"Irony" Man

     If you were asked what word in the English language was the most misunderstood or misused, what would you say? Would it be "literally", when it is used in sentences such as, "It was literally raining cats and dogs"? Or would you suggest "like", one of the words that is striving to take the throne away from "um" for the word most used when we are filling time between thoughts. However, the writers from Dictionary.com have nominated another word for the most misused in English, "ironic".

     According the their article,

"Often the word “ironic” is misused to remark on a coincidence, such as “This is the third time today we've run into each other. How ironic.”

It is also mistakenly used to describe something out of the ordinary or unusual: “Yesterday was a beautiful, warm day in November. It was really ironic.”

And, unfortunately, it is sometimes used to simply emphasize something interesting. For example, “Ironically, it was the best movie I've seen all year!”"

     Another important misuse of "ironic" is when it is used incorrectly in the place of the "sarcasm". The only time when something is really ironic, is when it is the exact opposite of it's literal meaning. A statement such as, "It's been such a good day" would be ironic if you were using it to describe the day you were late to work, wrecked your car, and got soaked in the rain. A sarcastic statement would be something like saying something like, "Wow, your shirt is so nice" to someone who has theirs caught on a nail and ripped, and is obviously embarrassed by it. The main difference between irony and sarcasm, is that with sarcasm, you are deliberately trying to taunt, harass or make fun of someone, while with irony you are not. 

     To learn more about irony and the different types of it there are, you can go to hotword.dictionary.com/ironic/.

1. http://hotword.dictionary.com/ironic/

2. http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/you-keep-using-that-word-i-do-not-think-it-means-what-you-think-it-means

That is a mouthful

   

The German language, which has always been known for its tendency to create long compound words, recently marked the passing of the longest word in its lexicon. The 63 letter long monster,  Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz, was the German word for a "law for the delegation of monitoring beef labeling". The law for which this word was created was recently repealed, and with it no longer in place, there is no need to keep using the word.

     With Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz passing out of use, that leaves Rechtsschutzversicherungsgesellschaften, an insurance company that provides legal protection, as the longest German word in use. If you are wondering how in the world you would pronounce Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz, you are not alone. Fortunately, the Telegraph out of the U.K. has provided a sample of how it would be said:


   


1. http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/06/-em-rindfleischetikettierungs-berwachung-saufgaben-bertragungsgesetz-em-germany-says-goodbye-to-its-longest-word/276492/
2. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/10095976/Germany-drops-its-longest-word-Rindfleischeti....html

"You do it your way, and I'll do it mine"

   

"Signs, signs, everywhere there's signs" goes the song, and recently a new sign popped up at the Louvre Museum in France. The sign, written only in Chinese, "forbids people from urinating or defecating wherever they want.”

     Why was this sign put in place? There doesn't seem to have been a particular incident related to this sign, but one reason may be that some Chinese don't have the same views on their bodily functions as many in the west do. For example, many Chinese parents don't put their babies in diapers, something that, if you were to do in Europe or the US, would get you stares at the least, or visits from the police at worst. Instead, they prefer to put their children in split pants, a type of pants that have an open crotch, and let them relieve themselves in any open area they can find. Also, to many Chinese, it is perfectly normal to spit just about anywhere. Because of this, some tried to curb public spitting before the Olympics started in 2008, so as not to damage China's image to those visiting from abroad.

     These differences in cultural issues, and the problems they have caused, have not gone unnoticed by Chinese officials. Recently China passed a new tourism law. The law will give travel agencies the authority to penalize tourists who violate social ethics. Wang Yang, a deputy prime minister from China, said that while many countries had welcomed tourists from his country, the quality of some of them left something to be desired. Yang said: "They speak loudly in public, carve characters on tourist attractions, cross the road when the traffic lights are still red, spit anywhere and some other uncivilized behavior. It damages the image of the Chinese people and has a very bad impact."

    While the Chinese are working on the image problem their tourists have caused as they travel, they weren't the first nation to have a negative association with their tourists. For a large portion of the recent past, Americans have been seen as the ignorant tourists. There must be something about gaining superpower status that signals the worst behaving members of that society to go out into the world.





1. http://qz.com/88334/china-is-starting-to-get-embarrassed-about-its-tourists-obnoxious-behavior-abroad/
2. http://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/1f5ry9/china_is_starting_to_get_embarrassed_about_its/
3. http://www.businessinsider.com/china-is-embarrassed-by-its-tourists-2013-5
4. http://finance.yahoo.com/news/china-starting-embarrassed-tourists-obnoxious-194019907.html
5. http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505125_162-51379838/how-pg-brought-the-diaper-revolution-to-china/
6. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/17/world/asia/17manners.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&em&;ei=5087%0A=;en=95c25c162ed63e15;ex=1177041600
7. https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjd2j9P9gh0ML3Y6GUJVh59KT8y5GAFgaOEYWwv0_V4hkJ_JrtrvEDyfr5nGpdVfd5NZ8vvtelKmqvEDtZknWHTKUgePjerJge1jGQsbE-yodoJs32onylyXixthuifQVsmeiteEbzmAZK-/s1600/road-signs-and-traffic-light.png

It's a question of instinct

     I saw this on reddit the other day and couldn't help but share. One of my major problems when it comes to English is that I can't remember all of the rules most of the time. Which is embarrassing because I am a native speaker and, other than a few snippets of Spanish, it is the only language I know.

    However, not all my grammatical hope is lost. Sometimes I can tell just by looking sometimes that I have made an error somewhere. It doesn't work all the time, and thank God I have spell check, or it would be infinitely worse. I couldn't tell you why something may be wrong, but a lot of the time, it will just look off. When I saw the picture below, I took a little bit of solace in the fact that I may not be the only one whose brain works like that.

1. http://www.reddit.com/r/AdviceAnimals/comments/1dl2nt/this_is_english_basically/

"Yo yo-yo"

     One of the problems with the English language is that it does not have a gender neutral pronoun. Over the years, many have tried to come up with something to use instead of the standard him or her. Back in the 1880s, lawyer Charles Converse proposed "thon", a mix of the words "that" and "one". Other words put forward to fill the gap have been "nee", "heesh", "huh". While none of these ever caught on, a new contender for the gender neutral crown has come from some children in Baltimore. These children have begun using the word "yo" in the place of "he" or "she" to fill the gender neutral gap.

      Margaret Troyer, a former teacher, published a paper showing that "yo" was replacing "he" and "she" in every day usage for many of her students. Troyer first noticed the change while she was teaching children in a Baltimore-area middle school. From the NPR article on the story:

"Some examples would be 'yo wearing a jacket,' " Troyer says, referring to her research. "Another example from the paper is, 'Yo threw a thumbtack at me,' which is a typical middle school example."
So Troyer began to study her students. She gave them blank cartoons and asked them to fill in the captions — many of the cartoon characters were androgynous.
Troyer found the kids used "yo" instead of "he" or "she" when they didn't know the gender of the character. But they also used "yo" as a substitute even when they did know the gender.
"They said things like, 'Yo put his foot on the desk.' So it was clear from this that they knew it was a male person, but they were just using 'yo' to refer to the person," says Troyer. "And then in other sentences they would use 'yo' to refer to a female as well."

     While the adoption of a new gender neutral pronoun is unusual, Christine Mallinson, a sociolinguist at the University of Maryland, isn't quite sure if it will stick around. "It'll be interesting to see whether they keep that usage as they become adults. Do they keep that in the workplace? If that's the case, it might persist," says Mallinson. "But sometimes slang or linguistic innovations in middle or high school get dropped out as people become adult users of English."

     What do you think? Do you think "yo" is here to stay? Did you have any slang or made up words that you or your friends came up with in school that you don't use anymore? Let us know in the comments!





1. http://www.npr.org/blogs/codeswitch/2013/04/25/178788893/yo-said-what
2. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/8f/Us_yoyo_national_2a.jpg

Well, that's to the point

     The German language continues to amaze me with the words they can come up with. They seem to have a knack for combining sometimes complex or long ideas in to just one word, see my previous post about the German word Kummerspeck. Recently, I discovered another interesting German word whose meaning, unlike Kummerspeck, can be very easily deduced, even by a non German speaker.

     The English phrase "birth control pill" directly translates directly to the German word Antibabypille. It would seem that who ever came up with the word wanted to make sure there was no miscommunication about what you were being given.











1. http://en.bab.la/dictionary/german-english/antibabypille
2. http://www.dict.cc/deutsch-englisch/Antibabypille.html
3. http://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/1bxr7p/til_the_german_word_for_birth_control_pill_is/
4. http://translate.google.com/#en/de/birth%20control%20pill
5. http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antibabypille

"Mother may I..."

     In modern English, most people phrase the request for permission to to have or do something by saying "Can I have...?" or "Can I do...?". While this is the generally accepted method, there are those who would say that it is incorrect. For them, the only way to correctly ask if you have permission for a certain action is to say, "May I...?". Which of these is correct?

     For many, from a strict grammatical point of view the correct way to ask if you have permission is to say "May I...". Technically, when you ask using the "Can" form, you are not asking for someone else's permission, but wither or not you have the ability to have a certain item or perform a particular action. For example, when you ask, "Can I go to the bathroom", what you are actually asking is if you have the ability to go to the bathroom, not if you have permission to go.

     However, as the language has evolved, it is becoming more and more accepted to use "Can I...?" in place or "May I...?". According to the Oxford Dictionaries website, you are fine in using "Can I...?" in normal everyday speech. However, if you wish to appear more formal or polite, the older "May I...?" should be used.




1. http://oxforddictionaries.com/words/can-or-may
2. http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/can-versus-may2.aspx

   

Resistance is futile...

     

We have all experienced times when it seemed like the world was out to get us. We can't find our keys even though we know we put them on top of the dresser. The phone is ringing but has seemingly hidden itself in some nearby, but frustratingly inaccessible, pocket dimension. We are running late for work, and the stop light that we know stays red for far longer than needed, turns that hated shade of crimson and mocks us form it's high perch as it doesn't change, even though you are clearly the only car for miles around. Just recently, I discovered that some one came up with a word to describe this feeling. The feeling that, no matter what we do, the inanimate objects of the world are waging a hidden holy war against us, and our sanity, is called Resistentialism.

     Resistentialism is the term created by humorist Paul Jennings in 1948 by mixing the Latin word res (thing), the French word resister (to resist), and existentialism (a kind of philosophy). Although Jennings coined the term as part of his humorous retort against the philosophy of existentialism, the idea has been around for much longer. Charles Harrington Elster in his 2003 article gives several earlier examples of famous writers who, while not having the name for the phenomenon, clearly experienced the effects of of objects under the influence of Resistentialism:

     Resistentialism also has a long history in our literature. In his ''Ode (Inscribed to W. H. Channing)'' (1846), Ralph Waldo Emerson saw the resistentialist writing on the wall and proclaimed that ''Things are in the saddle,/And ride mankind.'' In his autobiography, published posthumously in 1924, Mark Twain relates an anecdote about a recalcitrant burglar alarm in his ornate mansion in Hartford. It ''led a gay and careless life, and had no principles,'' he says. ''We
quickly found out that it was fooling us and that it was buzzing its bloodcurdling alarm merely for its own amusement."...  

And in J.M. Barrie's ''Peter Pan'' (1911), Mr. Darling is fit to be tied over his ''little brute'' of a tie: ''This tie, it will not tie. . . . Oh yes, 20 times have I made it up round the bed-post, but round my neck, no! Oh dear no! begs to be excused!''

      The modern world is filled with all kinds of wonderful things, designed to make almost every aspect of our lives easier. And often, it is those very things that stress us out to high heaven when they inevitably go awry. It is in times such as those we can take a small bit of comfort in knowing that it's not just us as we repeat to ourselves the motto of Resistentialism,  Les choses sont contre nous" -- "Things are against us".




1. http://obsoleteword.blogspot.com/2006_04_01_archive.html
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resistentialism
3. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/21/magazine/21ONLANGUAGE.html
4. http://shirtoid.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/resistance-is-futile.jpg

Lost letters

    If a restaurant or some other establishment wants to add an older, quainter atmosphere to their establishment, the quickest and easiest method is to add "ye olde" to the front of their name. However, what does this phrase mean? In simple terms, "ye olde" is an older antiquated method of saying. "the old". While dropping the "e" off of "olde" over the years is an understandable shortening, how in the world did the "y" in "ye" come to mean the "th" sound? As it turns out, the Europeans are to blame.

     Well, the Europeans were not the problem really. Their languages, however, are what is to blame. Originally, English included a letter called the thorn, þ. This letter had its roots in the old runic alphabet, coming from the thurisaz rune.

Now, the rune/letter changed shape many times as it was passed down through the centuries. Going from a þ, which kept the same basic shape of the rune, the letter eventually ended up looking like Ƿ. Now all of this was fine and dandy up until the printing presses first came to England. As most of the European languages didn't contain the thorn, the English printers with a quandary, what were they going to do for the letter thorn?

     Fortunately, one bright printer, whose name is lost to history, came up with the solution. In the blackletter, or Gothic script that was popular at the time, the thorn looked very similar to the letter "y". Because of this, printers started simply printing "y" for thorn, and the use of the letter died out. Eventually, English speakers started using the two letters "t" and "h" placed side by side for the "th" sound instead of the "y", and "y", was given a sound of its own.

    As often happens, old things become new again and "ye" started to make a comeback as part of "ye olde" being added to the descriptions or names of things to give them an aged feel. However, there was a problem. Instead of pronouncing the "ye" as "the", most were pronouncing it as "ye". While the spelling had come back, it left the rules for how it was supposed to be pronounced behind. While it reality it doesn't matter if you pronounce it as "the" or "ye", at least you know the way it supposed to "be".







1. http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2002/11/12/31017/737
2. http://www.thefreedictionary.com/ye
3. http://www.ianvisits.co.uk/blog/2011/01/08/the-origin-of-ye-in-ye-olde-shoppe/
4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E1%9A%A6
5. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ye_olde

"Borrowed" Words

Saw this on Reddit, and couldn't help posting it. With as many borrowed words as English has, it seems like we have done this many times in the past.

1. http://i.imgur.com/wXPREnB.jpg

"Yo, yo yo!"

     Language is a pliable, constantly changing thing. For example, the English of 100 years ago is not exactly the same as the English of today, see my earlier article on the ampersand. While English made the change with the ampersand many years ago, a similar change seems to be happening to the Russian language.   

     The symbol to the left is the Russian symbol for the sound "yo". This symbol was added to the language in the 18th century and later was championed by Stalin and mandated in schools and in the Communist party's official newspaper. Recently, ë seems to have fallen out of favor with many modern speakers, as well as some Russian language purists who point to the relatively late addition of the letter to the Cyrillic alphabet as a good reason for it's removal. 

     However, a small group of people have been fighting back in favor of the ë, going so far as to write books in its defense, programming computers to be able to use it, and even going as far as getting monuments placed in two small towns in it's honor. These people call themselves yofikators, champions of the letter ë. Their opponents call them amateurs and sticklers to artificial rules. However some yofikators believe that ë has an opponent from outside of Russia. In December of 2012, one yofikators interview led the CIA to come out and officially deny that they have been working to take the ë out of the Russian language.

     In an interview in November of 2012, shortly before his death at the age of 80, Viktor Chumakov, who called himself the "Chief Yofikator", was interviewed about his fight to keep the letter ë in the Russian language. Mr. Chumakov stated several reasons for the decline of the letters use, Russian laziness since Stalin's death, opposition by government officials, and lastly,that it was an assault by the CIA. Mr. Chumakov claimed that the CIA was working covertly in the Russian Language Institute, a state run language organization, to bring about the downfall of ë and weaken Russia. "In any country, the alphabet is an instrument to bring order," and "If it isn't respected, everything falls to pieces."

     Conspiracy theories are not a new thing. New ones seem to pop up everyday. However what makes Mr. Chumakov's claim different, is that it resulted in an official comment from the CIA, denying any such involvement. According to the CIA, “There is absolutely no truth to this allegation. The Agency supports the practice of good grammar and pronunciation in any language.”

     Whether or not the CIA is attempting to remove ë from the Russian language, the cause to keep the letter recently gained an important ally. After receiving a complaint letter about not being able to use the ë on a government form, Education Minister Dmitry Livanov unexpectedly joined the fight to keep the letter. "We absolutely have to fix this problem," Livanov said, "Millions are suffering." While Livanov hasn't announced exactly how he plans to do it, it seems like the ë may have a future in the Russian language.








1. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2012/12/17/cia-officially-denies-that-it-is-trying-to-erase-a-letter-from-the-russian-alphabet/
2. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324784404578144972339592016.html

   

   

"What's in a name...?"

     While a many of the posts on this website are dedicated to the times when people have language fails, I love being able to post a language win.

     The picture above comes from the twitter account of Peter Sagal, the host of Wait wait... don't tell me, a comedic radio program that airs on NPR. The mind behind the ad clearly has a masterful grasp of  navigating the treacherous waters of copyright law. While they would have gotten in trouble for just calling it "The Super Bowl party in a box", as the term "Super Bowl" is heavily copyrighted and defended, the restaurant cleverly insulated itself from the wrath of the NFL by just adding the phrase, "big internationally televised professional football" in between "Super" and "Bowl". One can only hope that more people take note and learn from this example.

"You can't handle the truth!"

     Like a lot of people, my wife and I like to keep magazines in the bathroom so that we can read while we take care of business. Last year, my wife bought me a subscription to Popular Mechanics, and since then, it has become one of our bathroom staples. The ads usually go unnoticed by either of us, however,the back cover add of the most recent issue caught my eye.

     The top of the ad is as normal as any other:

     Notice the tag line, "Tellin' it like it is". It puts forth the aura of machismo just by the spelling. It's so manly it doesn't need a "g". It's also suggests that if you are manly enough, you will tell the truth no matter how hard or bad it may be. And it is with that frame of mind that I noticed what is on the bottom of the ad:

     I couldn't help but laugh out loud when I read that. The testosterone fueled message, that being manly enough to fix your own car and solve any mental or emotional problems you may have on your own, all the while chewing on some Grizzly long cut snuff, loses some of it's impact when, with in 6 inches of it, there is a huge warning message. At least the add is "Tellin' you like it is" enough to let you know that the product being advertised can cause the bottom half your face to fall off.

     Here is a full picture of the add, so you can see it in all its glory.

"Intercourse the penguin!"

     There f-word is one of the most popular and most offensive words in the English language. In the video to the left, the comedy troupe Monty Python  manage to sneak across a reference to it by using one of the more clinical synonyms for the f-word. English, however, is not the only language to have a slang word or phrase like the f-word. Recently, a number of North Koreans have been using their version to strike a small blow for freedom against their new leader, Kim Jong-un.

     January 8th is the 30th birthday of Kim Jong-un and as often happens in dictatorial regimes, the citizens of North Korea are being forced to take part in celebrations and other activities to commemorate his birth. While in most cases there is nothing odd or funny about the date of January 8th, according to NKNews.org: "January 8th is pronounced in Korean as ‘ilpal’ (one-eight). But the Korean word for eighteen, ‘sippal’, happens to be a homophone of the swear-word ‘f**king’. Pyongyang residents have decided to take advantage of this pun. They are referring to Kim Jong-un’s birthday as the ‘f**king birthday celebrations’, and compulsory apple-picking days as ‘f**king Apple-Picking Days’." While these jokes are only whispered among close friends, those who really trust those who they are talking to have been using more direct terms to air their grievances. They have been calling Kim Jong-un, " ‘f**king comrade’, ‘f**king Marshal or ‘f**king Kim the Third’." 

     While we may laugh or cringe at such vulgar language, the mere fact that they are willing to make these jokes is a huge step forward for the North Korean people, even if they aren't willing to make them publicly  In the past, Kim's father and grandfather were given an almost god like reverence. It was considered culturally and criminally a big crime to make fun of them. And while many wish the North Koreans would rise up and pursue freedom, those who do may just have to be satisfied with the small baby steps like this for now.




1. http://www.businessinsider.com/kim-jong-uns-birthday-prompts-pun-2013-1?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+businessinsider+%28Business+Insider%29
2. http://gawker.com/5974144/incredibly-brave-north-koreans-are-mocking-kim-jong+un-on-his-birthday
3. http://www.nknews.org/2013/01/happy-fking-birthday-kid-warrior-lots-of-love-the-people-of-north-korea/