Travel Industry Job Titles

"I’ve been doing a lot of flying recently, which has me thinking about the term flight attendant. It is undeniably clunky. And yet here it is—an odd little success story in the larger narrative of nonsexist language reform."

Excerpted from Anne Curzan's Attending to Gender. Read the rest of this fascinating post at Lingua Franca.

Traveling Dialects

“I’m so New Orleans, when I go out of town people ask me if I’m Canadian.”

A joke, right? No, it seems that, contrary to all expectations, a certain Canadian pronunciation is beginning to emerge in the Big Easy.

This is an excerpt from an interesting Lingua Franca piece by Allan Metcalf. Check out O Canada! in New Orleans to read the rest.

Travel Language

There is an interesting post on Language Log about the following image.

For the Love of Language and Math - Expanded

[(N + H)ow + (T + W)hat](I know).

How would you expand this expression?

If you think like famous mathematician Norman Anning, you would read it as:

Now I know how I know that I know what I know.

Norman Herbert Anning (August 28, 1883 – May 1, 1963) was a mathematician, assistant Professor, Professor Emeritus, and instructor in mathematics at the University of Michigan from 1920 through his retirement in 1953.

Anning contributed the above “non-commutative soliloquy of an introspective epistemologist” for a 1948 issue of  Scripta Mathematica.

Scripta Mathematica was a quarterly journal published by Yeshiva University devoted to the philosophy, history, and expository treatment of mathematics. It was published from 1933 through 1973.

commutative
adj.1. Relating to, involving, or characterized by substitution, interchange, or exchange. 2. Independent of order. Used of a logical or mathematical operation that combines objects or sets of objects two at a time. If a × b = b × a, the operation indicated by × is commutative.

soliloquy
 n. 1. a. A dramatic or literary form of discourse in which a character talks to himself or herself or reveals his or her thoughts without addressing a listener. b. A specific speech or piece of writing in this form of discourse. 2. The act of speaking to oneself.

introspective
adj. 1. Given to examining own sensory and perceptual experiences.

epistemologist
n. 1. A specialist in epistemology.

epistemology
n. The branch of philosophy that studies the nature of knowledge, its presuppositions and foundations, and its extent and validity.

Definitions via thefreedictionary.com

Thanks to Futility Closet for bringing this soliloquy to my attention.

Wow, Do I Ever Love Language!

And I could not have produced a video that contains so many perfectly executed examples of the reasons why.

Thanks to Superlinguo for bringing this video to my attention.

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.

Singing About the Oxford Comma

While I don’t agree with the sentiment in the chorus, I love that there is a song named for the Oxford comma.

I must admit, the melody is pretty catchy too.

For the Language Loving Giants and Patriots Fans

As well as all sports fans and/or language enthusiasts, I present to you a compilation of language-related Super Bowl XLVI links.

Macmillan Dictionary the Super Bowl - definition

Wordnik Word Soup-er Bowl

The Wall Street Journal Words With Giants

The Wall Street Journal The NFL Has an 'L' of a Problem

The New York Times Fill-In | Super Bowl Ads (similar to Mad Libs)

Chicago Tribune A winning strategy for Super Bowl ads: Baby Boomers are the target demographic, experts say. So with that in mind, drop 'golden years' language and go with 'the good life.'

Forbes Super Bowl Commercials Are All Bang, No Buck (purchase-focused language)

Web Pro News Listen to the Super Bowl in 10 Languages

The American Association of People with Disabilities AAPD Applauds American Sign Language in Super Bowl

johnwalshcopy What’s In A Name? My “Tebow” Epiphany

22 Words And the winner for Best Super Bowl Commercial is…

And last but not least, from the winner of BostonGlobe.com's Cartoon Caption Contest -

If the Patriots win the Super Bowl, they're going to rename it "Eastah Island."

- Sidra Coleman, Nahant

P.S. If you enjoy sports and language, don't forget to check out Lew and Paul's Linguistics and Sports Page.

Attention Sports Fans

Please check out Lew and Paul's Linguistics and Sports page (link at right).

The page includes items that will be of interest to both sports enthusiasts and language lovers.

Image from SodaHead.com

Speaking of Trademarks, Maybe Chik-fil-A Should Start Serving a Kale-fil-A

Would you have a hard time distinguishing the source of a fast food chicken sandwich if a t-shirt company trademarked a phrase used on their t-shirts that promotes sustainable food?

In other words, if you saw this:

Would you think this:

Or this:

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office defines a trademark as "a word, name, symbol, or device that is used in trade with goods to indicate the source of the goods and to distinguish them from the goods of others."

Chik-fil-A released the following comments about the legal matter via PR Newswire.

ATLANTA, Dec. 5, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- In 2006, we became aware of a Vermont company using the phrase "Eat More Kale" on T-shirts, which are sold on their website, www.eatmorekale.com. We have co-existed under these circumstances since 2006.

However, in August of 2011, the Vermont company submitted its application to trademark the slogan "Eat More Kale" for use and protection nationally. Because of this new development, we are required to protect "Eat Mor Chikin®," our own brand and trademark.

We support the entrepreneurial spirit of small business, and, in fact, our business model is founded on providing opportunity for small business owners. Every one of our 1,603 restaurants is owned and operated by a local business person who lives in and gives back to their community. Unfortunately, when protecting our trademark, the law does not allow us to differentiate between a large company or a small enterprise.

Our award-winning advertising campaign has been in place for the past 16 years, and we must legally protect and defend our "Eat Mor Chikin®" trademarks in order to maintain rights to the slogan. It is not uncommon for us – or for any corporation – to defend our trademark rights.

What do you think? Please share comments.

Image credits: sandwich, kale, billboard

Printed Texts or Digital Media

The Age of Books

Crated, carted, cast aside,
printed works have liquefied
in shocking bouts of bookicide.

The printing press is done, perhaps,
and publishers have (boom!) collapsed
to clicky gadgets, gizmos, apps.

Digital books are all the rage,
touchless paper, turnless page.

Stores are only cyber spaces,
cold, electric, faceless places.

Bookshops closed, bookshelves cleared,
paperbacks have disappeared.

The age of print has culminated,
finished, finis, terminated.

- Susan M. Ebbers

This was posted on Vocabulogic, a wonderful blog that focuses on words and language education from a linguistic perspective.

A Note to My Regular Readers

Dearest Readers,

The bab.la language portal and Lexiophiles language blog have run a Top 100 Language Blogs competition since 2008. The list of winners from the past three years can be found here. It includes some outstanding blogs, many of which I read and link to regularly.

Well, the 2011 Top 100 Language Lovers competition has begun.

In the competition, readers are asked to nominate and vote for their personal favorite language blogs in a number of categories. The nomination period is May 3 - May 16, and the voting voting period is May 17 - May 29.

The reason I bring this to your attention is that I would be honored to be nominated in the "Language Learning Blogs" category. If you feel that this blog reaches my goal of promoting an appreciation and understanding of language through entertaining and educational posts, please visit 2011 Top 100 Language Lovers competition to nominate A Walk in the Words.

Click on the "LEAVE A COMMENT" button at the bottom of the page and enter a nomination for URL http://walkinthewords.blogspot.com/ in the "Language Learning Blogs" category.

Alternatively, an e-mail with the above URL can be sent to giulia@bab.la

I greatly appreciate your continued readership and support.

Fondly,

Laura

General Service Words Brought to You by The Beatles

Via: Voxy Blog

The Difference Between Good and Bad Writing

I recently read about a website called DifferenceBetween.net that promotes itself as the place to go to learn about the "difference between similar terms and objects." I love the concept and I had a feeling that the site would cover some language basics such as the difference between metaphors and synonyms, and indeed it does. There is even a link at the top of the main page to articles specifically about language and grammar.

...And then the disappointment set in.

I read a few of the articles and I could not believe how poorly they were written, and how many factual inaccuracies and typos there were.

Here is a sentence from The Difference Between Vowels and Consonants:

"Vowels are five letters and the spoken sounds associated with each of it."

In addition to this poorly constructed sentence, nowhere in this article does it mention that there is not a 1-to-1 correspondence between letters and sounds.

I should be clear that I did not read more than eight or nine articles when I checked out the site and not all of the articles were equally as disappointing. Many of them did have some general, helpful information. I also like the format that has each article ending with a numbered summary.

I realize, too, that because I am critiquing the writing of others, there are bound to be some tylos and grammagical erroars in my sriting. After all, it is Muphry's Law.

The Brain and Language

From Low Temperature Laboratory Helsinki University of Technology

WTF ROTFL LOL - JK

WTF does ROTFL mean? I am truly not a prescriptivist, but I am still not LOL.


This past December, Language - The Journal of the Linguistic Society of America published a review of The gr8 db8 by David Crystal. I have not read the book but I have been meaning to mention my initial thoughts about the frequency of initialisms in texting.

The thing that annoys me most about the initialisms associated with texting is that the majority of the most common initialisms are not abbreviations for phrases that anyone I know actually used before the invention of instant messaging.

On the other hand, when I was coming of age and we sent messages that were not so instant ("Hey, please pass this note to so and so.") the only abbreviation/initialism that I recall using with any frequency was "JK" and we used the phrase "just kidding" in normal conversation on a regular basis.

Just sayin. (See, I am really not a prescriptivist)

The Recursiveness of Language - A Linkfest

Because language is recursive, I thought it would be fun to post links to linkfests from some of my favorite linguistics blogs.

Fritinancy - Linkfests

Sentence First - Link Love

Literal-Minded - Linkfests In linguistics, recursion is the unlimited extension of language. It is the ability to embed phrases within phrases and sentences within sentences resulting in the potential of a never-ending sentence.

I sure hope that someone will link to my links to these linkfests and that another person will link to that link and another person will link to the link that links to my links to these linkfests and so on and so on and so on...

Phonetics Lessons with Homer Simpson

Having previously posted about words that the television show The Simpsons has contributed to our lexicon I was thrilled to see a link on Fritinancy to an article about the Simpsons greatest language contribution. What I found most interesting in the article is the following:

"In the French version of the show Homer actually says 'T'oh!', instead of "D"oh!". This is because the French actor who dubs Homer"s voice misread the word the first time he played the role and has never got round to correcting himself."

I guess the actor must have been losing his voice that day.

.

In phonetics /t/ is the voiceless counterpart of /d/.

Click here for more about voicing.

Language and Brain Regions - Use the Right Side of Your Brain

There was an interesting article published last fall in e! Science News that reviewed a study about how the brain recognises idioms.

Researcher Dr Alice Proverbio summarized the findings as follows:

"Though the interpretation of language involves widespread activation bilaterally, the right hemisphere has a special role in the comprehension of idiomatic meaning."

For more details about the study and how results were determined, click here: e! Science News

(Check it out. Don't let the left side of your brain keep the right side from having fun.)

Linguistics Quotation Favorites - Virginia Woolf

"Language is wine upon the lips."

-Virginia Woolf