YOU TALK FUNNY

"Two experiments are reported in which subjects viewed films of automobile accidents and then..."

Wed, 08 May 2013 10:06:17 -0700

“Two experiments are reported in which subjects viewed films of automobile accidents and then answered questions about events occurring in the films. The question, “About how fast were the cars going when they smashed into each other?” elicited higher estimates
of speed than questions which used the verbs collided, bumped, contucted, or hit in place of smashed. On a retest one week later, those subjects who received the verb smashed were more likely to say “yes” to the question, “Did you see any broken glass?”, even though broken glass was not present in the film. These results are consistent with the view that the questions asked subsequent to an event can cause a reconstruction in one’s memory of that event.”

- The Scientific Equivalent of “When did you stop beating your wife?”

The quote is from the original study and not the post linked but you know I would never link you to a long-ass study—much less a PDF of a long-ass study.

Demonstrably: don't be scared.

Fri, 26 Apr 2013 12:18:42 -0700

Thought for the day: demonstrably is a very angry sounding word. But do not be afraid, it won’t hurt you. It just means “in an obvious and provable manner.” But I guess that would scare a lot of people actually because so many people are full of shit.

10 Word Mix-Ups To Avoid, Presented By Bunnies

Thu, 25 Apr 2013 14:49:57 -0700

10 Word Mix-Ups To Avoid, Presented By Bunnies:

I think this post just rendered my whole blog useless.

"New word usage alert! Slash old people are late to the party again!"

Thu, 25 Apr 2013 09:42:36 -0700

“New word usage alert! Slash old people are late to the party again!”

- ‘A Rare Bird Sighting’: ‘Slash’ As A New Conjunction : The Two-Way : NPR

This tip comes from solid stud Hannah House. richgone: I guess...

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 11:58:42 -0700

This tip comes from solid stud Hannah House.

richgone:

I guess I stand corrected. It appears I am a “hipster” after all.

Email signoffs: End them forever. Best, Yours, Regards: They’re all terrible.

Wed, 10 Apr 2013 04:59:47 -0700

Email signoffs: End them forever. Best, Yours, Regards: They’re all terrible.:

This guy is mad! I agree though. Email isn’t a formal medium and signoffs are so formal. I like when my dad says “best” though but old people are always funny on the internet because they don’t know the norms. I like xoxo because it’s silly and everyone knows I don’t like hugging. I also like “sincerely” because I’m basically never being sincere so it’s a bonus joke!

Cursive Is Dead and There Is Nothing You Can Do to Bring It Back

Fri, 05 Apr 2013 04:25:02 -0700

Cursive Is Dead and There Is Nothing You Can Do to Bring It Back:

Aw, poor cursive. I’ve been saying for years what a waste it was to learn cursive—imagine what I could have learned instead! Like social skills or something.

For some weird reason, I still use cursive for checks. I’ve been trying to transition to print but it’s hard. For some reason I thought you had to write checks in cursive. No idea.

One question: how will kids nail down a signature if they don’t know cursive? Are signatures a thing of the past? I hope not because everyone agrees I have a super awesome signature.

It's tough to be a European-American

Mon, 04 Mar 2013 12:35:54 -0800

I was recently reminded that this blog exists. In separate news, I came across this article in Philly Mag: Being White in Philly. OMG it’s the worst! But linguistically, it irks me too. Who even says “whites” and “blacks” anymore? I say “white people” and “black people.” I don’t even say “jews.” I feel like “whites” and “blacks” is A. a holdover from more blatantly racist times and B. commodifying people. It also irritates me how he goes back and forth between “blacks” and “African-Americans.” I’m personally trying to bring “European-American” into our lexicon. To even things up. Because if you say “whites” but then say “African-Americans” it’s like you’re saying black people are less American or something. Like white people are the baseline for American and other people are only half-American.

And more and more, I find it awkward whenever someone says “African-American.” I don’t find the term that terrible (provided we use European-American in conjunction), but it seems like there’s some underlying racism when a white person says it. Or it’s just awkward like their internal racism is causing them to walk on eggshells.

In conclusion: Oy.

My new favorite site

Wed, 29 Aug 2012 11:26:05 -0700

Better than English: A site devoted to those words you just can’t translate. I haven’t looked through the whole site yet but I hope ennui is included. That’s my jam.

R Grammar Gaffes Ruining The Language? Maybe Not

Thu, 02 Aug 2012 16:33:32 -0700

R Grammar Gaffes Ruining The Language? Maybe Not:

I think I’m on both sides. If your site has grammatical errors, I totes won’t believe anything you say on there.

"There is a distinction between having the legal right to say something and having the moral right..."

Sun, 08 Jul 2012 14:18:46 -0700

“There is a distinction between having the legal right to say something and having the moral right not to be held accountable for what you say. Being asked to apologise for saying something unconscionable is not the same as being stripped of the legal right to say it. It’s really not very fucking complicated. Cry Free Speech in such contexts, you are demanding the right to speak any bilge you wish without apology or fear of comeback. You are demanding not legal rights but an end to debate about and criticism of what you say.”

- China Miéville (via kdeln)

#word

Art and Architecture Puns

Wed, 13 Jun 2012 11:49:02 -0700

Art and Architecture Puns:

Haaa, architecture puns. Ridic.

This is great. Just watch it, jerks. Apparently inviting someone...

Tue, 29 May 2012 11:22:00 -0700

This is great. Just watch it, jerks. Apparently inviting someone to view your etchings means you want to bang. That’s not what I meant when I invited you to view my etchings.

I believe in Czech, it’s stamp collection instead of etchings. In vegan it’s “do you want to meet my rescue pitbull?” I don’t know what it is in advertising.

The Most Comma Mistakes

Tue, 22 May 2012 19:27:43 -0700

The Most Comma Mistakes:

Grammatically, there are various ways of describing what’s going on. One helpful set of terms is essential vs. nonessential. When the identifier makes sense in the sentence by itself, then the name is nonessential and you use a comma before it. Otherwise, no comma. That explains an exception to the only-thing-in-the-world rule: when the words “a,” “an” or “some,” or a number, come before the description or identification of a name, use a comma.

via Buzzword decoder: Your election-year guide to environmental...

Tue, 15 May 2012 04:29:58 -0700

via Buzzword decoder: Your election-year guide to environmental catchphrases | Grist

Buzzwords here! Get your buzzwords!

Regional English, Tweet by Tweet - NYTimes.com

Sat, 17 Mar 2012 11:32:41 -0700

Regional English, Tweet by Tweet - NYTimes.com:

timefornaps:

According to a paper delivered at the annual meeting of the American Dialect Society in January by Brice Russ, a graduate student at Ohio State University, the 200 million or so messages posted each day in the supposedly placeless world of Twitter may end up being a rich source of information about regional difference.

To demonstrate the validity of Twitter-based research, Mr. Russ searched through some 400,000 Twitter posts coming from identifiable locations and zeroed in on three different linguistic variables, starting with the regional distribution of “soda” vs. “pop” or “Coke,” something that has been well-studied by scholars and amateurs alike. Next, he tracked the use of “hella,” an intensifier (as in “hella boring”) that is associated with Northern California but whose regional distribution has only been examined anecdotally. Finally, he looked at the well-documented syntactic construction “needs X-ed” (as in“the car needs washed”), which is common in the Midwest and especially around Pittsburgh.

Mr. Russ’s results for carbonated beverages, plotted onto a Google map, track closely with previous research, with “pop” predominant from the Midwest to the Pacific Northwest, “Coke” predominant in the South and “soda” ruling the Northeast and Southwest while also cropping up elsewhere. But his map for “hella” shows the word leap-frogging up the West Coast to Seattle (and, more puzzlingly, popping up in St. Louis and Kansas City). “People may be moving up the coast, bringing it with them,” he said, adding that he was utterly confounded by the midwestern “hella” hotspots.

As for the “needs X-ed” construction, Mr. Russ detected hints of a southward drift since it was studied in the mid-1990s, though he was cautious about drawing firm conclusions. “There could have been diffusion southward,” he said. “Or I may have just caught something that the previous research missed.”

Look, Megan Rascal! Fun with linguistics!

Fun indeed.

"The idea that young women serve as incubators of vocal trends for the culture at large has..."

Tue, 28 Feb 2012 11:08:00 -0800

“The idea that young women serve as incubators of vocal trends for the culture at large has longstanding roots in linguistics. As Paris is to fashion, the thinking goes, so are young women to linguistic innovation.”

- They’re, Like, Way Ahead of the Linguistic Currrrve

Our Lin-sane attraction to terrible puns, explained

Fri, 24 Feb 2012 07:13:23 -0800

Our Lin-sane attraction to terrible puns, explained:

Um…I can’t think of one.

Negative affect, you say?

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 07:56:00 -0800

Negative affect, you say?:

julianneeee:

vegansaurus:

“Many people like eating meat, but most are reluctant to harm things that have minds. The current three studies show that this dissonance motivates people to deny minds to animals. Study 1 demonstrates that animals considered appropriate for human consumption are ascribed diminished mental capacities. Study 2 shows that meat eaters are motivated to deny minds to food animals when they are reminded of the link between meat and animal suffering. Finally, Study 3 provides direct support for our dissonance hypothesis, showing that expectations regarding the immediate consumption of meat increase mind denial. Moreover, this mind denial in turn reduces negative affect associated with dissonance.”

I thought “affect” was wrong, but it’s correct if you look at definition 3 in the New American Oxford

Someone was concerned over a word usage in my post (not mine, it’s a quote), but they sorted it out! This is my kind of gal.

Affect/effect is quote a troublesome pair though. From my favorite grammar site:

There are five distinct words here. When “affect” is accented on the final syllable (a-FECT), it is usually a verb meaning “have an influence on”: “The million-dollar donation from the industrialist did not affect my vote against the Clean Air Act.”

Occasionally a pretentious person is said to affect an artificial air of sophistication. Speaking with a borrowed French accent or ostentatiously wearing a large diamond ear stud might be an affectation. In this sort of context, “affect” means “to make a display of or deliberately cultivate.”

Another unusual meaning is indicated when the word is accented on the first syllable (AFF-ect), meaning “emotion.” In this case the word is used mostly by psychiatrists and social scientists—people who normally know how to spell it.

The real problem arises when people confuse the first spelling with the second: “effect.” This too can be two different words. The more common one is a noun: “When I left the stove on, the effect was that the house filled with smoke.” When you affect a situation, you have an effect on it.

Less common is a verb meaning “to create”: “I’m trying to effect a change in the way we purchase widgets.” No wonder people are confused. Note especially that the proper expression is not “take affect” but “take effect”—become effective. Hey, nobody ever said English was logical: just memorize it and get on with your life.

The stuff in your purse? Your personal effects.

The stuff in movies? Sound effects and special effects.

“Affective” is a technical term having to do with emotions; the vast majority of the time the spelling you want is “effective.”

Wikipedia even has a whole page dedicated to the use of “affect” in psychology.

I’m bringing back, “pump your breaks, kid!”...

Sun, 12 Feb 2012 17:33:51 -0800

I’m bringing back, “pump your breaks, kid!” It’s already going great.