Swine Flu - Semantic Confusion Results in Name Change

When naming a flu virus it is important to choose the right word or words in order to avoid confusing the general public and apparently "swine" is not the right word to represent the particular virus that has been in the news of late. Many people believe this virus can be contracted by eating pork because of its name. This confusion has had a negative impact on the agricultural industry and has led to the unnecessary slaughter of pigs. As a result of this confusion, World Health Organization spokesman, Dick Thompson has announced that they are, "going to stick with the technical scientific name H1N1 influenza A."

Tim McGee's McNicknames on NCIS

Because I have posted about the linguistics aspects of the television show NCIS quite a few times, a reader requested that I compile a list of the various McNicknames that have been given to the character Tim McGee. I love the creative word play involved in these nicknames so putting this list together was a blast.


McGee has had some non-McNicknames too, but the McNicknames are much more abundant and more fun in my opinion.

Here are the names that I came up with (if I missed any, please send me a comment and I will add to the list).

Major McTom
McBarfbag
McCheat
McCool
McCranky
McDetail
McEgghead
McFlabby
McFlower Power
McFlubber
McFreaky
McGarnagle
McGeek
McGeekle
McGeeko
McGiggle
McGnome
McGonigle
McGoo
McGoogle
McGoon
McGPS
McGruff
McGullible
McKilljoy
McLawyer
McLover
McLovin
McMotherboard
McMuse
McNerd
McOz
McPinkerton
McPower
McProbie
McProbius
McRanger Rick
McRomeo
McRuff
McScout
McShipmate
McSneaky
McSoftie
McTardy
McTim
McTimex
McTracker
McWriter
McZero


McBarfbag, McFlower Power, McGoogle, McGPS, McKilljoy, McMotherboard, McPinkerton, McRanger Rick and McTimex are my personal favorites.

Top Ten Librarian Retronyms

I just came across a list of retronyms for non-internet librarians from an Information Today contest.

Here are the top ten submissions:

10. Shelf pointer librarian

9. Analog librarian

8. Legacy librarian

7. Librarian unplugged

6. 3x5 librarian

5. Internot librarian
4. Retrobrarian

3. (Insert the name of your supervisor here) librarian

2. Wallenda librarian (flying high without the net)

1. Librarian 1.0

Don't Be An Asterisk - A Linguistic Analysis

The following magazine ad is one of 27 that have been nominated for an MPA Kelly Award for outstanding magazine advertising.


The ad copy reads as follows:

When you take steroids, there's no hiding it. Eventually everyone will see you for what you really are. A fake. A fraud. An asterisk.

Don'tBeAnAsterisk.com

Linguistically, this advertising campaign is one of the best I have seen of late. The tagline for the campaign (which doubles as the web address) makes outstanding use of syllabification, phonetics, and semantics to deliver a double message that really reinforces the negatives of using steroids.

Semantically, when it comes to sports, an asterisk is associated with a footnote to an athlete's record. In other words, if an athlete sets a record but is found to have been using steroids during the time the record was set, the athlete will be thought of as a fake and a fraud and the record will not be respected.

Phonetically, when reading the tagline and breaking it up into syllables, the word asterisk lends part of itself to another well known phrase, "don't be an ass," which provides for a second semantic interpretation of the tagline.

In sum, the syllabification, phonetics and semantics involved in the tagline of this ad campaign send two messages to athletes who uses steroids: (1) they are at risk of having an asterisk attached to any records they set, and (2) they are asses.

Top Ten NCIS Linguistics Posts (minus five)

Number 1 Lost in Translation
Number 2 Ziva's Linguistic Traits
Number 3 DiNozzo's Humor
Number 4 Ziva's Phonological Error
Number 5 McNicknames
Numbers 6 - 10 COMING SOON

Animal Plurals

Yesterday's post about a single bear, a plural pronoun and pronoun agreement brought to mind the fact that it can be very tricky to determine which animals require a suffix to mark plurality and which don't.

According to The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, "The absence of –s in the plural form of animal names (hunting for bear, a herd of buffalo) probably arose by analogy with animals like deer and sheep whose plurals have been unmarked since the earliest beginnings of the English language."

Here is a list of animals whose plurals are not marked by a suffix:

alpaca
antelope
bass
buffalo
cattle
codfish
deer
eel
elk
grouse
guinea fowl
hag moth
jellyfish
mackerel
moose
quail
regal moth
salmon
sheep
snipe
swine
teal
trout
vicuna
walrus

Thank you to Melissa Kaplan's Beastly Garden of Wordy Delights.

Don't Feed the Bear - Pronoun Agreement

This sign is part of an amusing display at a restaurant in northern Michigan. The sign itself is semantically entertaining because it refers to two different senses of the word stuffed - and the resulting pun is especially appropriate at a restaurant.

The display is amusing because the bear with the walking stick and cap is just too darn cute.

Unfortunately for peeveologists, the amusement ends rather quickly. There is only one bear on the display thus the pronoun on the sign does not agree with its antecedent or the stuffed representation.

Don't Give Me Any Crap

"Whatever you give a woman, she will make greater. If you give her sperm, she'll give you a baby. If you give her a house, she'll give you a home. If you give her groceries, she'll give you a meal. If you give her a smile, she'll give you her heart. She multiplies and enlarges what is given to her. So, if you give her any crap, be ready to receive a ton of shit."

Linguistics Cartoon Favorites - Richard Cranium

Linguistics Cartoon Favorites - Expanding Vocabulary

The Department of Redundancy Department

Brought to you by the Birmingham-Bloomfield Eagle.

Because many of the planned cuts affect full-time staff, Wilkinson said the estimated 42 full-time equivalent jobs should ultimately impact 42 people.

Playing with Mottos

I can remember hearing the expression "don't sweat the small stuff" since I was a young child. I think it is a wonderful motto to live by, but I just heard an even better one -

"Don't sweat the small stuff and don't pet the sweaty stuff."

A Revisit to Words With/Without Negative Prefixes

I posted about words with/without negative prefixes not too long ago - and about the fact that certain words sound odd without their negative prefixes.

Some readers have added to the list of these odd sounding words:

(in) dividual
(un) couth
(un) kempt
(un) trammelled
(dis) gruntled
(in) effable
(in) ept
(un) requited

Interestingly, trammelled and requited were the only words from this list that spell check accepted without the negative prefix attached.

On a separate note, in the original post I asked for readers' thoughts about a name for this phenomenon. I received these two wonderful responses:

antithesislessness from The Virtual Linguist

a theory of negativity from Freckled Writer

"One way to not be illusioned is to never have been disillusioned."

- Author unknown

A Missing Futuronym - Key Card

This is a picture of the back of a key card from a recent stay at a ski resort. It is a bit hard to make out but just above the name of the resort is a sentence that reads:







Upon departure please leave keys.



The wording would make much more sense if the futuronym key card was used because the item in the picture is clearly not a set of keys or even one key for that matter - it is a card that is used as a key otherwise known as a key card.

This is a good example of how technology is constantly adding new words in the form of futuromyms (and retronyms) to our lexicon. And in case technology has erased your memory, a set of hotel keys is pictured below.

While the word retronym is fairly well known and found in dictionaries, the word futuronym (or futronym) was just recently coined in the blogosphere and is not well documented yet. A futuronym is defined as the opposite of a retronym. In other words, where a retronym is a word that includes a noun and a modifier that specifies the original meaning of the noun, a futuronym is a word that includes the original noun and a modifier that specifies the technological advancement that caused the need for the retronym.

For example:
original word - guitar
retronym - acoustic guitar
futuronym - electric guitar

Desperate Housewives Word Confusion

On last night's episode of Desperate Housewives the character Gabrielle (while talking about drinking cocktails) referred to an item that she called a "swivel stick." I had to hit the rewind button a couple of time to be sure I heard this correctly, and I'm afraid I did. I wonder if Eva Longoria misspoke or if the writers of the episode don't know that the small stick used to stir cocktails is called a "swizzle stick."

Language Peeves - "These" vs "These ones"

From a reader -

Something I hear around here from two different people, both college grads, is the use of "these ones" rather than just "these."

The word these is a deictic pronoun which means that it is almost always accompanied by a gesture of some sort to indicate which particular objects the speaker is referring to.

When a speaker is pointing to an object and says "these ones" adding the plural pronoun one to the deictic pronoun these does not add any pertinent information (though it is actually a grammatically acceptable dialect variation).

By the way, the linguistic sense of the word deictic is defined by the Free Dictionary as, "Of or relating to a word, the determination of whose referent is dependent on the context in which it is said or written. In the sentence I want him to come here now, the words I, here, him, and now are deictic because the determination of their referents depends on who says that sentence, and where, when, and of whom it is said."

A Walk in the Words Awarded (awesome tongue twister)

My blogging buddy at Freckled Writer just awarded me with a Kreativ Blogger award (thank you Erin, I am honored - especially receiving it from you because I really admire your writing).


By accepting this award each recipient agrees to follow the accompanying rules: 1. Post the award on your blog, and link to the person who gave you the award. 2. List seven things you love. 3. List seven blogs you love. 4. E-mail or comment on those blogs to let the people know you’ve given them the award.

Here are seven of my loves:
1. My family
2. My dog
3. Nature
4. Reading
5. Sitting on the dock
6. Having fun with friends
7. Language

Here are seven blogs I love:
1. RED PEN, INC.
2. The Virtual Linguist
3. The Perplexikon (this blog documents spelling oddities and I know the contributors will thoroughly enjoy the spelling of the name of this award)
4. Everything Language and Grammar
5. Scribbles & Dots - Language, Writing, and the Mysterious Power of Words
6. The Punctuator!
7. It's Your Damned Language

Shit Happens (Apparently it Doesn't Translate Though)

Altoids Advertising - Semantics are in Mint Condition (so is the tag line)

I love the tagline in the new Altoids advertising campaign.

ARE YOU IN MINT CONDITION?

Talk about fun with words...the ad writers are obviously referring to the noun mint meaning the mint-flavored confection as well as the adjective mint which implies that Altoids mints are perfect or unmarred as if fresh from a mint (a place where coins, medals, or tokens are made).

Michigan - Yoopers, Slang and Dialects

I have posted many times in the past about Yoopers, Michigan Slang and Michigan Dialects so I thought I would share this map that appeared in a recent Detroit Free Press.

Fudgies are people who live anywhere in Michigan other than Mackinac Island and travel to the island to buy fudge.

Yoopers are people who live in the U.P. or Upper Peninsula.

Trolls are people who live in the lower peninsula or "under the bridge," also known as flatlanders.

Citiots are people who live in large cities in the southern part of Michigan.

Wood ticks are people who chop down trees in state forests (some with permission, some without).

Popple is Michigan's name for aspen trees.

The Windsor Ballet is a euphemism for the strip clubs across the Detroit River in Windsor.

CoPa is an abbreviated name for Comerica Park (it is not a cabana).

Obama's Dog Could Be a Portmanteau

Will Obama choose a Labradoodle or a Portuguese Water Dog - this was the topic of an article in the April 13th Newsweek. A Labradoodle is the combination of a Labrador Retriever and a Poodle.

Human-engineered, canine combinations are known as hybrids or "designer dogs"...I think a better name for these canine combinations would be "portmanteau dogs."

In linguistics, portmanteau words are those that are formed by combining the sounds and meanings of two different words; they are considered a linguistic blend. A canine blend combines the sounds (of breed names) and meanings (of characteristics) of different breeds.

Here are some examples:

Bernedoodle = Bernese Mountain Dog + Poodle
Bullmation = Bulldog + Dalmatian
Chipins = Chihuahua + Pinscher
Labrottie = Labrador Retriever + Rottweiler
Maltepoo = Maltese + Poodle

So maybe if Obama goes with a Labradoodle he could name it Portmanteau and call it Port for short.

Click here for additional posts about portmanteaus.

Click here for additional posts about Obama.

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POST UPDATE 04/16/09

Obama did go with the Portuguese Water Dog and his name is Bo. Even though he didn't choose the "portmanteau dog" he still could have named the new dog Port for Portuguese Water Dog.

Punctuation Humor

Therefor vs Therefore

An accidental therefor legitimately slipped past my spellcheck the other day. I meant to use therefore and, for whatever reason, missed typing the final "e." So what is the difference? Following are definitions from The Columbia Guide to Standard American English -

therefor: for or in return for that, for it - ex. I'll explain what we must do and the causes therefor.

therefore: consequently, hence, for that reason - ex. I don't have a key; therefore, I'll have to ring the bell.

Parking Sign Contradiction

Well...which is it?

It is Wednesday at 1:30 in the afternoon, am I allowed to park here or not?

According to the top sign, I am.

According to the bottom sign, I am not.

*Because this photo was taken at my boys' school, I figured I should post it while they are on spring break.

The Semiotic Orthography of Leetspeak

A while back I posted about the semiotic use of the number "3" for the letter "E" in the title of an album by T-Pain. There is actually an orthographic computer language called Leetspeak that uses numbers and characters to replace as many letters as possible in a computer communication.

S3mi07i(5 i5 7-3 br4\(- 0f 1i\gui57i(5 7-47 i5 (0\(3r\3d wi7- 7-3 r3147i0\5-ip b37w33\ 4 5ig\, w-47 7-3 5ig\ r3pr353\75 4\d -0w p30p13 i\73rpr37 7-3 m34\i\g 0f 7-3 5ig\.


Leetspeak was named after the "elite" status classification used on bulletin board systems in the 1980's. The unusual orthography was originally used to encrypt communications but it also became a way to indicate a person was knowledgeable about computers and the culture of computer users.

Cognitive Linguistics Fun

Read the text inside the triangle out loud.

More than likely you said, 'A bird in the bush,'! and. ........
if this IS what YOU said, then you failed to see
that the word THE is repeated twice!
Sorry, look again.

###


Count every ' F ' in the following text:

FINISHED FILES ARE THE RESULT OF YEARS OF SCIENTIFIC STUDY
COMBINED WITH
THE EXPERIENCE OF YEARS...

How many?
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*


Wrong, there are 6 -- no joke.
Read it again.
Really, go back and try to find the 6 F's before you scroll down.
The reasoning behind is further down.
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*

The brain cannot process 'OF'.

Incredible or what? Go back and look again!!
Anyone who counts all 6 'F's' on the first go is a genius.
Three is normal, four is quite rare.



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Ribbit. Chirp. Ka-Ching! - Onomatopoeiac Casino Advertising and Billboards

This is a screen shot of a print ad from an advertising campaign for the Saganing Eagles Landing Casino in Standish Michigan. The campaign also includes numerous billboards on I-75. I get a kick out of the effect the onomatopoeias have on the semantics of the advertising message.

Slot machines really can be animals.

A Green Living Board Game

A good friend of ours created a new board game because she thought it would be a fun way to teach her children about the environment and how to protect it.

I just finished playing It's a Green Life! with my husband and boys and we all thoroughly enjoyed it and learned many new ways that we can pitch-in to make a difference. The point of the game is to race from a recycling center to a green planet Earth. A player advances through the 52 spaces on the board (which represent the 52 weeks in a year that people can follow environmentally friendly practices) by drawing cards that either reward them for being environmentally responsible or correct them for making mistakes. The reward and correction cards include tips about different environmentally friendly practices and they list the number of spaces a player will advance or move backwards.

Here is a link to the It's a Green Life! website. The game can be ordered on line and special pricing quotes are available for large quantity orders.

New Word, New Day - National Pantsing Day

As I drove my boys to school this morning they informed me that today is National Pantsing Day. National what day? Pantsing is a new word on me so I came home and looked it up. Here is the top definition from Urban Dictionary -

Pantsing: What many high school students will do to fellow classmates if they decide to wear sweatpants. It is far to easy to catch the wearer of the sweatpants off-guard and pull their sweats down. Any other form of clothing on the bottom is not to be messed with.....only sweatpants.
Poor girl decided to wear her sweats today; she's probly going to get......oh, and the pantsing begins.

This definition was posted by Whitney on May 23, 2005.

According to my boys, any pants will do; the pants do not have to be sweatpants. Either way, I learned a new slang word today and I got a good laugh at poor Whitney's spelling errors (probably because it was just too easy).

And by the way, as far as I can tell there is no such thing as National Pantsing Day...it must be something some smarty pants at my boys' school invented.

Bad Advertising - Billboard Semiotics and Pragmatics Fail

Take a close look at the bottom billboard and think about what each symbol might represent and what the sum of these symbols is intended to communicate.

Now, picture driving at 80 miles an hour and trying to figure out not only what each symbol might represent but also what the sum of these symbols is meant to communicate.

As mentioned in a previous post about a billboard pragmatics fail, the context in which a communication occurs plays an important role in a reader's ability to interpret a writer's intended meaning. The context here is the side of an expressway. Any reader in a car going 80 miles an hour or more is going to have an awfully hard time interpreting the writer's intended meaning because at that speed the reader will have a very short time to view the symbols. Not to mention that this doesn't even take into account the possibility of a semi truck obstructing a reader's view.

As for the semiotics fail, the symbols were so poorly executed that my first guess was:

beak + carrot ('s) + rake + "in" + rolling pin

Oh...how wrong I was and and oh...what bad advertising.

Upon seeing the billboard a third time I realized - the bird is a duck and the arrow is pointing to its bill, the carrot is supposed to be a surfboard and the last arrow is pointing to a blob of dough, not the rolling pin.

bill + board ('s) + rake + "in" + dough

So the writer's intended meaning was, "billboards rake in dough."

Okay, maybe I should have realized that was a duck the first time but I was driving and reprimanding kids at the same time. Plus I still think the second symbol looks like a carrot everytime I pass it.

Did I mention the apostrophe error? Does the billboard own the rake? The writer should have used a "+ s" not a "'s"

Related posts:

semiotics definition

additional semiotics posts

additional billboard posts

billboards advertising billboard advertising

Go Lay an Egg

With all of the fun we have been having recently discussing laying and lying, I can't resist sharing some egg humor that my husband emailed me a few minutes ago.

What did the egg say to the boiling water?

It’s gunna take me a while to get hard – I just got laid

Of course, if I had written the joke I would have said "It's going to take" instead of "It's gunna take."

Language Peeves - Where Are You At?

From a reader -

I used to monitor the HAM 2-meter frequency which is for local radio communications. Most of the people asked location by saying, "Where are you at?" I always wanted to ask, "What's the difference between 'Where are you?' and 'Where are you at?'"

The word where, by semantic nature, includes the preposition at, so asking someone where they are is the same as asking "at what location are you?"

That said, it would be redundant to ask the question, "At what location are you at?"

For the Love of Facebook - I Couldn't Care Less

Take this quiz to find out which male celebrity would best suite you.

A man who could careless...but still looks good, of course!

The word could is a modal verb and a modal verb always modifies a main verb. The word careless is an adjective not a verb. For this reason, I'm sure that the writer of this quiz intended to use the two separate words "care" and "less" with the modal verb could modifying the main verb care.

A man who could care less...but still looks good, of course!

By the way, "could care less" is an idiom that indicates a lack of interest in something. Of course, it should be noted that this idiom originated, and makes much more sense semantically, as "couldn't care less." Think of it this way - if someone "could care less" it means that they do care to at least some extent whereas if someone "couldn't care less" it means that it would be impossible to care less because they do not care at all.

###

I know that Facebook quizzes do not suite me because they are filled with so many errors that they make my head spin - punctuation, grammar, spelling, capitalization...the list goes on and on.