"Occupy" Wall Street

Occupying Word Street

October 14, 2011

By Ben Zimmer

The public protest over economic inequalities known as "Occupy Wall Street" has been going on nearly a month now, with the original demonstration in Manhattan's Financial District spreading to cities around the world. Thanks to the success of the movement, the lingo of the protesters has spread quickly, with the verb occupy in particular becoming a kind of rallying cry.

Occupy and occupation first became part of the language of protest in September 1920, when factory workers in Italy held strikes against working conditions. About 600,000 workers took control of the factories, and the movement was known in Italian as l'occupazione delle fabbriche, or "the occupation of the factories." The earliest evidence in the Oxford English Dictionary for the relevant senses of occupy ("to gain access to and remain in...without authority, as a form of protest") and occupation ("the action of occupying a work place, public building, etc., as a form of protest") come from reports of the 1920 Italy protests. Another term for protest-style occupation, the sit-in, has been in use since 1937, though it really took off in the '60s, along with such spin-offs as the teach-in and the be-in.

Occupy Wall Street has its origins in a call for action on July 13 by Adbusters Media Foundation, an anti-consumerist group of "culture jammers" based in Vancouver. "On September 17," the announcement read, "we want to see 20,000 people flood into lower Manhattan, set up tents, kitchens, peaceful barricades and occupy Wall Street for a few months." Adbusters made an explicit analogy to the protests of the Arab Spring, asking, "Are you ready for a Tahrir moment?" That's a reference to Cairo's Tahrir Square, the focal point of Egypt's anti-Mubarak protests. Another group involved with the planning of the September 17 protest dubbed it the U.S. Day of Rage.


As with many other grassroots movements these days, Occupy Wall Street got the word out via social networking sites, such as Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and Meetup. On Twitter, the hashtag #occupywallstreet circulated in the leadup to September 17, often shortened to #ows. Protesters dug in for the long haul by taking over Zuccotti Park, a privately owned park not too far from Wall Street. (Zuccotti Park was originally known as Liberty Plaza Park, and the OWS crowd has tended to call it "Liberty Park.") As news spread of OWS, similar protests sprang up in other cities around the country, going by the labels Occupy Boston, Occupy Philly, and so forth. The website Occupy Together became a hub for coordinating the demonstrations in the U.S., while activists in cities around the world followed suit. Of course, there have also been parodies, like Occupy Sesame Street.

The demonstrators usually call themselves occupiers, though they've also been called occupants or even occupationistas. And with the growth of the movement, the verb occupy no longer requires "Wall Street" or any other object to follow it. About a week after the OWS demonstration began, in late September, people were already talking about "the Occupy protests" and "the Occupy movement." In a newspaper created for OWS, the Occupy Wall Street Journal, a list of "5 Things You Can Do Now" begins with #1: "Occupy! Bring instruments, food, blankets, bedding, rain gear, and your friends." To occupy can now be used as an intransitive verb meaning to take part in the Occupy protests. (Naturally, the hashtag #occupy has taken off on Twitter in recent weeks.)

Beyond the talismanic power of occupy, other words and phrases have become firmly linked to the movement. One popular slogan, "We are the 99%," began as a Tumblr feed with the message, "We are getting nothing while the other 1 percent is getting everything." The "99 percenters" have been met by the "53 percenters," conservatives who instead focus on the 53 percent of households that pay federal income tax.

At the center of the action, in Zuccotti Park, the leaderless (and some would say message-less) protesters have developed their own terminology and practices for their experiment in "participatory democracy." At the OWS "general assembly," participants have overcome the ban on amplified sound by using what has been dubbed "the human microphone" or "the people's mic": after a speaker says a few words, those nearby repeat what was said in unison. Then those a bit further away repeat what the first group said, amplifying the message across the entire crowd. To register approval for a point under discussion, the occupiers use a hand-signal system that has been called "jazz hands" or "twinkling": those in agreement wave their hands with fingers pointed upward in silent applause. This hand-signal system has been used in the past by grassroots groups in Europe, such as Seeds for Change and Climate Camp.

As the protests continue to spread around the world (Occupy protests are scheduled to take place in 25 countries on October 15), the political impact becomes more profound, as does the linguistic impact. If the movement does have lasting consequences, we could be looking at occupy as a strong contender for the 2011 Word of the Year.

Update: You can hear more of my thoughts about the word occupy on the National Public Radio show "On the Media."

Source: http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wordroutes/3001/?utm_source=rss

Twitter = promoting ability expression

Tweets, Tweeps and Twerps

Thursday, September 08, 2011

 

Any new technology that is used for communication is bound to lead to some concern about its impact on language use. In his book, A Better Pencil, the linguist Dennis Baron looks at how writing technologies such as the pencil, pen , typewriter and word processor developed and traces worries about these (then) new forms of communication. So it's not a great surprise to see that digital communication - text messaging, Facebook, MSN and Twitter being four recent examples - has spawned its own set of worries.

Twitter is often viewed as a fairly limited means of communication, forcing its users to transmit simple, terse 140-character messages to their followers, compressing and trimming language to create anodyne, bite-sized chunks, but in an article for The Guardian this week, the poet Carol Ann Duffy argues that texting and tweeting are brilliantly creative tools for helping people think more carefully about how they're communicating.

"The poem is a form of texting ... it's the original text," says Carol Ann Duffy. "It's a perfecting of a feeling in language – it's a way of saying more with less, just as texting is. We've got to realise that the Facebook generation is the future – and, oddly enough, poetry is the perfect form for them. It's a kind of time capsule – it allows feelings and ideas to travel big distances in a very condensed form."

It's an appealing argument and one that I think is very true. Writing creatively is not so much about writing as much as you can in as flowery and dense form as possible but finding the best ways to say what you want to say. Sometimes, the process of editing yourself down to fewer words, or finding a new combination of words, is exactly what you need to make yourself a clearer communicator. Poetry is often prized for its sparing use of telling words, and tweets can be like that too, honing the editing skills of their senders.
Inspired by this (if slightly confused: Duffy was talking more about texting than tweeting) The Guardian has launched its own Twitter poetry challenge which you can find here.

[...]

Source: http://englishlangsfx.blogspot.com/2011/09/tweets-tweeps-and-twerps.html

Analysis of 'lol'

David Mitchell talks about the modern use of the word 'lol'.

"I understand 'lol' to be, 'I acknowledge that you have made a joke and I wish to express my enjoyment of it'. and it's an excellent and compact way of saying it'.

Teens ruining the english language? Please.

Many people have argued that the current generation (Gen Y) is ruining and degrading the English Language with texting and e-speak which deviates from the spelling and grammatical standards.

Of course, such notions are not true. in 1712, the great Jonathan Swift wrote that the English Language is beyond repair and suggested that there be an "Academie Anglaise" like the current "Academie Francaise" which would regulate and ultimately "save" the English Language.

300 years later and the language is not only surviving, but thriving.

The Exclamation Mark - Modern Usage

Things to note:

• Use of exclamation mark --> distinction between formal/informal more blurred
• Increased frequency of "..." in informal contexts = discourse function? hedging??

Online writing is great!!!

Posted by Lindsay Clandfield on September 26, 2011

We continue the discussion of online English with a guest post from author, teacher and teacher trainer Lindsay Clandfield. Lindsay writes about the resurgence of the exclamation mark.

_________________

Great! It’s time for another post for this blog!

Looking back at those two sentences I see a liberal use of exclamation marks. What am I communicating with these? Is this something that is becoming more and more normal, or is it slightly… annoying? Let’s find out!

The Macmillan Dictionary defines the exclamation mark as follows:

The mark ! used in writing to show that someone says something suddenly and loudly because they are surprised, impressed, angry etc.

In the Improve your Writing section, the dictionary goes on to say the following:

Exclamation marks are typical of informal writing and are not usually appropriate in more formal contexts such as academic or professional writing. Learners often overuse exclamation marks in formal writing, where it is usually better to end the sentence with a full stop.

While it’s true that learners may overuse exclamation marks in formal writing, this practice may be spreading to both learners and native speakers in online writing. The distinction between formal and informal is becoming more and more blurred.

And in informal writing online, exclamation marks abound. Here are some examples of my own from Twitter and Facebook updates, and even from emails.

I return to Onestopenglish for the first time in 2 years!
Greetings from Brasilia, the created capital of Brazil which is less than 70 years old!
I’ve found Twitter invaluable in keeping in touch. Made lots of friends!
Enjoy the #IATEFL Poland conference!
Owl Hall is a book, a podcast play, a blog … a new experience!
See correspondence below. Result!
Watch for it soon on the Macmillan Brazil youtube channel!
Look forward to seeing you soon!

Novelists have been down on the use of exclamation marks. Elmore Leonard wrote that you should be allowed no more than 2 or 3 per 10,000 words of prose. F. Scott Fitzgerald said “Cut out all those exclamation marks. An exclamation mark is like laughing at your own jokes.” It’s not just novelists either. I did an informal study of friends and colleagues about the use of the exclamation mark. Some of the answers were quite critical, especially when you put too many in, or just hold down the ! key to show you really mean it:

I do find exclamation marks rather irritating as I believe they are overused.
With overuse, it loses its meaning (and it’s annoying).
Overuse just leads to ineffectiveness. If writing is packed with exclamation points, the exclamation points cease to mean anything.
Way overused. More than one is never called for.
But it sort of turns us into teenagers, no??!!

However, the majority of respondents admitted that they thought exclamation marks were frequent and even helpful in online communication. Among the reasons listed in favour of exclamation marks were that they add friendly stress and emotion, soften communication, convey a “lightness” of touch or compensate for a lack of visual and tonal cues. It was also mentioned that this was a sign of your character.

Some have wondered if the issue of exclamation marks is about being excited when you write, and whether this is gender related. Research into email writing styles by Colley and Todd (2002) and Winn and Ruben (2001) both found that women used what were called markers of excitability (e.g. exclamation marks, multiple exclamation marks and caps) more than men did. This reminds me vaguely of many other studies of speech and writing relating to gender, in which women’s style tends to be often characterized in negative terms. Is this a sort of Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus approach to online writing?

Not necessarily, says Carol Waseleski, who did a more recent study of gender and exclamation marks in online communication on discussion lists. Using a more nuanced methodology, she found that while women did use exclamation marks a little more, these were not a sign of excitability, but of friendliness. And a recent guide to email etiquette by two American editors Shipley and Schwalbe argue that in the internet age more friendliness is what email needs. “Email is without affect,” they write. “It has a dulling quality that almost necessitates kicking everything up a notch just to bring it to where it would normally be.”

Well, I’m not so sure about that last bit. Surely it depends on the words you choose too? But it does seem that, on balance, the resurgence of the exclamation mark is looked on as something benign, or even beneficial. It has been saved!

Of course, this now begs the question of the return of other forms of punctuation. The use of capital letters to indicate that you are SHOUTING, or those three little dots called the ellipsis, which some of my colleagues told me they use far more than exclamation marks. That, however, may be the subject of another post …

References
Colley, A., & Todd, Z. (2002),  Gender-linked differences in the style and content of e-mails to friends. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 21 (4), 380-392.
Shipley, D & Shwalbey, W. (2207), Send: The Essential Guide to Email for Office and Home, Knopf
Waseleski, C. (2006), Gender and the use of exclamation points in computer-mediated communication: An analysis of exclamations posted to two electronic discussion lists. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 11(4),
Winn, L., & Rubin, D. (2001), Enacting gender identity in written discourse: Responding to gender role bidding in personal ads. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 20 (4), 393-418.

Thanks to my friends and colleagues on Facebook who contributed to this discussion.

Source: http://www.macmillandictionaryblog.com/online-writing-is-great

Online English, Quotes

Online English: some interesting links

Posted by Laine Redpath Cole on September 19, 2011

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We’re into our second week of online English and I thought it might be useful to put a few of the more interesting comments, articles, thoughts on online English in a post for your perusal

2006: Of course, online English is closely tied into the subject of Global English, and David Crystal is the man to read in both cases. Clare Dudman has an interesting review of David Crystal’s thoughts in this post on her blog. The post is a few years old, but very interesting:

The internet, David Crystal says, is ideal for the linguistic addict. It is the latest of the major linguistic revolutions: the first was speech – about 100 000 years ago, the second was writing (separately evolved in different parts of the world 10 000 years ago) and the deaf sign language – no one knows when this evolved – maybe 500-600 years ago, but maybe much earlier.

2009: Laura Barton of the Guardian shared some of her favourite internet contributions to the language in this short article:

The meanings of well-known words (bookmark, surf, spam, web) have shifted dramatically, while our vocabularies have expanded to accommodate new ones. The lower-case is in ascendance, @ has flourished, the full stop has been reinterpreted as the “dot” and entire trends have been refreshed by the prefix “cyber”.

2010: Sometimes, online English is like a foreign language for other native speakers. Do you know what rickrolling means?:

Christopher Poole, founder of anarchic image message board 4Chan, had been called to testify during the trial of the man accused of hacking into US politician Sarah Palin’s e-mail account.
During the questioning he was asked to define a catalogue of internet slang that would be familiar to many online, but which was seemingly lost on the lawyers.

If you are one of those who needs internet terms translated, there’s a dictionary for you.
2011: Now that we’ve had so long to think about it, how is the internet really changing English? Is it serious?

“What people mention when they lament the ‘deterioration of language’ is people straying from supposed grammar rules,” Douglas Bigham, editor-in-chief of Popular Linguistics magazine, said. “The truth of the matter is that these supposed ‘rules’ were never really ‘rules’ to begin with.”

2011: We must also, of course, revisit this juicy question: Is the Internet Americanizing British English?

Take “I guess”, in the American sense of “I suppose”. One occasionally hears the phrase used that way in Britain, but always with the aura of a foreign import, like “sure”, to mean “yes”. But here’s the thing: go back to Chaucer, and you will find “I gesse” used exactly as the cousins now use it. You will, likewise, still hear “gotten” in parts of Lancashire and even, in some Dorset and Somerset villages, “fall” to mean autumn.

Perhaps by the time NELL has finished reading EVERYTHING, we’ll have an answer to all of our questions. My money is on 42.

Source: http://www.macmillandictionaryblog.com/online-english-some-interesting-links

David Crystal, Internet, Language Change

Internet and language change

Posted by Kati Sule on September 14, 2011

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This video is a good introduction to the topic of online english, our main focus this month here on the blog.
Professor David Crystal answers the question: How is the internet changing language today?

The video (4:07) was originally made for Global, Macmillan’s six-level course for adults, written by Lindsay Clandfield.

Source: http://www.macmillandictionaryblog.com/internet-and-language-change

Overused Business Gobbledygook words LinkedIn

LinkedIn Reveals the 10 Most Overused Job-Hunter Buzzwords

December 15, 2010 by Jolie O'Dell 299 

 

LinkedIn has just posted the 10 most overused, tired and trite buzzwords that get slapped onto resumes and professional profiles around the U.S. and 11 other countries.

According to our LinkedIn profiles, a great many of us tend to describe ourselves as motivated team players with extensive experience.

Ironically, “innovative” is the second-most clichéd word found in LinkedIn profiles. You’d think we’d be able to be more innovative with our vocabularies, no?

Sadly, those of you who took a more creative approach to describing yourselves have been penalized in the past as well. All the LinkedIn “ninjas” got called out earlier this year along with “evangelists” and “gurus” for using these rising menaces of career-oriented buzzwords.

Still, the most common words in LinkedIn profiles are less flashy and more conservative. We’re calling ourselves “motivated,” “results-oriented” and “problem solvers.” And this isn’t just in the U.S.; words like “motivated” and “dynamic” popped up as the most overused terms from Brazil to India.




Compelling descriptions, headlines and keywords are some of the most important aspects for job hunters to consider when creating and editing their LinkedIn profiles, and it’s one of the easiest aspects, too — much easier than getting a slew of recommendations or spending quality time on the site’s Q&A section.
In the comments, we’d love to get your tips and suggestions for finding and using better self-descriptors on LinkedIn, resumes and other professional networks. What unique terms do you use to describe yourself professionally?

Source: http://mashable.com/2010/12/14/linkedin-resume-buzzwords/

Twitter words

Twitter spawns twitterverse of new words

5 September 2011 Last updated at 22:42 GMT

Comments (154)

 

Why has Twitter spawned a whole twitterverse of new words from tweet cred to twitterrhoea, asks Alan Connor.

When Miss Universe contestant Vasuki Sunkavalli was discovered tweeting a journalist's political commentary as if the thoughts were her own, it wasn't long before she was accused of twagiarism.

A cocktail of twitter and plagiarism, it's pretty clear what "twagiarism" means and it's by no means the first such new word - that is, the first old word to find "tw-" thwacked on to its front end.

Where are these neologisms coming from and why do some people find them irritating? And how useful is "twagiarism" as a term for this very particular alleged misdemeanour?

The "victim" in this story, Wall Street Journal columnist Sadanand Dhume, says it's useful to make the distinction.

"Twagiarism certainly sounds less serious than plagiarism, as it should," he says. "It's a reminder that the twitterverse is much smaller than the universe and that we should keep a sense of humour about it."

For the record Sunkavalli says she had merely failed to grasp one aspect of twittiquette, namely retweeting, which is quoting another user while giving them credit.

With its 140-character limit, Twitter encourages abbreviation. It's also an informal forum, one where people are more comfortable inventing terms than they would be in other forms of the written word.

• tweeple: users of Twitter, or a user's followers (also "tweeps")
• tweetup: a real world gathering of Twitter users (pre-Twitter term "meatspace")
• twisticuffs: a verbal argument conducted via tweets
• twitterrhoea: overuse of social media
• tweet cred: social standing on Twitter
• twelete: removing a previously-published tweet
• twirting: philandering in 140 characters or fewer
• tweme: a popular idea (meme) on Twitter
• twittiquette: the social norms of micro-blogging
• twebinar: a "web seminar" using Twitter

"Had I said 'tweets plagiarised on Twitter', there wouldn't have been space to share the borrowed tweet itself," says Dhume.

But as the blossoming of words like "twisticuffs" and "tweeple" suggests, there may also be something about "tw". It's not universally popular though - the book Twitter for Dummies notes "many avid users actually find [tw- words] rather annoying".

Twitter's working name was Stat.us and it seems likely that if it had stuck there would be fewer words coined by adding "st-" or "sta-" at the beginning. They wouldn't sound as whimsical or effervescent.

Flick through a dictionary and you'll notice something about the English language's "tw" words. There are a few related to "two": twin, twelfth, twilight and so on. And there's a tiny minority of what you might call fairly sensible words: tweezers, twig and of course tweed.

The rest tend to be of a type that's more playful or, depending on taste, more grating. "Tw-" words can be about inanity or ignorance: twit, twerp, twonk or twaddle.

They can suggest lightness, smallness or delicacy: tweak, twiddle or twinkle. Or they can flag up that you're being self-consciously old-fashioned: 'twas and 'twere, 'twixt and 'tween. All very twee.

 "Right down the dam gross-bellied frogs were cocked

"On sods; their loose necks pulsed like sails. Some hopped:
"The slap and plop were obscene threats…"
"… The great slime kings
"Were gathered there for vengeance and I knew
"That if I dipped my hand the spawn would clutch it."

*Death of a Naturalist by Seamus Heaney (1966)

This clumping of words with a similar sense doesn't only happen with "tw-".

Former UK children's laureate and host of BBC Radio 4's Word of Mouth Michael Rosen says: "You might call this a sensory cluster. You also find it with 'sl-' and 'sw-' words."

English has all manner of "sw-" words that suggest a curved, fast motion, such as swerve, swat, swipe, swing or indeed swoosh.

Try and imitate any of these movements and you'll hear they can quite literally have a "sw" sound, suggesting the words may be onomatopoeic.

Likewise, "sl-" is often slimy - slobber, slush, sleaze or slur, with an effect used by the poet Seamus Heaney in his description of frogs and their spawn.

If a new word has this "sound-alike" quality, or if it sounds like other words which do, it probably has a better chance of catching on.

"It might be because these sounds have a prehistoric origin that imitates feelings and movements," explains Rosen.

"Or it could be that people invent words according to fashion and habit. But when a new word hits, it can be because it's freighted with this great cargo of associations and we say 'Yes! We like it!'"

And then there's "tweet". Twitter founder Jack Dorsey tells the story that Twitch was another possible name, suggested by the little vibration a phone performs when a message arrives. However the word also brings to mind nervous tics and barely-suppressed fury.

"So we looked in the dictionary for words around it and we came across the word 'twitter' and it was just perfect," he says. "The definition was 'a short burst of inconsequential information', and 'chirps from birds'. And that's exactly what the product was."

 

That decision has created what Rosen calls "the next sensory cloud" and people have "run with it and multiplied it".

Also lurking in that cloud are other relatively recent coinages. The 20th Century has given us snacks including Twiglets, Twinkies and Twirls as well as the twigloo - a kind of bivouac "set up in a tree during an environmental protest".

And you can mark out your youth in "tw-" words, from your tweenage years to living as what Time magazine in 2005 called a twixter, stuck betwixt adolescence and adulthood.

With a few exceptions, "tw" words are frivolous, even cute. It's possible that the same cluster that makes it fun for some people to come up with "twords" is what rankles others: again, the tweeness.

So where will it all end?

US-based language blogger Stephen Dodson concludes: "I expect that, as repellent as these bits of twaddle sound to us now, if they catch on and keep being used we'll all get used to them and barely twitch when we run into them."

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-14785537

+1 - google's version of facebook's 'like'

+1’tastic

When a number becomes a word

July 31, 2011|By Ben Zimmer

Spelling, online shopping, prestige

Spelling mistakes 'cost millions' in lost online sales

Comments (622)

By Sean Coughlan BBC News education correspondent

14 July 2011 Last updated at 01:09 GMT

 

An online entrepreneur says that poor spelling is costing the UK millions of pounds in lost revenue for internet businesses.

Charles Duncombe says an analysis of website figures shows a single spelling mistake can cut online sales in half.

Mr Duncombe says when recruiting staff he has been "shocked at the poor quality of written English".
Sales figures suggest misspellings put off consumers who could have concerns about a website's credibility, he says.

The concerns were echoed by the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), whose head of education and skills warned that too many employers were having to invest in remedial literacy lessons for their staff.
Written word

Mr Duncombe, who runs travel, mobile phones and clothing websites, says that poor spelling is a serious problem for the online economy.

 

"Often these cutting-edge companies depend upon old-fashioned skills," says Mr Duncombe.

And he says that the struggle to recruit enough staff who can spell means that this sector of the economy is not as efficient as it might be.

Figures from the Office for National Statistics published last month showed internet sales in the UK running at £527m per week.

"I know that industry bemoaning the education system is nothing new but it is becoming more and more of a problem with more companies going online.

"This is because when you sell or communicate on the internet, 99% of the time it is done by the written word."

Mr Duncombe says that it is possible to identify the specific impact of a spelling mistake on sales.
He says he measured the revenue per visitor to the tightsplease.co.uk website and found that the revenue was twice as high after an error was corrected.

"If you project this across the whole of internet retail, then millions of pounds worth of business is probably being lost each week due to simple spelling mistakes," says Mr Duncombe, director of the Just Say Please group.

Spelling is important to the credibility of a website, he says. When there are underlying concerns about fraud and safety, then getting the basics right is essential.

"You get about six seconds to capture the attention on a website."

When recruiting school and university leavers, Mr Duncombe says too many applications have contained spelling mistakes or poor grammar.

"Some people even used text speak in their cover letter," he says.

Even among those who appeared to be able to spell, he says that a written test, without access to a computer spellchecker, revealed further problems with spelling.

William Dutton, director of the Oxford Internet Institute at Oxford University, says that in some informal parts of the internet, such as Facebook, there is greater tolerance towards spelling and grammar.

"However, there are other aspects, such as a home page or commercial offering that are not among friends and which raise concerns over trust and credibility," said Professor Dutton.

"In these instances, when a consumer might be wary of spam or phishing efforts, a misspelt word could be a killer issue."

James Fothergill, the CBI's head of education and skills, said: "Our recent research shows that 42% of employers are not satisfied with the basic reading and writing skills of school and college leavers and almost half have had to invest in remedial training to get their staff's skills up to scratch.

"This situation is a real concern and the government must make the improvement of basic literacy and numeracy skills of all school and college leavers a top priority."

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-14130854

New internet address suffix (.com)

Internet domain addresses opened up to wave of new suffixes

Internet naming board approves huge expansion of approved domain extensions with .hotel, .bank, or .sport auctions likely

 

Internet naming board Icann has approved a vast expansion of domain suffixes to the existing 22 international ones such as .com as well as allowing scripts other than the Roman alphabet. Photograph: Armando Franca/AP

 

Twenty-six years after .com was first unveiled to the world, officials have swept away tight regulations governing website naming, opening up a whole world of personalised web address suffixes.

Icann, the internet naming board, approved one of the biggest changes in the web's history on Monday, allowing the number of web suffixes to expand virtually without limit. Currently there are 22 international "top level domain" suffixes such as ".com", but sites with suffixes such as ".sport" and ".eco" will pop up next year.

Peter Dengate Thrush, chairman of Icann's board of directors, said: "Today's decision will usher in a new internet age. We have provided a platform for the next generation of creativity and inspiration. Unless there is a good reason to restrain it, innovation should be allowed to run free."

Analysts say they expect 500 to 1,000 domain suffixes, mostly for companies and products looking to stamp their mark on web addresses, but also for cities and generic names such as .bank or .hotel.

Websites can now be categorised by subjects such as industry, geography and ethnicity – as well as using Arabic, Chinese and other scripts. There are also 290 country suffixes such as ".uk" and ".fr", which will remain unchanged for now.

Groups have formed to back ".sport" for sporting sites, and two conservationist groups separately are seeking the right to operate an ".eco" suffix.

It will also now be possible to have website names entirely in Mandarin or Cyrillic or any other script, which will ease the problem of reading and writing addresses for the majority of people who do not use the Roman alphabet.

The growth will also come as the internet shifts to the next-generation IPv6 addressing system for its basic systems, which enables far more devices to be attached to the internet.

Icann approved the move after six years of negotiations, in which concerns were repeatedly expressed that the enormous expansion of suffixes could lead to extra costs for businesses of registering a site with their trademark as the number of suffixes explodes.

During the 1990s there were hundreds of cases of "domain squatting" in which people would register sites that used companies' trademarked names, effectively holding them to ransom. Expanding the number of domains could make that far worse.

But it would also ease the pressure on the ".com" domain, created 26 years ago. In May 2009 a study found that 74% of websites were in the .com domain space.

"It will allow corporations to better take control of their brands," said Theo Hnarakis, chief executive of Melbourne IT, which manages online brands for clients such as Volvo, LEGO and GlaxoSmithKline. "For example, .apple or .ipad would take customers right to those products."

But others said that the promise of space could be a double-edged sword. "If you're a company with a lot of money, such as Barclays, then you could buy the '.barclays' suffix and build a little island on the internet, on the basis that you can persuade customers that only legitimate Barclays sites will end with that," said Charlie Abrahams, of the brand protection company MarkMonitor. "If your brand has just three letters, it might be worth it. If you're Tommy Hilfiger, it's probably not, because I can't imagine anyone bothering to type all that at the end of a URL."

However, the principal beneficiaries are likely to be the internet registrars who sell the rights to site names. Icann has set a $185,000 fee per suffix, and applicants have to work their way through a 360-page guidebook to prepare their bids ahead of the first suffix auctions, which start on 12 January 2012 and run for 90 days.

Icann says it will auction suffixes if multiple parties have legitimate claims. However, it expects companies will reach deals to avoid a public auction.

"I think we'll see much more of that going on than see auctions generating circuses," said Dengate Thrush. "But there is that prospect that there will be a couple of identical applicants and applications."

Adrian Kinderis, chief executive of AusRegistry International, which helps companies to register domains and manages names such as ".au" for Australia, said: "It's a significant undertaking. We're calling it the Olympic bid. But it's worth it for corporations that have suffered from things like trademark infringement and can now carve out a niche on the internet."

Abrahams estimates that it would cost a typical company £1m to run their own suffix for the minimum 10 years required. "It is a lot of work – but if someone beats you to it, you have lost it forever," he noted.

The Icann board approved the move by 13 votes to one with two abstentions in a meeting in Singapore. "This is the start of a whole new phase for the Internet," said But tThe move could also create enormous confusion for consumers and companies. It greatly expands the risks from "phishing" sites because they could use confusing domain names in language scripts that look similar to existing ones to capture peoples' details. And for companies, the challenge will be to decide whether to register their names in all possible domains, or to create their own suffix, or to limit themselves to a small number of domains.

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/jun/20/internet-domain-wave-new-suffixes

Changing Taboos

'Anti-slut' movement plans London protest march next month

Benedict Moore-Bridger
9 May 2011

 

A Canadian policeman who told women to stop dressing like "sluts" to avoid being attacked has sparked a worldwide protest movement which could see more than 3,000 people join a march in London next month.

Pc Michael Sanguinetti was giving a talk on health and safety to a group of students at Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto when he reportedly told them: "You know, I think we're beating around the bush here. I've been told I'm not supposed to say this - however, women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimised."

He later apologised and was disciplined by the Toronto police, although he remains on duty.
Criticism of the officer's comment led to a "SlutWalk" by protesters in Toronto last month, and other cities in Canada and the US have seen similar demonstrations.

The organisers said they wanted to reappropriate the word "slut" to fight a culture of "fear and victimisation", and some marchers wore provocative clothing to emphasise that no one deserves to be attacked. Thousands are now expected to join a SlutWalk from Trafalgar Square to Hyde Park on June 4, at the same time as rallies in Chicago and Amsterdam.

The London protest is being organised by Anastasia Richardson, who was angry about Pc Sanguinetti's comment. Miss Richardson, 17, of Oxfordshire, said: "People say it was a throwaway line, but if someone hears about a case of sexual assault or rape, the questions asked are 'Are you sure you didn't ask for it?' 'What were you wearing?' 'How drunk were you?' The problem is it puts blame on the victim and that attitude is insidious.

"There is a lot of controversy around the name, but anyone can be called a slut - it's used to victimise and scare people." She added: "I was not expecting the London one to be so big but it has really resonated with a lot of people. My family are being really supportive and I've been in touch with all the other organisers. It has become a bit of a phenomenon."

The SlutWalk London website states more should be done to protect victims. It adds: "All over the world, women are constantly made to feel like victims, told they should not look a certain way, should not go out at night, should not go into certain areas, should not get drunk, should not wear high heels or make up, should not be alone with someone they don't know.

"Not only does this divert attention away from the real cause of the crime - the perpetrator - but it creates a culture where rape is OK, where it's allowed to happen."


Source: http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23948119-anti-slut-movement-plans-london-protest-march-next-month.do

*juxtapose against Youtube comments: eg. 'Dear replay button, sorry for raping you'. 'I totally raped the replay button' = Changing taboos over time (2011)

Gamer speak

Understanding Gamer Slang

By Jonathan Nerdtrek

Posted in: Nerd Trek Articles, Video Games

 

As I have grown older I find myself in situations where some of the slang being thrown around has become alien to me.  A big part of this might be the fact that I refused to ever play WOW (World of Warcraft) and a lot of new slang has spawned (pun intended) from that game.  My refusal to ever touch the game didn’t come for a dislike for MMORPGs, Fantasy worlds, or video games in general.  The reason I did not want to partake in WOW was the great number of friends I had that did play and ceased to exist in reality with the rest of us.  They stopped coming to real life RPG sessions like Dungeons and Dragons or Vampire because they preferred the online experience.  There’s nothing wrong with that, to each their own- but I would rather play a RPG with real people in front of me than go online.  The addiction factor is why I stayed away, because I am prone to such things!  That said, I find myself playing tabletop RPGs with many people who are deep into these online games and also a bit younger than I.  (I am in my early 30′s, they are in their early 20′s.)  They use a lot of lingo I’m not quite familiar with.

I thought it wise to research the modern gaming slang and compile a list for those of you like I, who know nothing about how “Pro” this is, or how to cheer “w00t!” when we successfully accomplish a goal as a team. Here it is, your list of modern day computer and gaming slang!

MODERN DAY SLANG FOR DUMMIES:

RL = Real Life  (The world that we humans live and exist in, not the internet or gaming world.)

BRB = Be Right Back

AFK = Away From Keyboard

BIO = Biological  (Bathroom break)

ATM = At The Moment

OTW = On The Way

BTW = By The Way

TTYL = Talk To You  Later

TYT = Take Your Time

NVM = Nevermind

TY = Thank You

YW = You’re Welcome

WB = Welcome Back

NP = No Problem

TYVM = Thank You Very Much

BBL = Be Back Later

LOL = Laugh Out Loud  (In most cases those who wield this word are simply smiling in RL, not laughing.)

ROFL = Roll On Floor Laughing  (In this case most likely the person is actually laughing out loud in RL.)

ROFLMAO = Roll On Floor Laughing My Ass Off  (This means the person is laughing pretty hard in RL and most likely drawing the attention of other gamers in the room who ask “What’s so funny?”)

LMFAO = Laugh My Fat Ass Off  (Variations of the above acronym could also include LMTAO – Laugh My Thin Ass Off, or LMAAO – Laugh My Average Ass Off depending on the person’s weight category either in the game or RL.)

W00t! = This is a cheer to signify an accomplishment.  Usually used when with another person in the game or with a group.

WOOT! = This is a BIG cheer to signify a LARGE group accomplishment such as defeating a dragon or scoring a huge amount of loot!

FTW! = For The Win!  (Signifying who will be the “winner” or an enthusiastic emphasis to the end of a comment, message, or post.  Sometimes genuine, but often sarcastic.)

WOW = World of Warcraft  (The most popular online game ever created.  This game actually is a real life addiction for many people!)

Noob = A “newbie”, someone who is NEW to a game or particular situation.

MMORPG = Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game  (A game where hundreds, thousands, or millions of players log onto a game in a virtual world to explore, adventure, defeat enemies, and socialize with each other.  Online games were first called MUDs  Multi User Domain before graphic capability came along.) Ed- Before MUDs most “gamers” played tabletop Role-Playing games using books and paper and rolling dice, many still do (such as myself!).

ding! = An exclamation used by noobs on a MMORPG when they level up, most commonly in WOW.  The world refers to a sound emitted from the speakers in WOW when you level up.  This slang is used often by noobs, but used sparingly by long time players when they achieve a significant level such as 70 or 80 in which case they often post to their entire guild.  A guild is a group of other players on the game which work as a team to overcome obstacles and gain notoriety.

WTG = Way to go!

OMG = “Oh my goodness”, “Oh my God, or “Oh my gosh”.

Gratz = Congratulations

leet or leetspeak = Combining words and numbers, this is often used to make easy to remember codes for WIFI (Wireless Internet Router connections) or simply for any online password.   For example instead of “Password” one might type “Pa$$w0rd”.  Another example is “I like to eat Spaghetti” and would translate into leet as “I l1ke 2 E@t $paghett!”.

? = What are you talking about?

??? = What the hell is that supposed to mean?

????? = Who the hell do you think you are?  How dare you?

STFU = Shut the #%$# Up!

JK = Just Kidding

IAMF = It’s All My Fault

There are many more bits of slang to learn, but if you are a “noob” we will wait awhile and give you some time to absorb all of the above.  I’ll add some more entries to this post as time goes on, or you are welcome to post a comment below and add your own.

I’m sure many of us X, Y, & Z generation kids are guilty of sending a text to someone in the same room or only a room away.  As the years roll by, it will be interesting to see if the entire english language is eventually condensed down to acronyms which are used in everyday speaking.  Will the world soon see oral communication so taxing that we will no longer speak with each other, but simply send text messages?

Let’s see if we “old timers” can keep up with all this new slang and the changing tides!

Happy Gaming!

Source: http://nerdtrek.com/understanding-gamer-slang/

2011 More Neologisms

Other new words in the OED

24th March 2011

Off the menu

As the culinary appetites of the English-speaking world grow ever more diverse, loan words referring to new cuisines are a perennial source of new OED entries. The March 2011 update sees us adding such far-flung items as banh mi n. (also known as a Vietnamese sandwich n.), taquito n. (a crisp-fried Tex-Mex snack), and kleftiko n. (a Greek dish of slow-cooked lamb). Dishes from the English-speaking world are also in evidence, with new entries for the classic English dessert Eton mess n., the American doughnut hole n., and that emblem of West Coast US sushi culture, the California roll. And speaking of food, the OED now acknowledges the ten- (or three-, five- etc.) second rule [second n.1 Additions (b)], which allows for the eating of a delicious morsel that has fallen to the floor, provided that it is retrieved within the specified period of time.

♥ to heart

 

The new sense added to heart v. in this update may be the first English usage to develop via the medium of T-shirts and bumper-stickers. It originated as a humorous reference to logos featuring a picture of a heart as a symbol for the verb love, like that of the famous ‘I ♥ NY’ tourism campaign. Our earliest quote for this use, from 1984, uses the verb in ‘I heart my dog’s head’, a jokey play on bumper stickers featuring a heart and a picture of the face of a particular breed of dog (expressing a person’s enthusiasm for, say, shih-tzus) which itself became a popular bumper sticker.  From these beginnings, heart v. has gone on to live an existence in more traditional genres of literature as a colloquial synonym for ‘to love’.

From a land down under

The OED aims to cover lexical developments from throughout the English-speaking world. In this update, a few new items from Australian English enter the dictionary for the first time: flat white  n., a style of espresso drink with finely textured foamed milk; tragic n., a ‘boring or socially inept person, esp. one with an obsessive interest or hobby’; and yidaki n., an Australian Aboriginal term for the musical instrument better known in English as a didgeridoo.

Mad hatters

The new entry for tinfoil hat  n. recounts how the shiny chapeau began its life with only festive connotations. However, in 1986, just over a century after its first attestation as an innocent party favour, the tinfoil hat migrated to a more sinister milieu, popularly associated with conspiracy theories suggesting that such headwear could protect the wearer from mind control or surveillance. This association, in turn, led to the development of a depreciative attributive use, designating people regarded as paranoid or delusional, and to the adjectival compound tinfoil-hat-wearing, also included in this update.

Figures of speech

There are two main types of muffin in the English-speaking world: the flat round yeasted variety (known in North America as an English muffin), and the traditional American type, small cakes baked in cup-shaped tins and having a characteristic cap where the batter rises above the rim. It is to this latter sort that OED’s new entry for muffin top n. refers, denoting in its first sense the top portion of such a muffin, or sometimes a muffin cooked in a special shallow tin so that it consists exclusively of this top part, without the soggy bottom whose relative undesirability once inspired an episode of Seinfeld. The second sense is figurative, referring to a protuberance of flesh above the waistband of a tight pair of trousers (cf. spare tyre n., love handle n.), which may sometimes be attributed to an excessive appreciation for muffin tops in the literal sense.

The vocabulary of drunkenness is immense, and has been since at least the time of the famous Drinker’s Dictionary (1737) in Benjamin Franklin’s Pennsylvania Gazette. To that vast lexicon we now add the term lashed  adj., along with the complementary phrase on the lash (engaged in a bout of drinking).  Which of these terms came first remains uncertain. As is often the case for items which developed in spoken language, the written evidence probably lags behind the oral usage; the earliest example editors were able to find for lashed (1997) just edges out on the lash (1998), but further research could reverse that order.

Other colourful slang and colloquial terms entering the dictionary in this update include cream-crackered adj. (rhyming slang for ‘knackered’, that is exhuasted); smack talk n. (boastful or insulting banter); fnarr fnarr int. and adj (a representation of a lecherous snigger popularized in the comic magazine Viz and used adjectivally to denote crude sexual innuendo); pap n. 5 and v.3, shortenings of paparazzo; dot-bomb n. (a failed internet company); and couch surfing  n. (the practice of spending the night on other people’s couches in lieu of permanent housing).

Also in this update:    

la-la land n. can refer either to Los Angeles (in which case its etymology is influenced by the common initialism for that city), or to a state of being out of touch with reality—and sometimes to both simultaneously.

non-dom  n., short for non-domiciled, refers to a person living in a country in which he or she is not legally domiciled, usually in order to accrue tax advantages. The related terms non-domicile n. and non-domiciled adj. also enter the OED in this update.

fabless adj. looks like it might be a denigrating term for someone who is insufficiently fabulous, but the ‘fab’ comes not from fab adj., but from fabrication, and the word describes a technology company which does not do its own manufacturing.

Other entries of note include dotted-line n. (an indirect reporting relationship); the faux-German lumpenintelligentsia n., suicide door n., bogus caller n., happy camper  n., and shroud-waving n. and adj.

 

 

Katherine Connor Martin, OED

2011 Neologisms

New initialisms in the OED

24th March 2011

OMG and LOL, FYI

For the March 2011 release of OED Online, we have selected for publication a number of noteworthy initialisms—abbreviations consisting of the initial letters of a name or expression. Some of these—such as OMG  [OMG int. (and n.) and adj.]: ‘Oh my God’ (or sometimes ‘gosh’, ‘goodness’, etc.) and LOL  [LOL int. and n./2]: ‘laughing out loud’—are strongly associated with the language of electronic communications (email, texting, social networks, blogs, and so on). They join other entries of this sort: IMHO (‘in my humble opinion’) [IMHO at I n./1], TMI (‘too much information’)  [TMI at T n.], and BFF (‘best friends forever’) [BFF at B n.], among others.

Of course in such a context initialisms are quicker to type than the full forms, and (in the case of text messages, or Twitter, for example) they help to say more in media where there is a limit to a number of characters one may use in a single message. OMG and LOL are found outside of electronic contexts, however; in print, and even in spoken use (see, for example, the 2003 quotation for LOL int.), where there often seems to be a bit more than simple abbreviation going on. The intention is usually to signal an informal, gossipy mode of expression, and perhaps parody the level of unreflective enthusiasm or overstatement that can sometimes appear in online discourse, while at the same time marking oneself as an ‘insider’ au fait with the forms of expression associated with the latest technology.

As such usage indicates, many people would consider these recent coinages, from the last 10 or 20 years, and associate them with a younger generation conversant with all forms of digital communications. As is often the case, OED’s research has revealed some unexpected historical  perspectives: our first quotation for OMG is from a personal letter from 1917; the letters LOL had a previous life, starting in 1960, denoting an elderly woman (or ‘little old lady’; see LOL n./1); and the entry for FYI  [FYI phr., adj., and n.], for example, shows it originated in the language of memoranda in 1941.


Rise of the Wag

This release also contains another initialism—an acronym, in fact (acronyms being initialisms which are pronounced as words rather than letter by letter)—less connected to online media, although it is certainly used on them. Wag  [WAG n./4] is notable for the extremely fast journey from its introduction to the language to its use as usual English vocabulary. In 2002, the Sunday Telegraph reported that the staff at the England footballers’ pre-World Cup training camp referred to the players’ partners collectively as ‘Wags’, from the initial letters of ‘wives and girlfriends’. The term then remained relatively dormant, except for a small and brief revival around the time of Euro 2004, before the 2006 World Cup in Germany saw an explosion of usage, as the women, including Victoria Beckham and Colleen McLoughlin (now Colleen Rooney), had a high profile of their own, and were a visible element (especially to the media) of the England team’s presence in their base, Baden-Baden. Debates raged in the newspapers about whether the women’s presence was ‘distracting’ the footballers, alongside an equal fascination with what they were buying and wearing.

Such was the exposure the term received in this period that it became a byword for the female partners of male professionals (in football and in other spheres), often connoting a glamorous or extravagant lifestyle and a high media profile. By 2007, as the OED’s quotation paragraph shows, a general readership could be expected to understand sentences such as ‘dresses that, unless you're a Wag, are best worn with small heels instead of stilettos’ and ‘And not only did the darts WAGs attend tournaments, they had to do so without drinking’; sentences that, ten years ago, would have been utterly baffling. It is quite uncommon for new words to reach such a level of ubiquity in such a short time after their first appearance, and that the word Wag has done so perhaps demonstrates not so much its own inherent usefulness or catchiness as the influence that the print media, especially in its coverage of big stories such as the World Cup, can still have on the ways in which language is used, even in the age of social networking.

Graeme Diamond, OED

proficiency in English...

How's your eggcorn-analysis professioncy?

March 21, 2011 @ 8:12 pm

Brought to my attention by reader JS:

The mistake is common enough that both Google and Bing automatically correct searches to "proficiency". If you insist on "professioncy", many but not all of the examples seem to come from people who aren't native speakers of English. In some cases, the semantics seems to be moved in the direction of nominalizing professional rather than proficient, but in other cases it's hard to tell:

Immediate full time opening for experienced line cook for busy, fast paced Murray Hill restuarant. Breakfast experience and professioncy is a plus, must be flexible and have a great attitude. We are a DRUG FREE workplace. Please apply in person on MONDAY - FRIDAY. Crazy Egg 954 Edgewood Ave., Jacksonville. Pay will relate to experience and capibility. Team players only.

Source: http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=3041

Call of Duty and Language

Graphic vs. linguistic realism

March 21, 2011 @ 7:53 am

Kumail Nanjiani discusses the Karachi street signs in Call of Duty:

I've never any version of Call of Duty, and couldn't locate any street-sign images to check Kumail's claim that the signs are in Arabic. If this is true, though, it summarizes several aspects of the modern world.

Source: http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=3039

Verbing 'blog' = YES!! / NOO!!

Verbing "blog"

Mar 16th 2011, 20:52 by G.L. | NEW YORK

A READER, davidnwelton, took me to task a few days ago for writing "I'll blog the experience" in my first post from the South-by-Southwest Interactive technology conference:

Can I make a suggestion for the Economist's style guide? Can you guys simply "write" about things? I don't care whether it's on line, or in the paper copy, or delivered to my Kindle, or if you etch it out in stone - it's writing and just because it's available on line doesn't mean it merits a new word, especially one that sounds like a problem that only a skilled plumber can resolve.

Ouch, and touché. I will confess that, immersed as I was in geek culture, I used "blog" not only as a verb (which we in fact do fairly often at The Economist) but as a transitive one. I searched for "blog the", one marker of transitive use, on our site, and while I can't be sure because the search also returns, for instance, "blog. The" and "blog, the", it seems I am probably alone in this sin. If our style-book editor learned of it he would surely roll his eyes and buy davidnwelton a stiff drink.

All the same, it's clear that outside our little haven of linguistic purity, the verb "blog", like "tweet" and "email", is developing its own rules of syntax. You can "blog about", "blog from" or just "blog" a conference (especially if you're "live-blogging" it). As evidence, below are two graphs from Google's wonderful Ngram Viewer, showing the prevalence of "blog" and "blog the" in books published in English from 2000 to 2008. While the prevalence of "blog" doesn't reveal how often the word is used as a noun and how often as a verb, the fact that "blog the" (the ngram viewer, unlike regular Google searches, distinguishes it from "blog, the" et al) increases at a similar relative rate suggests that the verbification of "blog" was roughly contemporaneous with the adoption of the word itself.

Source: http://www.economist.com/blogs/johnson/2011/03/geek-speak