Anglonautes > English words - vocabulary - dictionary - encyclopedia > Language

PRIVACY. Selfie. Geek. Science. Four dictionary publishers each selected one of those words as its word of the year for 2013. But it’s tough to catalog the preoccupations of the year in a single word. There were many flying around that seemed to capture a moment, an emotion, a thought, a new way of doing or describing things, or the larger zeitgeist. Some were new, some not so new, but they all seemed to say something about the times. Here are a few:

AG-GAG LAW n. Legislation that restricts the use of undercover video in places where food animals are raised or slaughtered. From agriculture + gag law.

AIR GAP n. The space surrounding a computing device that is disconnected from all networks, which can protect it from digital attacks. But one security researcher claims the air gap can be defeated by malware that transmits data encoded in high-frequency sounds out of computer speakers and into the microphones of nearby computers.

BAE n. Spelling representation of a dialect pronunciation of babe or baby. The catchphrase “bae caught me slippin” (meaning, “My baby caught me sleeping”) came into vogue as a caption to photographs taken by people pretending to be asleep.

BITCOIN n. An anonymous, decentralized, digital, encrypted currency and payment system.

BOSTON STRONG n. A catchphrase and slogan used to show solidarity after the Boston Marathon bombing in April.

CIS adj. Identifying the gender that one was born to and identifies with, as in cismale for “male with male gender identity.” Short for cisgender, an antonym of transgender. Pronounced as siss.

CRONUT n. A wonderful pastry that is part croissant, part doughnut and part hype.

DEEP STATE n. A hard-to-perceive level of government or super-control that exists regardless of elections and that may thwart popular movements or radical change. Some have said that Egypt is being manipulated by its deep state.

DOGE n. An intentional misspelling of dog. It’s part of a popular Internet meme featuring pictures of shiba inu dogs surrounded by not-quite-grammatical captions in Comic Sans font.

DOX v. To uncover and then publish someone’s personal information. An abbreviation of document. Sometimes spelled doxx.

DRONE n. A flying machine, either autonomous or remotely piloted, used for surveillance, military sorties and deliveries. As a verb, to send a drone to a location, especially to bomb it. “We droned most of the key militant leaders.”

FATBERG n. A 15-ton ball of fat, grease and solid sewage found in a London sewer.

FEELS n. pl. Feelings. Originated online, thrived as a meme in 2012, and now in 2013 shows signs of moving into more widespread English slang. It’s typically used in response to a moving story: “That got me right in the feels, bro.”

HARLEM SHAKE n. A song by the music producer Baauer that has been used in many videos of people dancing to its opening segment. In each, a helmeted or masked person dances alone while being ignored by others. Then, after a musical drop, the scene changes and is filled with lots of outlandish dancing.

ITAP An acronym for “I took a picture.” LEAN IN v. A business philosophy intended to lead women to success in the workplace. From the title of the 2013 book by Sheryl Sandberg, the chief operating officer of Facebook: “Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead.”

MOLLY n. A supposedly pure form of the illegal drug MDMA, also known as ecstasy. The term is at least 10 years old.

NO FILTER A label for a photograph that has not been adjusted by software. Often used as a hashtag: #nofilter.

OBAMACARE n. The Affordable Care Act signed into law in 2010. Since 2007, the word has been both wielded like a bludgeon and held up like a trophy, and has gone from a sneered pejorative to a matter-of-fact shorthand.

RESTING BITCH FACE, BITCHY RESTING FACE, BITCH FACE n. A face that, when at rest, looks angry, irritated or aggressive. Dating back at least 10 years as a described concept but popularized in 2013 by a video made by the group Broken People.

SELFIE n. A photo self-portrait.

SEQUESTRATION n. Automatic, mandated budget cuts to the federal budget. Also v., sequester.

SHARKNADO n. A B-movie featuring sharks being hurled about by a tornado.

SORRY, NOT SORRY adj. phr. A way of apologizing without apologizing, usually used as an interjection or an aside.

TWERK v. A mode of dance that involves vigorous shaking and thrusting of the rear end, usually with the feet planted. Although the term is about 20 years old, it received new attention when the singer Miley Cyrus performed a twerk-like routine onstage at MTV’s Video Music Awards. The word’s origin is uncertain, but may come from chanted repetitions of "work it, work it."

VAPE v. To smoke electronic cigarettes, which use moisture to deliver nicotine without tobacco. Vape lounges are places where e-cigarette supplies can be bought and used.

VAX n. A vaccine. Also anti-vaxxer, a person who believes that vaccinations are harmful.

YOUNG INVINCIBLES n. pl. People between ages 18 and 34 who are typically in good health and may not see the need to sign up for health insurance but are critical to Obamacare to spread the cost of providing affordable insurance.

Grant Barrett is a lexicographer specializing

in slang and new words, and a co-host

of the public radio program “A Way With Words.”

A Wordnado of Words in 2013,
NYT,
21.12.2013,
https://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/22/
opinion/sunday/a-wordnado-of-words-in-2013.html

Which Words Will Live On?

December 31, 2011

The New York Times

By GRANT BARRETT

COLLECTING the past year’s words is like sifting one’s pockets at the end of a trip. Some things you’ll keep, some you’ll discard — the dinner receipt for the expense-account meal vs. the one-peso coin. Each is a reminder of what you did, where you went and whom you were with.

In 10 years, some of last year’s words will be relics. We’ll think of them the way we now think of the decades-old phrase “gag me with a spoon.”

Others have already proved their staying power. Who could argue that the new sense of “occupy” isn’t already a keeper, even starting as it did late in the third quarter of 2011? A movement so well labeled, if not cohesive in thought and action, that its name instantly lent itself to variation and satire.

We create all this new language, political and otherwise, for a lot of reasons. We’re school-yard taunters, looking for the joke, the riff or the gag that will stick. We’re novelty-shop fanatics, spending every paycheck in the House of Language on gewgaws and gimcracks and tchotchkes. Below are just a few of the catchwords I’ve snagged during the last 12 months: Some are oldies that have resurfaced and taken on new life.

53 PERCENTER An American in a household that pays income tax. Coined by conservatives who believe that the economy would improve if those who do not pay income taxes did.

99 PERCENT, 99 PERCENTERS People claimed by the Occupy movement to be at a financial or political disadvantage when compared with the 1 percenters, those who protesters say have too much money and too much political control.

9-9-9 PLAN The proposal by Herman Cain, a former Republican presidential candidate, for a 9 percent flat income tax, a 9 percent business flat tax and a 9 percent national sales tax.

ARAB SPRING Collectively, the popular revolts and protests in Middle Eastern and Arab countries, among them Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen and Syria. Less frequently called Arab Awakening.

AUSTERITY MEASURES Reductions or restrictions on government spending, meant to balance budgets, reduce deficits and meet standards set by intergovernmental lenders.

BASKETBRAWL The fight that broke out between members of the Georgetown Hoyas and the Bayi Rockets during an exhibition basketball game in Beijing.

BATH SALTS The street name for a group of stimulants made illegal this year.

BRONY A man who is a fan of the television cartoon “My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic.” Formed from “bro,” brother or male friend, and pony.

BUFFETT TAX A proposal that people making more than $1 million a year pay a higher rate of income tax than they do now and more than those who make less. Named for the investor Warren Buffett, who advocates the approach. Also called the Buffett rule.

CLOUD MUSIC Personal digital music collections stored on remote servers so that they may be accessed by all of a person’s digital devices. Both Apple and Google introduced cloud music services this year.

CRANKSHAFT The code name used for Osama bin Laden by the Navy Seals team that killed him in Pakistan.

DARK SKY Designates a place free of nighttime light pollution. For example, the island of Sark in the English Channel is a dark-sky island.

DEATHER Someone who doubts that Osama bin Laden was killed by American troops.

DEBT CEILING Not a new term, but now familiar to all: the limit to the amount of money the federal government may borrow.

HUMAN MEGAPHONE A method of amplifying a speaker’s words in which everyone who hears them repeats them in unison. Used in the Occupy protests, though not invented there. Also called the people’s mike. To activate the human megaphone, a speaker will announce a mike check.

HUMBLEBRAG A complaint, wry remark or self-deprecation that also reveals how famous, rich or important the speaker or writer is. Popularized by the comedian Harris Wittels, a writer for the NBC series "Parks and Recreation.”

KARDASH A unit of time measuring 72 days. Coined by the musician Weird Al Yankovic in response to the 72-day marriage of Kim Kardashian and Kris Humphries.

LEAP SMEAR Adding a few milliseconds each day to a computer’s time-keeping. Google’s solution for handling leap seconds, which are added to official world time to account for changes in the earth’s rotation.

LIKEJACKING Tricking users of a social media site, especially Facebook, into posting spammy content in their accounts or on their pages. Usually activated by clicking a “like,” “fave” or “thumbs up” button.

NYM WARS A public debate about the requirement by some Web sites, especially Google+, that users not use pseudonyms. From the suffix -nym, as used in pseudonym, ultimately from the Greek onuma, for name.

OCCUPY WALL STREET A left-leaning movement protesting wealth inequality and urging more government action against banks and corporations, which are seen by the protesters as being responsible for the current economic downturn. Abbreviated as O.W.S. or just Occupy and extended by replacing “Wall Street” with any place name, as in Occupy L.A. or Occupy Toronto. Occupy and occupation have been used in the context of political or labor protests since the 1920s.

PLANKING Posing for a photograph with the body in a stiff prone position, especially in odd situations or places. Similar popular pastimes this year include horsemaning, posing for a two-person picture that makes it look as though a supine headless body is holding a severed head, and Tebowing, kneeling as if praying in the manner of the Denver Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow, with one knee down and one up, and one’s head resting on one’s fist.

SUPER COMMITTEE A group of 12 lawmakers, 6 Democrats and 6 Republicans, 3 each from the House and the Senate, that tried to make a plan on how to reduce the deficit. Also, the Gang of Six, three Democratic and three Republican senators who worked on reducing the federal government’s debt.

TOT MOM Casey Anthony, acquitted of charges of killing her 2-year-old daughter. The term was largely popularized by Nancy Grace, host of her own HLN program.

TWINKLING Silently affirming a speaker by raising one’s hands, palms outward, and wiggling the hands and fingers. Similar to a gesture used in American Sign Language as the equivalent of applause. Brought to wider public attention by the Occupy movement (see human megaphone, above) but predates it by many years.

WINNING Used repeatedly and not ironically by the actor Charlie Sheen at the time of his tumultuous departure from “Two and a Half Men.” It was quickly taken up as a catchphrase. Related: tiger blood, which Mr. Sheen figuratively used to describe his motivations.

Grant Barrett is a lexicographer

specializing in slang and new words.

He is a host of the public radio program

“A Way With Words”

and a vice president of the American Dialect Society.

Which Words Will Live On?,
NYT,
31.12.2011,
https://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/01/
opinion/sunday/the-words-that-defined-2011.html

His Way With Words:

Cadence and Credibility

Saturday, January 17, 2009

1:20 PM

Washington Post

Staff Writer

By Henry Allen

Now we get to hear Barack Obama give an inaugural address: seen from the Mall, from bleachers, from a distant seat in a winter tree (weather permitting), he will be another in a long history of tiny humans up there, bustling around against the shoulder-y bulk of the Capitol.

Jumbo screens will relay images to the crowd, the way loudspeakers have relayed sound. Images rule now, wisdom has it, and Obama has a smooth, cool, minimalist image. But people are coming, in a way they haven't come in a while, not just to see him but to hear him, to listen to his words. Before he's halfway through those words, they'll be comparing his inaugural address with his victory speech in Iowa, his acceptance speech in Denver, on and on.

Supporters talk about Barack Obama's speeches as if they were rock concerts. Blew me away . . . I realized I was crying . . . They brag about having been in the hall to hear them the way they might brag about having been at Woodstock when Jimi Hendrix played "The Star-Spangled Banner" by the dawn's early light.

As much as anything else, Obama won the presidency with words.

Obama is an orator, a rare thing in a time when educated people, a lot of them Obama supporters, have been taught to distrust old-fashioned eloquence. They want text they can deconstruct, the verbal equivalent of spreadsheets; they say they want candidates who talk about "the issues."

That's not what they got from Obama. As the presidential race shaped up, Sen. John McCain saw what was happening. He warned Americans against being "deceived by an eloquent but empty call for change." Sen. Hillary Clinton, too: In the process of losing the nomination to Obama, she warned of "talk versus action."

As it happens, Obama can deliver deconstructible text, but in Denver, when he did it, accepting the Democratic nomination with a speech stacked with programs, policies, issues and specifics, he mildly disappointed those who hoped to be enthralled yet again. They didn't want to move into a rational, deliberate future; they wanted to stay with the ancient mojo of one human being talking to a crowd of other human beings.

This is an age of media hipness, when we're virtuosos of data bounced off satellites, when we get weird as wizards, talking on cellphones to electronic ghosts constructed of bandwidths and wavelengths. But Obama has reminded us that none of this modern science has the power of the human animal standing up on two feet and talking -- a sort of ritual shouting, actually, even chanting: oratory, probably not much different than the way it was done by the Old Ones in the forest primeval. We're not used to this. People call it "preternatural."

"The crowd was quiet now, watching me," Barack Obama has written of discovering this power in college. "Somebody started to clap. 'Go on with it, Barack,' somebody else shouted. 'Tell it like it is.' Then the others started in, clapping, cheering, and I knew that I had them, that the connection had been made."

Connect. Yes, we can.

Connect with repetition, cadences, attitude, rises and falls of tone. Yes, we can.

Obama's speech on Super Tuesday, Feb. 6, 2008: "We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek."

This is poetry.

WE are the ONES we've been WAITing for.

It's ancient English metrics: WE are the CHANGE that we SEEK, a chant of dactyls, DA-da-da, DA-da-da, as in Longfellow's "THIS is the FORest primEVal."

Rock it, Obama.

This stuff works. Franklin Roosevelt used iambs (da-DA, da-DA) that could have been lifted from Shakespeare ("To BE or NOT to BE") at the opening of his 1933 inaugural address: "The ONly THING we HAVE to FEAR is FEAR itSELF." (Though the crowd that day ignored the line -- later, newspapers made it the motto of the New Deal.)

Martin Luther King: "I HAVE a DREAM that ONE day DOWN in ALaBAMa . . . "

Analysts of Obama's oratory cite the influence of African American preaching tradition, but the influence is older, rooted like a mangrove in the swamp of the nervous system.

"It's about the tune, not the lyrics, with Obama," says Philip Collins, who wrote speeches for Tony Blair, the former British prime minister. In a BBC report, Collins cites "the way he slides down some words and hits others -- the intonation, the emphasis, the pauses and the silences."

Winston Churchill rocked it in a chant of anapests (da-da-DA): "We shall FIGHT on the BEACHes . . . we shall FIGHT in the FIELDS . . . we shall FIGHT in the HILLS . . . we shall NEVer surRENDer."

He knew about the ancient Greeks controlling and defending against the power of oratory by codifying it with labels you heard once in college and forgot: asyndeton, litotes, epistrophe. For instance, here Churchill is using the technique of anaphora, repeating phrases at the beginning of clauses. Note, too, that in defense of England he uses nothing but Old English words except for "surrender," which comes from the French.

Plato defined rhetoric as "winning the soul through discourse."

Ted Sorensen, who wrote John F. Kennedy's Inaugural Address, said that great oratory required "speaking from the heart, to the heart, directly, not too complicated, relatively brief sentences, words that are clear to everyone."

Winning souls -- speaking to the heart, not the mind. It is a technology of sorts, a tool that can be used for good or evil, but has no morality in itself. Hitler was eloquent -- strange, though, almost no one can remember anything he said. Eloquence should be listened to with a cool head.

Aristotle said good rhetoric should consist of pathos, logos and ethos -- emotion, argument, and character or credibility. Obama has won souls mostly with pathos and ethos. He hasn't needed logos much because he's usually preaching to the choir, all those shining faces full of hope. In an ugly and dangerous moment in his campaign, however, he used logos to justify the complicated position he had taken on the incendiary racial remarks made by his former, longtime minister, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. It worked for him.

Usually, he is not trying to convince people who disagree with him -- he'll face that chore in the Oval Office. (As former New York governor Mario Cuomo has said: "You campaign in poetry, but you govern in prose.")

Here's an ethos riff from the Wright speech: "I am the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas. I was raised with the help of a white grandfather who survived a Depression to serve in Patton's army during World War II and a white grandmother who worked on a bomber assembly line at Fort Leavenworth while he was overseas. I've gone to some of the best schools in America and lived in one of the world's poorest nations."

In his review of "The Anti-Intellectual Presidency: The Decline of Presidential Rhetoric From George Washington to George W. Bush," John McWhorter quotes author Elvin T. Lim: "Presidential rhetoric should articulate programs to citizens in a manner that solicits their support only if its wisdom passes muster."

Wonderful, but America is a democracy. Legend has it that during one of Adlai Stevenson's campaigns against Dwight Eisenhower, a supporter told him that he was sure to "get the vote of every thinking man." Stevenson replied, "Thank you, but I need a majority to win." Hillary Clinton went Lim's route, and lost to Obama, who, McWhorter says, got the majority by electrifying "the electorate with touching autobiography and comfort-food proclamations about hope and unity -- that is, with ethos and pathos."

And there's the charisma factor in his oratory, the quality that powered Kennedy's stunning inaugural speech in the wild winter sunlight that day in 1961: "Pay any price, bear any burden" (alliteration: "pay"/"price," "bear"/"burden"); "Ask not what your country can do for you -- ask what you can do for your country" (the Greeks called this chiasmus, meaning a reversal of terms -- "country"/"you," "you"/"country").

About a century ago, Max Weber, the sociologist, said charisma defined its bearers as "set apart from ordinary people and treated as endowed with supernatural, superhuman or at least specifically exceptional powers." Obama has it now. It's impossible to believe it could fade, but it could. After 9/11, George W. Bush seemed to have something like it for a while, speaking from a pile of rubble in New York, striding past troops -- a moment we've mostly forgotten.

With Obama's oratory there is also the factor of cool, which could be a subcategory of charisma. Cool has a history of its own. Renaissance Italians called it "sprezzatura," meaning nonchalance and effortless ease. The Yoruba word for it is "itutu," which literally means cool -- a calm and collected affect. It has universal appeal.

Hence Obama's demeanor at the lectern -- the face lifted as if with a casual curiosity; utterly unneedy, like an aristocrat or a minor god; eyes narrowed with knowing that you know he knows you know. He smothers the last syllables of a word sometimes, casual as a teenager. He drops g's in the rustic manner to be heard in both England and America, though he doesn't drop them as much as Sarah Palin did in her celebrated good ol' girl run for the vice presidency. He shifts accents -- an African American audience will bring a hint of street talk into his voice. It's all hints, nuances, sprezzatura.

He seems at ease with power. Recent presidents have hidden their personal power, their force, during their speeches. Maybe they were afraid of seeming like bullies, of offending political correctness by seeming macho. George H.W. Bush and Lyndon Johnson felt obliged to hide their aggressiveness behind forced smiles. They were men who acted like boys in futile hopes of reassuring their listeners. Obama has the charm of a boy acting like a man -- the magic of the boy king. His smile -- a big one -- is easy.

There is not much to say about Obama's gestures, because gesture has largely vanished from oratory. Aristotle said that only the words should matter, but because of the weakness of men, the tricks of voice and gesture were necessary.

A 19th-century speech manual listed rhetorical gestures: four positions for the feet, nine ways for the hands to show defiance, discrimination and adoration, and so on. Old film footage shows Teddy Roosevelt storming around and waving his fists. Huey "The Kingfish" Long would pound his fist into his hand, then circle his hands over his shoulders as if he were making a speech about helicopters.

Gesture of this sort began to die with film and radio, which brought politicians so close that they didn't need semaphore to reach the back of the crowd. Franklin Roosevelt kept his hands on the lectern during his inaugural address for another reason -- crippled by polio, he used them to hold himself up. At the same time, huge gesticulation came to be linked with such dictatorial crowd-rousers as Hitler and Mussolini.

Inaugural watchers are not apt to see Obama wave his hands much, except to point. He speaks more in the style of television anchormen, with their rituals of modesty and sincerity -- the raising of hands above the shoulders is almost unthinkable on the nightly news.

Speeches still have gestures, but they're more subtle. Ronald Reagan knew that in televised speeches he needed no more than a savvy eyebrow lift to make a point. Bill Clinton had a concerned frown that claimed he was, well, concerned. Obama has his smile, his thoughtful stare into the distance and his cool grace.

Radio, amplification and film also introduced a conversational tone into speeches. Roosevelt used it in his fireside chats on radio. Cuomo used it to fascinate the 1984 Democratic convention. It seems so sincere, so authentic. But the conversational tone is a trick in itself. Obama uses it to gain intimacy and trust, and to set off, by contrast, his higher-volume calls for belief and support. The sound and sight of a human being calling loudly to us still has force, maybe as much as it ever did.

Now Obama is working the magic that we thought was part of the past. How enthralling. Feels so good. We might do well to study the architecture of Greek rhetoric, so we know what's happening to us. Just because eloquence feels good doesn't mean it is good. In any case, we'll hear more of it. And cameras panning the crowd on the Mall will show shining faces. If all goes as expected, listeners waiting for hours in the winter weather, waiting for words from that tiny figure at the lectern, will be enthralled.

His Way With Words: Cadence and Credibility, WP, 17.1.2009,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp
dyn/content/article/2009/01/17/AR2009011701429.html

Besotted — Etymologically, That Is

December 31, 2008
10:00 pm
The New York Times
By Iain Gately

I cleared my hangover on Boxing Day by going for a surf at Espasante, near my home in Galicia, northern Spain. As soon as I started to paddle out, a close-out set came in, every wave of which landed on my head, so that by the time I’d got to the break I was knackered, breathless, and freezing. I fell off a few waves then rode in to shore an hour later, mission accomplished — my head was clear.

A fisherman — with Anton, the town pig by his side — had been watching me and he asked, “What happened to you out there?” I tried to explain, but my Spanish was inadequate. The only way I could say I’d drank too much the day before was “estuve borracho” but borracho wasn’t the word I wanted. To me it implies a bestial, slobbering sort of drunkenness, which wasn’t quite how it had seemed when I was celebrating Yuletide with family and friends.

We’d feasted, played games with the children, danced, decorated each other with fluorescent paint, and drank: beer and Cava for the race down the stream, Albarino with the salmon, Priorat with the suckling pig, more Cava for musical chairs, Port with the Stilton and roasted chestnuts, a cleansing ale during the treasure hunt, brandy with the Christmas pudding, then back to wine and anything else that was open for dancing. When I fell into bed with my partner I was happy: inebriated yes, wasted, no. Squiffy rather than sloshed, trashed or flayed. But how do you say squiffy in Spanish?

As far as I’m aware, English has the richest vocabulary of any language when it comes to describing the effects of alcohol upon human behavior. I think that that’s because the British have been constant and heavy drinkers for most of their history. From the Anglo-Saxon invasions to the Industrial Revolution, they’ve been getting beodrunken, foxed, tipsy, pie-eyed and woozey. Indeed the English have developed an entire lexicon to express different nuances of the same condition.

The habit has traveled with the language: in America, in particular, English speakers have sought to expand the range of euphemisms for inebriation. In January 1736, Benjamin Franklin published “a new Piece, lately communicated to me, entitled the DRINKERS DICTIONARY” in the Philadelphia Gazette, which offered 228 “distant round-about phrases,” culled from the taverns of the town, which were understood “to signify plainly that A MAN IS DRUNK.” My favorites include the following:

“He sees the Bears”

“He’s got his Top Gallant Sails out”

“He’s kiss’d black Betty”

“He’s Eat a Toad & half for Breakfast”

“Been too free with Sir Richard”

“Nimptopsical”

“Trammel’d”

The Drinkers’ Dictionary evokes the age and the place in which it was collated. Probably half of its entries are seamen’s slang — and reflect the importance of maritime commerce to Philadelphia at the time. A good many others are rustic and feature such colonial exotica as Indians, bears, and kibb’ed heels. The influence of the Bible is also evident — even drunks knew their way around the Good Book in those days.

Just under two centuries later, the Dictionary was revisited by Edmund Wilson in his “Lexicon of Prohibition.” It too is something of a time capsule, with a number of terms and phrases which sing of the Jazz Age, including:

“Zozzled”

“to have the whoops and jingles”

“to burn with a low blue flame”

However, the Lexicon listed a mere 105 expressions for drunkenness — fewer than half of the terms that appear in its 18th century equivalent. Wilson attributed the decline to changes in drinking patterns brought on by prohibition: “It is interesting to note that one hears nowadays less often of people going on sprees, toots, tears, jags, bats, brannigans or benders. All these terms suggest, not merely drunkenness, but also an exceptional occurrence, a breaking away by the drinker from the conditions of his normal life. It is possible that their partial disappearance is mainly to be accounted for by the fact that this kind of fierce and protracted drinking has now become universal, an accepted feature of social life instead of a disreputable escapade.” He did, however, believe that terms used to describe social drinking had become more nuanced during the Noble Experiment.

I wonder how long the list of words and phrases for being under the influence would be today? Some of the old terms, such as “stoned,” coined in Jacobean England to denote lustful drunkenness, are now applied to the discombobulation brought on by different drugs than alcohol. Others vanished with the days of sail. I ran through a good two dozen in my head at Espasante when I was searching for a word that went into Spanish easily. Merry? Caned? Loaded? Stocious?

The fisherman let me flounder on awhile, then said “Estuviste piripi” and left me with Anton the pig, who grunted, urinated on my wetsuit, and also went on his way.

Besotted — Etymologically, That Is, NYT, 31.12.2008,
http://proof.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/12/31/
besotted-etymologically-that-is/

The sublime joy of Scrabble

Created by an under-employed architect
in the Great Depression,
it's the perfect pastime for straitened times
– and it's 60 tomorrow. Andy McSmith
celebrates a true lexicographic phenomenon

Monday, 15 December 2008
The Independent

Happy birthday, Scrabble! No, make that Joyous Birthday, because although "happy" is one of those deceptively high scoring words, what with H and Y being worth 4, and P 3, making 15 in all, "joyous" has that initial J, worth 8, which lifts it to 16, one point higher.

It is 60 years ago tomorrow that Scrabble was registered as a trade mark by Alfred Mosher Butts, an architect from New York state, and his businessman friend James Brunot.

But age has not stopped the game from being on top of the list of the UK's favourite board games as Christmas approaches – and not just for families sitting around a board playing with plastic squares.

Earlier this year, the manufacturers of the board game won a landmark ruling against Facebook, which was ordered to remove from their site a game called Scrabulous, which was attracting 500,000 users a day, because it breached copyright. The judgement caused a new Facebook group to spring up, with the self-explanatory name "Save Scrabulous".

The row would have bemused the game's inventor, Alfred Butts, who had time on his hands during the great depression, and made a quixotic (76 points minimum) decision to set about inventing a new board game. Analysing those that were already popular, he observed that they were in three categories: number games such as dice and bingo; games involving moves, as in chess, and word games, such as anagrams and crosswords.

By 1931, he had developed a word game that also had a bit of arithmetic thrown in, which he called Lexico. It was played without a board. He made about 200 copies which he sold or gave away, but it did not catch on.

Then in 1938, he had a better idea – inspired by the growing popularity of crosswords – and reinvented Lexico as a board game, which he called Criss Crosswords. The board has 225 squares and comes with 100 tiles, and as any muzhik (permissible Russian word meaning peasant – 24 points) knows, the idea is to make words from the letters on the tiles in the style of a crossword.

Before deciding what numerical value to give to each letter, Butts spent hours poring over the front pages of each day's New York Times. His cryptographic (28 points, but you need two turns) analysis was so good that his points system and tile distribution have not been altered in seven decades. The rack that holds seven tiles at a time also dates back to 1938.

Butts offered his new game to every established games manufacturer. They all turned it down. However, one of the hand-lettered sets that he had painstakingly made at home came into the hands of James Brunot, who decided after the war that it ought to be marketed. He changed the rules slightly, so that the game began in the middle of the board rather than the top left hand corner, and more importantly he altered the name to Scrabble (permissible – 14 points), which he registered as a trademark on 16 December 1948.

The next four years were a struggle. Brunot's company manufactured 2,400 Scrabble sets in 1949, assembling the parts on the living room of the Brunots' home in Connecticut, and lost $450 on the venture. But gradually, year by year, a buzz (would be worth 34 if there were a second "z", but you have to use a blank, so only 24) was created among devotees of the game. When the Brunots returned from a holiday in Kentucky in 1952, they found such a pile of orders waiting that their little factory could barely cope. Even Macy's, the world's biggest department store, wanted copies. By 1953, when orders exceeded 6,000 a week, the Brunots licensed Scrabble to one of the big established manufacturers which had previously rejected it.

Scrabble spread quickly (75 points, if all seven letters are off your rack) around the world. It arrived in the UK in 1953, launched by JW Spear and Sons, which holds the rights to Scrabble everywhere except the US and Canada. It was bought in 1994 by Mattel, the world's largest toy and game company. The US and Canadian rights are owned by Hasbro.

About 100 million Scrabble sets have been sold in 121 countries and 29 languages. More than 300 Scrabble clubs are registered in the UK alone.

The first world Scrabble championship was hosted in London in 1991, and has been held on alternate years ever since. By then, James Brunot was dead, but Alfred Butts lived to be 93, dying in April 1993. The 2007 world championship, held in Mumbai, was won by Nigel Richards, a New Zealander. The 2008 British Scrabble champion is Allan Simmons, from Berwickshire.

These tournaments are now played for big money, with all the tension and ego stroking of a major sport. Wespa, the World English-language Scrabble Players Association, is holding an inquiry into the eviction a week ago of the Bahrain and Gulf champion, Mohammed Zafar, from the Causeway Challenge in Malaysia, where players compete for a top prize of $10,000 (£6,700). The tournament organiser accused Mr Zafar of not following the rules when taking his tiles out of the bag; he insisted that he was holding the bag correctly.

You can buy the original Scrabble, Scramble Scrabble, Travel Scrabble, Pocket Scrabble, Junior Scrabble, My First Scrabble, Deluxe Scrabble, Dora Scrabble, and Simpsons Scrabble – and those are just the versions with a board. To settle arguments about which words are legal, an Official Scrabble Players' Dictionary and Official Tournament and Club Word List have been published.

There are also various computerised forms – but here a word of caution is needed. Earlier this month, Tonya Carrington from Lincoln bought a Nintendo version for her eight-year-old son, Ethan, hoping it would improve his vocabulary. She was so shocked when she tried it out for herself that she almost hyperventilated (It would take three goes, but it is 15 letters, the maximum possible, and worth three triple word scores on the edge of the board). The first shock came when her digital opponent laid down the word "tits". It helpfully supplied a definition with each word; this one was identified as the plural form of a word meaning "a garden bird".

Mrs Carrington might have let that pass if the machine had not gone and won the game with a seven letter word on a triple word score, containing four letters worth a mere point each, interspersed with three high scoring letters – an F worth 4, C worth 3, and K, worth 5, making an impressive 45. The machine defined it as "a slang word for chavs".

"I would have been horrified if Ethan had seen that word," said Mrs Carrington. "I was absolutely mortified. The worst thing is that there's an age rating of 3-plus on the box and no advisory warning about adult language on the packaging at all."

But despite the occasional jinx (18 points) that would give you asphyxy (75), Scrabble is surely a whizz (19) of a game, as zappy (21) as a zephyr (23) and jazzier (22) than bezique (77).

Scrabble crazy Famous fans

Barack Obama

According to the President-elect's communications director, Robert Gibbs: "It's his favourite game to play. He'll play with his family and particularly his sister. And the winner gets bragging rights for a long, long time."

Richard Nixon

Nixon is the only American President who regularly played Scrabble in the White House, though Bill and Hillary Clinton apparently also enjoy the occasional game.

Kylie Minogue

Whereas in the song "Your Disco Needs You", on her Light Years album, Kylie complains: "Desperately seeking someone willing to travel; You're lost in conversation and useless at Scrabble."

Mel Gibson

The German film director Roland Emmerich, who has worked with Gibson, said: "He's very accommodating. He is always on the set playing Scrabble in the back. When we need him, he drops his Scrabble pieces and comes running."

Queen Elizabeth II

HRH is widely reputed to beanother devotee of the game.

Sting

In the song "Seven Days", on his Ten Summoner's Tales album, you hear Sting sing: "IQ is no problem here; we won't be playing Scrabble for her hand, I fear."

Eddie Izzard

Describing a back ailment, the stand-up comic explained the distinction between a chiropractor and an osteopath, though he added: "Of course, they're both very powerful on the Scrabble board."

Vladimir Nabokov

The author of Lolita loved playing with words in different languages, and was one of the first celebrity Scrabble addicts. The main character in his novel Ada is an exceptionally good Scrabblep layer.

Spreading the word: 100m sold worldwide

*Some 100 million Scrabble sets in 29 different languages have been sold in 121 countries, making it the world's biggest-selling word game. The prototype was called Lexico, the brainchild of architect Alfred Mosher Butts, of New York State, who devised it after losing his job in the Depression. He worked out the letter values according to their frequency by combing the pages of The New York Times. It did not get copyright approval until 1948, when its name was changed to Scrabble.

    The sublime joy of Scrabble, I, 15.12.2008,
    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/
    the-sublime-joy-of-scrabble-1067061.html

In ‘Sweetie’ and ‘Dear,’

a Hurt for the Elderly

October 7, 2008
The New York Times
By JOHN LELAND

Professionals call it elderspeak, the sweetly belittling form of address that has always rankled older people: the doctor who talks to their child rather than to them about their health; the store clerk who assumes that an older person does not know how to work a computer, or needs to be addressed slowly or in a loud voice. Then there are those who address any elderly person as “dear.”

“People think they’re being nice,” said Elvira Nagle, 83, of Dublin, Calif., “but when I hear it, it raises my hackles.”

Now studies are finding that the insults can have health consequences, especially if people mutely accept the attitudes behind them, said Becca Levy, an associate professor of epidemiology and psychology at Yale University, who studies the health effects of such messages on elderly people.

“Those little insults can lead to more negative images of aging,” Dr. Levy said. “And those who have more negative images of aging have worse functional health over time, including lower rates of survival.”

In a long-term survey of 660 people over age 50 in a small Ohio town, published in 2002, Dr. Levy and her fellow researchers found that those who had positive perceptions of aging lived an average of 7.5 years longer, a bigger increase than that associated with exercising or not smoking. The findings held up even when the researchers controlled for differences in the participants’ health conditions.

In her forthcoming study, Dr. Levy found that older people exposed to negative images of aging, including words like “forgetful,” “feeble” and “shaky,” performed significantly worse on memory and balance tests; in previous experiments, they also showed higher levels of stress.

Despite such research, the worst offenders are often health care workers, said Kristine Williams, a nurse gerontologist and associate professor at the University of Kansas School of Nursing.

To study the effects of elderspeak on people with mild to moderate dementia, Dr. Williams and a team of researchers videotaped interactions in a nursing home between 20 residents and staff members. They found that when nurses used phrases like “good girl” or “How are we feeling?” patients were more aggressive and less cooperative or receptive to care. If addressed as infants, some showed their irritation by grimacing, screaming or refusing to do what staff members asked of them.

The researchers, who will publish their findings in The American Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease and Other Dementias, concluded that elderspeak sent a message that the patient was incompetent and “begins a negative downward spiral for older persons, who react with decreased self-esteem, depression, withdrawal and the assumption of dependent behaviors.”

Dr. Williams said health care workers often thought that using words like “dear” or “sweetie” conveyed that they cared and made them easier to understand. “But they don’t realize the implications,” she said, “that it’s also giving messages to older adults that they’re incompetent.”

“The main task for a person with Alzheimer’s is to maintain a sense of self or personhood,” Dr. Williams said. “If you know you’re losing your cognitive abilities and trying to maintain your personhood, and someone talks to you like a baby, it’s upsetting to you.”

She added that patients who reacted aggressively against elderspeak might receive less care.

For people without cognitive problems, elderspeak can sometimes make them livid. When Sarah Plummer’s pharmacy changed her monthly prescription for cancer drugs from a vial to a contraption she could not open, she said, the pharmacist explained that the packaging was intended to help her remember her daily dose.

“I exploded,” Ms. Plummer wrote to a New York Times blog, The New Old Age, which asked readers about how they were treated in their daily life.

“Who says I don’t take my medicine as prescribed?” wrote Ms. Plummer, 61, who lives in Champaign, Ill. “I am alive right now because I take these pills! What am I supposed to do? Hold it with vice grips and cut it with a hack saw?’”

She added, “I believed my dignity and integrity were being assaulted.”

Health care workers are often not trained to avoid elderspeak, said Vicki Rosebrook, the executive director of the Macklin Intergenerational Institute in Findlay, Ohio, a combined facility for elderly people and children that is part of a retirement community.

Dr. Rosebrook said that even in her facility, “we have 300 elders who are ‘sweetie’d’ here. Our kids talk to elders with more respect than some of our professional care providers.”

She said she considered elderspeak a form of bullying. “It’s talking down to them,” she said. “We do it to children so well. And it’s natural for the sandwich generation, since they address children that way.”

Not all older people object to being called sweetie or dear, and some, like Jan Rowell, 61, of West Linn, Ore., say they appreciate the underlying warmth. “We’re all reaching across the chasm,” Ms. Rowell said. “If someone calls us sweetie or honey, it’s not diminishing us; it’s just their way to connect, in a positive way.”

She added, “What would reinforce negative stereotypes is the idea that old people are filled with pet peeves, taking offense at innocent attempts to be friendly.”

But Ellen Kirschman, 68, a police psychologist in Northern California, said she objected to people calling her “young lady,” which she called “mocking and disingenuous.” She added: “As I get older, I don’t want to be recognized for my age. I want to be recognized for my accomplishments, for my wisdom.”

To avoid stereotyping, Ms. Kirschman said, she often sprinkles her conversation with profanities when she is among people who do not know her. “That makes them think, This is someone to be reckoned with,” she said. “A little sharpness seems to help.”

Bea Howard, 77, a retired teacher in Berkeley, Calif., said she objected less to the ways people addressed her than to their ignoring her altogether. At recent meals with a younger friend, Ms. Howard said, the restaurant’s staff spoke only to the friend.

“They ask my friend, ‘How are you; how are you feeling?’ just turning on the charm to my partner,” Ms. Howard said. “Then they ask for my order. I say: ‘I feel you’re ignoring me; I’m at this table, too.’ And they immediately deny it. They say, no, not at all. And they may not even know they’re doing it.”

Dr. Levy of Yale said that even among professionals, there appeared to be little movement to reduce elderspeak. Words like “dear,” she said, have a life of their own. “It’s harder to change,” Dr. Levy said, “because people spend so much of their lives observing it without having a stake in it, not realizing it’s belittling to call someone that.”

In the meantime, people who are offended might do well to follow the advice of Warren Cassell of Portland, Ore., who said it irritated him when “teenage store clerks and about 95 percent of the rest of society” called him by his first name. “It’s the faux familiarity,” said Mr. Cassell, 78.

But he mostly shrugs it off, he said. “I’m irked by it, but I can’t think about it that much,” he said. “There are too many more important things to think about.”

In ‘Sweetie’ and ‘Dear,’ a Hurt for the Elderly, NYT, 7.10.2008,
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/07/us/07aging.html

Rowling to Testify

in Trial Over Potter Lexicon

April 14, 2008
The New York Times
By MOTOKO RICH

J. K. Rowling’s public appearances usually take place in bookstores and theaters, before thousands of her fans. But on Monday, Ms. Rowling, the author of the wildly popular Harry Potter series, is expected to turn up in a much different place: on the witness stand in a Lower Manhattan federal courtroom, testifying against a small publisher looking to bring out an encyclopedia based on her work.

Ms. Rowling’s books about the boy wizard have spawned countless fan Web sites and chat rooms, as well as dozens of companion books that seek to analyze every minute detail of the seven titles in the series, which ended in July with “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.”

Ms. Rowling has supported much of the fan output, doling out awards to Internet sites and granting interviews to Web masters. But when RDR Books, a small publisher in Muskegon, Mich., announced it was planning to publish a print version last fall of a popular fan Web site called “The Harry Potter Lexicon” (hp-lexicon.org), Ms. Rowling and Warner Brothers, the movie studio that has adapted her books into films, balked. Their objection is that the book merely repackages Ms. Rowling’s work and, unlike the free fan sites, is intended to make money for its publisher.

In October Ms. Rowling and Warner Brothers sued RDR for copyright infringement, and in November the company suspended publication so that Judge Robert P. Patterson Jr., of the Southern District of New York, could assess the merits of the suit.

The case is scheduled to go to trial on Monday, with Ms. Rowling flying over from Scotland to testify. At stake is whether authors other than Ms. Rowling have the right to publish books that rely substantially on her work as source material, and whether the “Harry Potter Lexicon” in particular sufficiently adds to and transforms the content of her books to be protected by copyright law.

The case also explores the line between free Web content created by fans and a commercially published book. Ms. Rowling has openly praised the Web site on which the Lexicon is based, giving it a “fan site award” in 2004 and commenting in interviews that she even relied on the site — which provides an annotated catalog of characters, spells, magic potions, locations and events in her books — while writing. It was only when RDR decided to transform the site into a book that she objected.

In court papers Ms. Rowling and Warner Brothers have argued that the Lexicon, which is being written by the Web site’s founder, Steven Vander Ark, and three other writers, “merely compiles and repackages Ms. Rowling’s fictional facts derived wholesale from the Harry Potter works without adding any new creativity, commentary, insight or criticism.” (Mr. Vander Ark is not a party to the suit.)

What’s more, Ms. Rowling said the proposed Lexicon book flouted her plans to write her own encyclopedia and donate the proceeds to charity. She argues that Mr. Vander Ark’s book could deter fans from buying hers.

Roger Rapoport, publisher of RDR Books, said he believed that Mr. Vander Ark’s work and Ms. Rowling’s encyclopedia could both exist. “We don’t think we’re a threat to J. K. Rowling,” Mr. Rapoport said in an interview. He said he paid Mr. Vander Ark a “tiny advance” for the book last August and was planning to print about 10,000 copies.

In court filings RDR argues that Mr. Vander Ark’s book “provides a significant amount of original analysis and commentary concerning everything from insights into the personality of key characters, relationships among them, the meaning of various historical and literary allusions, as well as internal inconsistencies and mistakes in the novels.”

The publisher said the Lexicon follows a long tradition of literary commentary. “For hundreds of years everybody has agreed that folks are free to write companion guides,” said Anthony Falzone, executive director of the Fair Use Project at Stanford Law School and one of RDR’s lawyers. “This is the first time that anybody has argued seriously that folks don’t have the right to do that.”

Mr. Vander Ark said he had initially worried that a book might constitute copyright infringement. “I honestly can’t tell you the origin of that belief,” he said. But when RDR assured him it wasn’t a problem, he said he assumed that because the material was available online and had never been challenged by Ms. Rowling, the book wouldn’t be either.

On her Web site (jkrowling.com) Ms. Rowling says she does not object to authors publishing literary criticism or reviews of the Potter books. That, she wrote, “would be entirely legitimate — neither I nor anybody connected with Harry Potter has ever tried to prevent such works from being published.”

Neil Blair, a lawyer for the Christopher Little Literary Agency, which represents Ms. Rowling, said he was aware of only two similar lawsuits filed by her and Warner Brothers against other publishers, including a plagiarism case in the Netherlands and a suit against a book in Germany that simply summarized the plots of the Harry Potter books. He said he believed that they had also brought an administrative proceeding against a Chinese encyclopedia.

A call to Ms. Rowling’s press agent in Scotland was not returned. Mr. Blair referred any inquiries to a publicist in Los Angeles who is coordinating media contacts for Warner Brothers and Ms. Rowling.

In a number of cases Ms. Rowling and Warner Brothers have pushed publishers of other planned Harry Potter reference books in the United States to withdraw them from the market, though without filing suit. Ben Schoen, manager of operations at mugglenet.com, one of the most popular Potter fan Web sites, said that when a publisher asked editors of the site to write an encyclopedia, Ms. Rowling objected, and the publisher did not proceed. “If she asks us to do anything, we basically comply with it,” Mr. Schoen said.

Though the case pits a billionaire author against a tiny publishing house, the Potter fan base seems to have little sympathy for RDR. Melissa Anelli, Web mistress of the Leaky Cauldron (the-leaky-cauldron.org), another popular fan site, said her board had voted to sever ties with the Harry Potter Lexicon site because of the lawsuit and comments Mr. Vander Ark has made about it.

“You’re put in the position of having loved the site all these years,” Ms. Anelli said, “and then having to understand why J. K. Rowling had to take an action.”

David Hammer, another lawyer representing RDR Books, said he believed that Ms. Rowling was acting out of vanity. “She wants to be the only one to write this encyclopedia about Harry Potter,” he said. “She’s determined to write it, and she doesn’t want competitors.”

Mr. Vander Ark, who is now living in England, is finishing up another companion book, “In Search of Harry Potter,” a travel memoir about places in Britain that served as the basis for some of the fictional locales in the novels. It is being published by Methuen in July, though neither the company Web site nor amazon.co.uk currently mention the book. A spokesman for Methuen said it was keeping a low profile because of the pending trial but did not expect any problems.

Rowling to Testify in Trial Over Potter Lexicon, NYT, 14.4.2008,
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/14/books/14potter.html

The man who made lists

to fend off depression

Fri Mar 28, 2008
9:04am EDT
Reuters
By Arthur Spiegelman

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - His mother suffered dark depressions and tried to dominate his life. His sister and daughter had severe mental problems, his father and wife died young and a beloved uncle committed suicide in his arms.

So what did Peter Mark Roget, the creator of Roget's Thesaurus, do to handle all the pain, grief, sorrow, affliction, woe, bitterness, unhappiness and misery in a life that lasted over 90 years?

He made lists.

The 19th century British scientist made lists of words, creating synonyms for all occasions that ultimately helped make life easier for term paper writers, crossword puzzle lovers and anyone looking for the answer to the age-old question: "What's another word for ..."

And according to a new biography, making his lists saved Roget's life and by keeping him from succumbing to the depression and misery of those around him.

"As a boy he stumbled upon a remarkable discovery -- that compiling lists of words could provide solace, no matter what misfortunes may befall him," says Joshua Kendall author of the just published "The Man Who Made Lists" (Putnam, $25.95), a study of Roget's life (1779 to 1869) based on diaries, letters and even an autobiography composed of lists.

Kendall, in a recent interview, said Roget cared more for words than people and that making lists on the scale that he did was obsessive-compulsive behavior that helped him fend off the demons that terrorized his distinguished British family.

Madness was a regular guest in Roget's home, Kendall said. One of his grandmothers either had schizophrenia or severe depression, Roget's mother lapsed into paranoia, often accusing the servants of plotting against her. Both his sister and his daughter suffered depression and mental problems.

Then there was the case of Roget's uncle, British member of Parliament Sir Samuel Romilly, known for his opposition to the slave trade and for his support of civil liberties. He slit his own throat while Roget tried to get the razor out of his hands.

Unlike a Thesaurus, no one understood Uncle Sam's last words: "My dear....I wish..."

Indeed, to quote most of the Thesaurus listing for pain, Roget's was a life filled with grief, pain, suffering, distress, affliction, woe, bitterness, heartache, unhappiness, infelicity and misery.

NOT WHOLLY EVIL

Kendall said, "The lists gave him an alternative world to which to repair." Many writers have declared their debt to Roget, including Peter Pan's creator, J.M. Barrie. In homage, he put a copy of the Thesaurus in Captain Hook's cabin so he could declare: "The man is not wholly evil -- he has a Thesaurus in his cabin.

The 20th century poet Sylvia Plath called herself "Roget's Strumpet" to pay respects for all the word choices he gave her.

But the British journalist Simon Winchester holds Roget responsible for helping to dumb down Western culture because his work allows a writer to look it up rather than think it out.

Roget made his first attempt at a Thesaurus at age 26 but put aside the effort and did not publish his book until 1852 when he was in his 70s and retired. He then kept busy with it for the rest of his life.

It became an instant hit in Britain but did not sell that well when an American edition was published two years later. But when Americans went crazy for crossword puzzles in the 1920s, the Thesaurus assumed its place on reference shelves.

Kendall's book is written in a style that he calls "narrative non-fiction" which contains a lot of dialogue and descriptions of how Roget and his friends feel and think, all, he says, based on source material.

"I did a lot of work to stitch together a narrative," he said, adding that all the scenes in the book are based on actual events.

The man who made lists to fend off depression, R, 28.3.2008, http://www.reuters.com/article/lifestyleMolt/idUSN2628269520080328

Leading article: War of words

Published: 13 November 2007

The Independent

Gordon Brown for one will be heartened to read about the record of the education charity Springboard for Children in helping dyslexic youngsters and others struggling with reading problems. The Prime Minister made a point in his first keynote address on education after taking office of pledging to wipe out illiteracy. He singled out efforts made in West Dunbartonshire where a robust use of synthetic phonics has reduced the number of youngsters with reading difficulties from just over 30 per cent to six per cent in five years. The local authority is confident it can reduce that figure to zero next year.

West Dunbartonshire is not alone in its success. Springboard for Children says it has a 90 per cent success rate in improving children's reading standards to the level where they can be returned to a mainstream classroom. That is 90 per cent of the bottom 20 per cent who do not manage to reach the required standard in English in national curriculum tests for 11-year-olds. It therefore leaves only a handful of youngsters in any given school still struggling to learn. Now the charity is seeking to expand to offer help to 10,000 children a year, instead of the 350 they presently reach, although they will need more financial support to do so.

Mr Brown's target was set without a date for achieving it and has, as a result, been dismissed as pie in the sky by his political opponents. But implementing schemes like the ones offered by Springboard for Children and West Dunbartonshire council could get him very near to his goal encouragingly soon. They must be given the funding they need.

Leading article: War of words, I, 13.11.2007,
http://comment.independent.co.uk/leading_articles/
article3155094.ece - broken link

Romney Slip:

Another Osama - Obama Mix - Up

October 23, 2007

Filed at 12:46 p.m. ET

The New York Times

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

GREENWOOD, S.C. (AP) -- In a slip of the tongue, Republican Mitt Romney accused Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama of urging terrorists to congregate in Iraq.

In the midst of criticizing Obama and other Democrats on foreign and economic policy Tuesday, the GOP presidential hopeful said:

''Actually, just look at what Osam -- Barack Obama -- said just yesterday. Barack Obama, calling on radicals, jihadists of all different types, to come together in Iraq. That is the battlefield. ... It's almost as if the Democratic contenders for president are living in fantasyland. Their idea for jihad is to retreat, and their idea for the economy is to also retreat. And in my view, both efforts are wrongheaded.''

Romney apparently was referring to an audiotape aired Monday in which a speaker believed to be terrorist Osama bin Laden called for insurgents in Iraq to unite and avoid divisions. The authenticity of the tape aired on Al-Jazeera television could not be immediately confirmed.

Romney also said: ''It's my personal belief that having someone like John Edwards, a senator, who goes out and communicates that there is no global war on terror -- that it's just a Bush bumper sticker -- I think that is a position that is not consistent with the facts.''

Romney was addressing a Chamber of Commerce meeting. Spokesman Kevin Madden said: ''He misspoke. He was referring to the audiotape of Osama bin Laden and misspoke. It was just a mix-up.''

Obama spokesman Bill Burton said, ''Apparently, Mitt Romney can switch names just as casually as he switches positions, but what's wrongheaded is continuing a misguided war in Iraq that has left America less safe.''

Romney Slip: Another Osama - Obama Mix - Up,
NYT, 23.10.2007,
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/
AP-Romney-Obama.html - broken link

Nas Names New CD

After Racial Epithet

October 19, 2007

Filed at 9:46 a.m. ET

The New York Times

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

NEW YORK (AP) -- To some, it's a hurtful racial epithet. For Nas, it's an album title.

The rapper told MTV News that he would indeed be naming his new album after the N-word. And he denied earlier reports that the album's title would be spelled ''N---a,'' considered in some circles a less inflammatory epithet. He said the disc is due out Dec. 11.

''(People) shouldn't trip off the (album's) title; the songs are crazier than the title,'' he said in an interview posted on MTV's Web site.

But some have been outraged by the rapper's choice.

''The title using the 'N' word is morally offensive and socially distasteful. Nas has the right to degrade and denigrate in the name of free speech, but there is no honor in it,'' the Rev. Jesse Jackson said in a news release. ''Radio and television stations have no obligation to play it and self-respecting people have no obligation to buy it. I wish he would use his talents to lift up and inspire, not degrade.''

There were reports that his label, Def Jam, had scuttled the title idea. But Nas told MTV that he has had no opposition from the label, and said his intent in naming the album the N-word was to take the sting out of it.

''We're taking power from the word,'' he added. ''No disrespect to none of them who were part of the civil rights movement, but some ... in the streets don't know who (civil rights activist) Medgar Evers was ... they know who Nas is,'' the rapper said, referring to the civil rights leader slain in the 1960s.

''And to my older people who don't know who Nas is and who don't know what a street disciple is, stay outta this (expletive) conversation. We'll talk to you when we're ready. Right now, we're on a whole new movement. We're taking power from that word.''

A representative for Def Jam did not immediately respond to an e-mail seeking comment from The Associated Press sent after business hours.

The use of the N-word is common in rap, though rapper Chamillionaire recently declared he would no longer use that word or curse in his rhymes.

Nas Names New CD After Racial Epithet, NYT, 19.10.2007,
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/arts/AP-
Music-Nas-Album-Title.html - broken link

Annual Spelling Bee Starts Today

May 30, 2007

Filed at 7:46 a.m. ET

The New York Times

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The 80th annual Scripps National Spelling Bee, featuring 286 competitors from the English-speaking parts of the world, opens Wednesday with the preliminary round and concludes with a prime-time finish Thursday night on ABC.

At this year's bee, 13-year-old Samir Patel is trying to avoid becoming the Dan Marino of spelling. Samir, a Dallas Cowboys fan from Colleyville, Texas, knows all about Marino's 17-year Hall of Fame career as the Miami Dolphins' quarterback, in which he set records but never won a championship. This week, Samir is one of the favorites to win as he makes his fifth and final appearance in the bee.

''If I had to predict who's going to win -- which is a very dangerous thing to do -- I would guess that Samir has a very good chance,'' said James Maguire, who profiled Samir in the book ''American Bee.'' ''If another bad stroke of luck comes along and he needs to go home without the trophy, yeah, I think there would be sort of a bittersweet feeling.''

Samir charmed the country with a stunning third-place finish as a super-confident 9-year-old four years ago, demonstating a vocabulary beyond his years and charisma to match.

Then, in 2004, he stumbled on the word ''corposant'' and finished tied for 27th. He came close in 2005 but was flummoxed by ''Roscian'' and placed second. Last year, the audience gasped in shock when he failed to spell ''eremacausis,'' forcing him to settle for a tie for 14th.

''I feel I've been trying my hardest for the last few years and it hasn't worked out,'' Samir said. ''But life is not completely about the spelling bee and I've learned to realize that. But I will be very disappointed if I don't win.''

Samir, a home-schooled student, is the only competitor in this year's field returning for the fifth time. He's not the oldest -- there are plenty of 14-year-olds and even a 15-year-old -- but he will no longer be eligible after this year because he is completing the eighth grade. His reputation is such that the bee's director asked him to speak at the opening assembly Tuesday night.

''Because he's known, the pressure is more on him,'' said Jyoti Patel, Samir's mother and coach. ''And if he doesn't perform, it causes disappointment. But being in the bee for five years we've realized there are so many surprise words, and you don't know who's going to get them or when they're going to come up. ... There is a lot of luck of the draw involved.''

Samir shrugs off questions about pressure. He and his mother agreed that she feels it more than he does. She gets so nervous that during the actual week of the bee she turns over the coaching duties to Samir's father, Sudhir.

''He's the calming influence,'' she said.

Samir is taller, more mature and better able to handle disappointment than the little boy who needed a hug from his mother to ease his tears four years ago. He is well-rounded -- piano and swimming are among his regular activities -- but lately his free time has been devoted to words.

''As it comes closer,'' he said, ''I'm trying to scrounge every possible minute to study spelling.''

Next week, whatever the outcome, Samir will be done with bees. But not with challenging himself.

''I plan on entering other competitions,'' Samir said. ''Math competitions and debate, hopefully. I'll still be busy.''

------

On the Net:

Scripps National Spelling Bee: http://www.spellingbee.com

Annual Spelling Bee Starts Today, NYT, 30.5.2007,
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Spelling-Bee.html

Mary Poppins baffled

Thursday 1st February 2007

07:54

Ananova

Julie Andrews failed to spell supercalifragilisticexpialidocious correctly in front of dozens giggling children.

Julie, who made the word famous in Mary Poppins, held her head in her hands after a child asked her to spell supercalifragilisticexpialidocious during a competition in New York.

According to the Sun, an onlooker said: "She looked so ashamed after admitting she didn't know how to spell it in front of the schoolchildren."

Julie admitted she was totally baffled by the 34-letter word.

Mary Poppins baffled,
A, 07:54 Thursday 1st February 2007,
http://www.ananova.com/news/
story/sm_2182598.html - broken link

For Some, the Words

Just Roll Off the Tongue

November 22, 2006

The New York Times

By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.

For the big dinner on Thursday, perhaps a plump bird stuffed with Stephanie and served with giblet civil, accompanied by roast Londons, a bowl of performs with pearl unions, and marshmallow-topped microscopes. And, for dessert, city a la mode, followed by a confession.

No, your eyes do not deceive you. But if you were a lexical-gustatory synaesthete, your tongue might — and you would already feel full.

People who have synaesthesia — a rare condition that runs in families — have “joined senses.” They “see” letters or numbers or musical notes as colors — a capital A will be tinged red, or 5 plus 2 will equal blue, or B.B. King will play the yellows.

Rare as that is, there is an even rarer variation, said Julia Simner, a cognitive neuropsychologist and synaesthesia expert at the University of Edinburgh. Lexical-gustatories involuntarily “taste” words when they hear them, or even try to recall them, she wrote in a study, “Words on the Tip of the Tongue,” published in the issue of Nature dated Thursday. She has found only 10 such people in Europe and the United States.

Magnetic-resonance imaging indicates that they are not faking, she said. The correct words light up the taste regions of their brains. Also, when given a surprise test a year later, they taste the same foods on hearing the words again.

(Synaesthetes are hardly ever described as “suffering from” the syndrome, because their doubled perceptions excite envy in many of us mere sensual Muggles.)

It can be unpleasant, however. One subject, Dr. Simner said, hates driving, because the road signs flood his mouth with everything from pistachio ice cream to ear wax.

And Dr. Simner has yet to figure out any logical pattern.

For example, the word “mince” makes one subject taste mincemeat, but so do rhymes like “prince.” Words with a soft “g,” as in “roger” or “edge,” make him taste sausage. But another subject, hearing “castanets,” tastes tuna fish. Another can taste only proper names: John is his cornbread, William his potatoes.

They cannot explain the links, she said. There is no Proustian madeleine moment — the flavors are just there.

But all have had the condition since childhood, so chocolate is commonly tasted, while olives and gin are not.

And, sadly, even her American subjects don’t seem overwhelmed by salivary Thanksgiving memories.

Dr. Simner tests hundreds of words, and when she was asked to check her list for today’s dinner ingredients, she came up with “Stephanie” linked to sage stuffing, “civil” to gravy, “London” and “head” to potato, “perform” to peas, “union” to onions, “microscope” to carrots, “city” to mince pie and “confess” to coffee.

But, alas, no turkey. Or cranberry sauce.

“I can give you a whole fry-up English breakfast,” she said apologetically. “But not a Thanksgiving dinner.”

For Some, the Words Just Roll Off the Tongue,
NYT,
22 November 2006,
https://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/22/
science/23tastecnd.html

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