, check us out. The Wordboard is up to nearly 10,000 registered users waiting to chime in with advice.
Posted by
Jay on Monday, March 03, 2008 @ 10:09 AM
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We're With You 24-7, 365.2422 Days a Year
 February 29, 2008
Posted by
Michael Davey on Friday, February 29, 2008 @ 7:29 AM
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You Are Getting Very Sweepy
Posted by
Michael Davey on Wednesday, February 20, 2008 @ 9:06 PM
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$122.98 Says I Love You
 According to a study issued Monday by the National Retail Federation (NRF), the average consumer plans to spend $122.98 on Valentine's Day, up from $119.67 in 2007. Total retail spending for the Feb. 14 holiday is expected to reach $17.02 billion.Of the 61 percent of consumers who plan on celebrating Valentine's Day this year, the NRF said nine of ten will spend the most on their significant others or spouses. But other loved ones will not go forgotten: six in ten plan to buy something for their family members, and two in ten said they would send a gift to friends.This year, over 48% of love birds plan to celebrate the day by taking their significant others for a special night out, up from 45% in 2007, the NRF said. But the federation said other traditional Valentine's Day presents will remain popular too, with nearly 48% of consumers planning on purchasing candy, 36% with expectations of buying flowers, and 17% who said they would buy their special someone jewelry.Of course, it is important that the recipient knows who his or her special admirer is - 57% of those surveyed plan on buying a card for their Valentine, the NRF said.Source: CNN Money
Posted by
Michael Davey on Thursday, February 14, 2008 @ 3:50 PM
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Meet Mary Christmas
 That's Brian Christmas in the background...I think you get the picture.According to Ancestry.com:The surname Christmas originated in Wales, sometimes given to people born on Christmas Day. There are 89 people named Mary Christmas in the U.S. [no mention Wales or elsewhere on this one].Other Christmas-related names on U.S. Public Records include: Jack Frost, Santa Claus, Santa Helper, Carol Christmas, On Christmas and Christmas House. Other names found in the U.S. Public Records include: Xmas Alley, Past Xmas, Eve Xmas, Kris Kringle, Snow Ball, Snow Flakes, Saint Nicholas, Rudolph Reindeer and Ginger Bread [I think I knew a stripper named Snowball]. There is no Frosty the Snowman, but 1,700 individuals show up with the surname Snowman in the census records [1700 Snowmen and not a Frosty among them? ...wimps]. Christmas is also a popular first name, according to census records. These include Christmas Joy, Christmas Day, Christmas Week, Christmas Coal, Christmas Cane, Merry Christmas Kellogg and Christmas December.That's it for Christmas - Happy Seasonal Tides and Greetings!
Posted by
Michael Davey on Saturday, December 22, 2007 @ 8:05 AM
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