Fun With Tautologies

I love xkcd because xkcd is loved by me.

Speaking of tautologies...

Random Linguistics Definitions Beginning with the Letter "W"

'wanna-contraction' The reduction in American English of forms like want to or going to in I want to (wanna) do it or I'm going to (gonna) do it.

wh-form Any of a class of words in English that typically begin with wh-: e.g. who, which, why. Also of phrases that begin with such words: e.g. which book, what people.

Thence extended, by linguists whose native language is English, to forms that play similar syntactic roles in other languages.

'whimperative' Coined in the 1970s for a sentence that has the form of an interrogative but the force of an order or instruction: e.g. Why don't you shut up?, meaning 'Shut up!'.

Definitions from: The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Linguistics, Second edition, 2007
Image credits: Carolita Johnson

Wordplay in the Nick of Time

Cartoon by Chris Yoder.

Internet Dictionaries

The Collins Dictionary editorial team recently introduced a new resource for language enthusiasts and I believe it is a worthy addition to the existing collection of internet dictionaries and thesauruses. It is collinsdictionary.com. The site includes English, French, German and Spanish dictionaries, an English thesaurus, and a language translator.

In addition to word definitions, the well-organized dictionary pages include audio pronunciations, synonyms, usage examples, translations with audio pronunciations, related terms, nearby words, related images from Flickr, and usage trend graphs.

Here is one of the related images for the word internet:

I find the translations with audio pronunciations and the usage trend graphs especially interesting.

Random Linguistics Definitions Beginning with the Letter "V"

verbal dueling In sociolinguistics, a term which refers to the competitive use of language, within a game-like structure, with rules that are known and used by the participants. It is a genre of verbal play - a ritual dialogue in which each speaker attempts to outdo an opponent by producing an utterance of increased verbal ingenuity. It has been noted, for example, in the ritual exchanges between warriors in classical epic texts as well as in the trading of insults between present-day street gangs.

vocal organs The collective term for all the anatomical features involved in the production of speech sounds, including the lungs, trachea, oesophagus, larynx, pharynx, mouth and nose.

Definitions from: A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics, Sixth edition, 2008
Image credits: Clipart Etc.

F*ckin' Word Play Update

Just about a month ago, I posted F*ckin' Word Play which included an image from the advertising campaign of the United Kingdom furniture company Sofa King.

Today, Language Log brought to my attention (in a delightfully humorous post) the fact that Sofa King's slogan was recently "branded offensive by the Advertising Standards Authority".

Ay-Yay-Yay, that is Sofa King lame - Sofa King lighten up.

Language Log also brought to my attention this 2007 Saturday Night Live sketch about Sofa King.

Sofa King funny.

The Linguist List's "Lingquest"

It is time for the annual Linguist List Fund Drive and this year it is accompanied by the exciting Lingquest Saga. Anyone who makes a donation to Linguist List is able to help determine the course of the adventure.

Linguist List is an outstanding resource for linguistics students, linguistics educators, and anyone who is interested in linguistics (I will admit that I am a bit partial as I worked for the excellent online community while I was earning my MA in linguistics).

I urge all of my readers to check out the Lingquest Saga and the Linguist List homepage and consider making a contribution. There are some pretty awesome rewards for donations of $35 or more; though, any amount is appreciated and donating is a reward in and of itself.

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A note to anti-AdSense bloggers: I just donated my most recent $100 AdSense earnings to Linguist List.

Corpus Linguistics: A Slim Figure of Speech Graph

Is it "slim to none" or "slim and none"?

I grew up with the phrase "slim to none", which means that the chances of an event occurring fall somewhere between slim and none. In other words, there is a scale with multiple options (admittedly the options are slim from the get go).

<---->

SLIM | | | | | | NONE

In a book I am reading currently, I encountered the phrase "slim and none". I initially thought there was either an unintentional conjunction error or that the author grew up mishearing the phrase.

A quick Google search told me that there really are two semantically-sensible versions.

The alternate version, "slim and none", simply eliminates the scalar aspect of the phrase; thus the chances of an event occurring are either slim or none.

SLIM [ ] NONE [ ]

I can't believe that I had never heard this alternate version. Now I am wondering if it is a regional variation. Please help me by commenting below with your preferred version and your region of origin.

I did feel a bit better about my lack of familiarity with the non-scalar version when I graphed the two versions on Google Ngram.

Click on chart to enlarge.

slim to none slim and none

From Google Books Ngram Viewer

Random Linguistics Definitions Beginning with the Letter "U"

Umgangssprache German for 'colloquial language'.

'unfilled pause' An interval of silence in speech: i.e. a pause not 'filled' by a hesitation form.

uvular Articulated with the back of the tongue against or approximated to the fleshy appendage (or uvula) at the back of the soft palate. E.g. the 'r' in French is variously a uvular trill or, more usually, a uvular fricative.

Definitions from: The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Linguistics, Second edition, 2007
Image credits: Wikipedia

Incredible Textual Art

I recently featured an image by artist Micah Lexier in a post and I have become so enamored with his work and the way he incorporates language and text into it, that I have decided to devote a post to some of my favorite works of his.

The first two are companion pieces that were featured in The Walrus magazine (the type beneath each is mine).

The left half of this sentence has the exact same number of letters and words as has the right half.

There are the exact same number of letters and words in this sentence as there are in the prior one.

This piece below was done in collaboration with experimental poet Christian Bök.

And here are several more including a couple that exhibit Lexier's punctuistiveness side.

Links to the above six images in their respective order are here: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.