Friday, February 26, 2010
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Tiger Woods Anagrams
"Tiger Woods"...his name seems to be unavoidable of late.
Word: it's ego! (by Mick Tully using Anagram Genius) (2001)
I grew to sod. (by Bob Hanford) (2005)
O! Direst wog. (by anon using Anagram Genius) (2005)
i.e. worst dog. (by Rajkishore using Anagram Genius) (2005)
Writes good. (by Rajkishore using Anagram Genius) (2005)
Got weirdos. (by victoria willis using Anagram Genius) (2003)
Got so weird (by Randy Cox using Anagram Genius) (2001)
Worst ego, id (by Jeff Kastner by hand) (2001)
Do worse, git! (by Adrian Hickford using Anagram Genius) (2001)
Wires to God (by Mike Mesterton-Gibbons by hand) (2000)
Twig's rodeo. (by Aronas Pinchas) (2009) (pending approval)
Word 'EGOIST' (by Aronas Pinchas) (2009) (pending approval)
Go-wide sort? (by Mike Mesterton-Gibbons by hand) (2006) (pending approval)
Wire to gods. (by adam kops by hand) (2006) (pending approval)
and don't forget Eldrick...
For the fun of it, I decided to pay a visit to Anagram Genius for a fresh take on his name. Here is what I found:
Word: it's ego! (by Mick Tully using Anagram Genius) (2001)
I grew to sod. (by Bob Hanford) (2005)
O! Direst wog. (by anon using Anagram Genius) (2005)
i.e. worst dog. (by Rajkishore using Anagram Genius) (2005)
Writes good. (by Rajkishore using Anagram Genius) (2005)
Got weirdos. (by victoria willis using Anagram Genius) (2003)
Got so weird (by Randy Cox using Anagram Genius) (2001)
Worst ego, id (by Jeff Kastner by hand) (2001)
Do worse, git! (by Adrian Hickford using Anagram Genius) (2001)
Wires to God (by Mike Mesterton-Gibbons by hand) (2000)
Twig's rodeo. (by Aronas Pinchas) (2009) (pending approval)
Word 'EGOIST' (by Aronas Pinchas) (2009) (pending approval)
Go-wide sort? (by Mike Mesterton-Gibbons by hand) (2006) (pending approval)
Wire to gods. (by adam kops by hand) (2006) (pending approval)
and don't forget Eldrick...
"Eldrick "Tiger" Woods"
Stick wielder, or God? (by Don Rogers) (2005)
Editors rig wedlock. (by Rajesh Vijayaraghavan) (2009) (pending approval)
Wooed, Tricked Girls. (by Rajesh Vijayaraghavan) (2009) (pending approval)
Dick; wet girls rodeo. (by Aronas Pinchas) (2009) (pending approval)
Weer dick to do girls. (by Aronas Pinchas) (2009) (pending approval)
O, dick - wet girls doer! (by Aronas Pinchas) (2009) (pending approval)
Editors rig wedlock. (by Rajesh Vijayaraghavan) (2009) (pending approval)
Wooed, Tricked Girls. (by Rajesh Vijayaraghavan) (2009) (pending approval)
Dick; wet girls rodeo. (by Aronas Pinchas) (2009) (pending approval)
Weer dick to do girls. (by Aronas Pinchas) (2009) (pending approval)
O, dick - wet girls doer! (by Aronas Pinchas) (2009) (pending approval)
"Got weirdos" tops my list.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Goldilocks and the Little Dude in the Back of Your Brain
While the following article isn't exactly related to linguistics, I have previously posted about the semantics of slower traffic and the article does an excellent job of explaining why driving too slow can be dangerous.
Here is the article as it appeared in this month's Hour Detroit magazine:
If you think driving slowly is the safe way to travel, think again. Dawdling can be a hazard. And stepping on the gas might be the prudent thing to do, or so say studies supporting efforts to raise speed limits.
The key is to find the Goldilocks speed — not too fast, not to slow, but just right, a pace to keep you in the flow of traffic.
“At 65 mph, on the vast majority of our freeways, you are one of the slowest vehicles on the road,” says Lt. Gary Megge, a traffic crash reconstruction expert for the Michigan State Police. “Everybody is going to pass you if you go 60 or 65. Those slower vehicles are outside the pace, the speed of the normal drive. That slowest driver causes everyone on the road to react to him. You either have to slow down, hit the brakes, or change lanes to pass him. The slow driver forces everyone else on the road to do something different.”
Chalk up the lieutenant as Michigan’s expert in reasonable speed limits — on freeways, highways, and local roads alike. He’s done hundreds of speed studies, and so far, has had a hand in raising some 200 speed limits across the state.
In deciding limits, traffic engineers calculate the “85th percentile speed,” the number signals that 85 percent of the drivers along a stretch of pavement are traveling at that speed or slower.
Motorists themselves set the 85th percentile speed — often by blissfully ignoring those unnecessarily low speed limits. For example, the speed limit on I-69 near Flint used to be a pokey 55 mph, but drivers still zoomed along at 74 mph (the 85th percentile speed). Authorities raised the speed limit to 70 and the percentile speed dropped by 1 mph to 73, or about the same as before.
Of the I-69 change, Megge says, “Fewer faster drivers, fewer slower drivers; it’s one example of how a correction made a road much more user-friendly. It increased the capacity; it reduced the spread [between high and low speeds]. It was a beautiful thing.”
Make no mistake; the lieutenant distinguishes between appropriate speed and excessive speed, such as going 100 mph on a freeway or 50 mph in a subdivision. “When we talk about speed kills, it’s just not true,” he says. “Excessive speed kills, absolutely.
“But the vast majority of our roads are under-posted, meaning the speed limit is too slow and nearly everyone violates it.”
Insurance companies aren’t crazy about higher speed limits. “The problem is that drivers tend to travel at a speed at which they don’t think they’ll get a ticket,” says Russ Rader, spokesman for the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety in Arlington, Va. “In most places, that’s five or 10 miles over the posted speed limit. The 85th percentile becomes a moving target. When you raise the speed limit, you shift the people who were going 10 miles over the speed limit before into a higher bracket. The 85th percentile keeps moving.”
Speeding contributes significantly to fatal accidents, says the institute, a nonprofit research organization sponsored by insurance companies. Clearly, insurers and 85th percentilers interpret data differently.
Megge says accident-speed statistics can be misleading. For example, a car traveling 20 mph on an icy freeway slides and crashes. Police chalk it up as speed related, traveling too fast for conditions. But the accident has nothing to do with exceeding the posted speed limit.
“The big three causes of crashes are fatigue, alcohol, and distractions, whether that’s a cell phone, a cheeseburger, a cup of coffee, a baby in the back seat, the radio, putting your makeup on, working on your laptop, tying your tie, brushing your teeth — I’ve seen people do all of these things,” Megge says. “That’s why people crash.”
Robert Hoepfner, county highway engineer for the Road Commission of Macomb County, says speed limits are an emotional issue for many people. “[They think] if you travel faster, it has to be more dangerous. That’s not true. We’re very concerned about people who travel too fast and travel too slow. They cause accidents. But people that drive at that uniform rate of speed drive the safest.
“No one can deny that at higher rate of speed, if something happens, a more severe accident could occur. But when we’re talking speed versus safety on any particular roadway, what’s more important is that the traffic is moving at a uniform rate without a lot of radical changes occurring at any particular time.”
Macomb County, using the 85th-percentile rule, raised the speed limit on a stretch of Mound Road from 45 to 50 mph. As predicted by Megge, actual speeds didn’t increase, and even dropped 1 mph.
“I call it the little dude in the back of our brain that tells us how fast we can go without crashing,” Megge says. “We just take in the whole driving environment — everything that affects the way we drive — road conditions, weather, traffic, all those things bounce around in our brain, and we pick a safe and comfortable speed.”
“Seventy-five miles an hour on I-696 is not going to kill anybody,” he says. “But drunk driving at 50 miles an hour, that’s going to kill somebody.
“We need to get off this speeding thing. It’s just not the major traffic safety issue people make it out to be.”
Here is the article as it appeared in this month's Hour Detroit magazine:
If you think driving slowly is the safe way to travel, think again. Dawdling can be a hazard. And stepping on the gas might be the prudent thing to do, or so say studies supporting efforts to raise speed limits.
The key is to find the Goldilocks speed — not too fast, not to slow, but just right, a pace to keep you in the flow of traffic.
“At 65 mph, on the vast majority of our freeways, you are one of the slowest vehicles on the road,” says Lt. Gary Megge, a traffic crash reconstruction expert for the Michigan State Police. “Everybody is going to pass you if you go 60 or 65. Those slower vehicles are outside the pace, the speed of the normal drive. That slowest driver causes everyone on the road to react to him. You either have to slow down, hit the brakes, or change lanes to pass him. The slow driver forces everyone else on the road to do something different.”
Chalk up the lieutenant as Michigan’s expert in reasonable speed limits — on freeways, highways, and local roads alike. He’s done hundreds of speed studies, and so far, has had a hand in raising some 200 speed limits across the state.
In deciding limits, traffic engineers calculate the “85th percentile speed,” the number signals that 85 percent of the drivers along a stretch of pavement are traveling at that speed or slower.
Motorists themselves set the 85th percentile speed — often by blissfully ignoring those unnecessarily low speed limits. For example, the speed limit on I-69 near Flint used to be a pokey 55 mph, but drivers still zoomed along at 74 mph (the 85th percentile speed). Authorities raised the speed limit to 70 and the percentile speed dropped by 1 mph to 73, or about the same as before.
Of the I-69 change, Megge says, “Fewer faster drivers, fewer slower drivers; it’s one example of how a correction made a road much more user-friendly. It increased the capacity; it reduced the spread [between high and low speeds]. It was a beautiful thing.”
Make no mistake; the lieutenant distinguishes between appropriate speed and excessive speed, such as going 100 mph on a freeway or 50 mph in a subdivision. “When we talk about speed kills, it’s just not true,” he says. “Excessive speed kills, absolutely.
“But the vast majority of our roads are under-posted, meaning the speed limit is too slow and nearly everyone violates it.”
Insurance companies aren’t crazy about higher speed limits. “The problem is that drivers tend to travel at a speed at which they don’t think they’ll get a ticket,” says Russ Rader, spokesman for the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety in Arlington, Va. “In most places, that’s five or 10 miles over the posted speed limit. The 85th percentile becomes a moving target. When you raise the speed limit, you shift the people who were going 10 miles over the speed limit before into a higher bracket. The 85th percentile keeps moving.”
Speeding contributes significantly to fatal accidents, says the institute, a nonprofit research organization sponsored by insurance companies. Clearly, insurers and 85th percentilers interpret data differently.
Megge says accident-speed statistics can be misleading. For example, a car traveling 20 mph on an icy freeway slides and crashes. Police chalk it up as speed related, traveling too fast for conditions. But the accident has nothing to do with exceeding the posted speed limit.
“The big three causes of crashes are fatigue, alcohol, and distractions, whether that’s a cell phone, a cheeseburger, a cup of coffee, a baby in the back seat, the radio, putting your makeup on, working on your laptop, tying your tie, brushing your teeth — I’ve seen people do all of these things,” Megge says. “That’s why people crash.”
Robert Hoepfner, county highway engineer for the Road Commission of Macomb County, says speed limits are an emotional issue for many people. “[They think] if you travel faster, it has to be more dangerous. That’s not true. We’re very concerned about people who travel too fast and travel too slow. They cause accidents. But people that drive at that uniform rate of speed drive the safest.
“No one can deny that at higher rate of speed, if something happens, a more severe accident could occur. But when we’re talking speed versus safety on any particular roadway, what’s more important is that the traffic is moving at a uniform rate without a lot of radical changes occurring at any particular time.”
Macomb County, using the 85th-percentile rule, raised the speed limit on a stretch of Mound Road from 45 to 50 mph. As predicted by Megge, actual speeds didn’t increase, and even dropped 1 mph.
“I call it the little dude in the back of our brain that tells us how fast we can go without crashing,” Megge says. “We just take in the whole driving environment — everything that affects the way we drive — road conditions, weather, traffic, all those things bounce around in our brain, and we pick a safe and comfortable speed.”
“Seventy-five miles an hour on I-696 is not going to kill anybody,” he says. “But drunk driving at 50 miles an hour, that’s going to kill somebody.
“We need to get off this speeding thing. It’s just not the major traffic safety issue people make it out to be.”
Monday, February 22, 2010
Linguistics Quotation Favorites - Karl Albrecht
"Change your language and change your thoughts.”
-Karl Albrecht
Friday, February 19, 2010
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Nose Ring Ambiguity Diagrammed
What better way to have fun with an intentionally ambiguous cartoon than to diagram the ambiguous sentence in the cartoon!
Monday, February 15, 2010
Minced Movie Oaths - M***** F****** Snakes on a M***** F****** Plane
While working in the kitchen the other day, I heard my son and husband laughing loudly and reciting a line together along with whatever it was they were watching on the television. My curiosity was aroused so I asked what all the fuss was about. They responded in unison,
"I have had it with these monkey-fighting snakes on this Monday to Friday plane."
I soon learned that they were watching the movie Snakes on a Plane on FX and the line that they were reciting was the dubbed version of a profanity-laced exclamation uttered by Samuel Jackson's character in the theatrical version of the movie.
Here is the television version:
Apparently I don't watch enough television. I got such a kick out of the dubbed line that I googled it and there are numerous sites and blogs that discuss the line; one in particular that labeled it, "the worst overdubbed profanity replacement in TV history."
To give you an idea of how popular this line is, when I went to google the phrase "monkey-fighting snakes", I only got as far as "monkey fig..." before google's autocomplete suggested "monkey fighting snakes". And clicking on "monkey fighting snakes" returns approximately 27,300,000 hits.
Wow.
So I figured what the heck, I may as well google "Monday to Friday plane" to see what that returns too. I made it as far as "Monday to..." before the autocomplete suggested "Monday to Friday plane". While not as impressive as "monkey fighting snakes", "Monday to Friday plane" did return 5,910,000 hits.
The reason I bring up a topic that has already been written about so many times is that (regardless of the opinion of the majority) I do not think this was a poor job of profanity replacement at all - quite the opposite, actually.
If you ask me, it takes a certain amount of linguistic talent to come up with minced oaths that can be dubbed so synchronously while still making some sense semantically. (After all, there are snakes that fight monkeys and there are planes that only fly Mondays through Fridays.)
Friday, February 12, 2010
A Portmanteau That Really Fits the Bill
What a fun portmanteau word; however, according to Australian-Wildlife.com, there is no other type of platypus so the term "duck-billed" platypus is redundant.
Another linguistically interesting fact from Australian-Wildlife.com is that "there is no agreed term for the plural of platypus, with platypus, platypoda and platypuses all being used."
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Greater Than or Less Than (or is it Fewer Than)
Prescriptive grammarians would find the sign on the left cringeworthy, preferring the sign to the right by a long shot.The reason for this language peeve is that grocery store items are items that can be counted. Any number of grammar sites and blogs will tell you that the word less is used with mass nouns and the word fewer is used with count nouns.
For more about the difference between mass nouns and count nouns click here.
The reason I bring up this prescribed rule is because of the exceptions to the rule.
My son recently asked me why, if numbers can be counted, are the phrases greater than and less than used in mathematics.
& >
Well, every rule has exceptions and according to Washington State University "the exceptions to the less/fewer pattern are references to units of time and money, which are usually treated as amounts: less than an hour, less than five dollars. Only when you are referring to specific coins or bills would you use fewer: 'I have fewer than five state quarters to go to make my collection complete.'"
Based on this analysis, if I said 8 > 3, I would be comparing the amounts (or mass) of the two individual numbers and not talking about the counting of (1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8) of the numbers.
Monday, February 8, 2010
More Portmanteau Foods - Chalsa
Just spotted this ad on my Yahoo homepage. Next time I have some portmanteau fruits, I just may have to have a side of chalsa in which to dip them. I do love portmanteaus.
Saturday, February 6, 2010
Phonetics Humor
A diphthong is a complex speech sound or glide that begins with one vowel and gradually changes to another vowel within the same syllable, as in boil or fine.
Friday, February 5, 2010
Linguistic Cartoon Favorites - Sarcastic Apostrophes
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
O, Apostrophe, Apostrophe, Wherefore Art Thou Apostrophe?
Someone took the time to have this sign made for the owner of this pub; too bad they didn't take the time to add the required posessive apostrophe.
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
How to Increase Your Vernacular Vocabulary
If you would like to receive props for your language prowess and you don't want to sound hinky when talking with others, a good way to start increasing your vocabulary is by watching television.
I just heard the word props for the first time while watching the Winter X-Games and the word hinky while watching the props-worthy show Bones.
I just heard the word props for the first time while watching the Winter X-Games and the word hinky while watching the props-worthy show Bones.
The definitions are from Merriam-Webster.com
props:
Etymology: short for proper dues
Date: 1992
1 slang : due "takes pains to give the man his props" — Dan Epstein
2 slang : respect "teachers have to earn their props just like everybody else" — Greg Donaldson 3 slang : credit "at least deserves props for writing a song about something that rings true" — Jim Abbott
2 slang : respect "teachers have to earn their props just like everybody else" — Greg Donaldson 3 slang : credit "at least deserves props for writing a song about something that rings true" — Jim Abbott
hinky:
Etymology: alteration of argot hincty suspicious
Date: 1956
1 slang : nervous, jittery
Date: 1956
1 slang : nervous, jittery
2 slang : suspicious
Monday, February 1, 2010
Is it Sonar or So-Gnar?
Because there is an interesting linguistic aspect to this picture, I have decided to share it with my readers (really...it has nothing to do with the fact that the picture is of my son, and I am a very proud mother).
If you look closely at the logo on the bottom right side of the picture, you will see that it reads -
So-Gnar is a site devoted to "snowboarding around the world wide web". It is also an example of word play based on its obvious homophone "sonar" (after all, the logo is shaped like a submarine).
Sonar, defined by thefreedictionary.com, is:
1. A system using transmitted and reflected underwater sound waves to detect and locate submerged objects or measure the distance to the floor of a body of water.
2. An apparatus, as one in a submarine, using sonar.
3. Echolocation.
So-Gnar, on the other hand, is a hyphenated blend of the adverb "so" and the shortened, version of the adjective "gnarly".
Gnarly, defined by thefreedictionary.com, is:
1. Gnarled; misshapen.
2. Slang
a. Remarkable; outstanding.
b. Unpleasant; disgusting.
Check out this very outstanding air. It is so gnarly.
If you look closely at the logo on the bottom right side of the picture, you will see that it reads -
So-Gnar is a site devoted to "snowboarding around the world wide web". It is also an example of word play based on its obvious homophone "sonar" (after all, the logo is shaped like a submarine).
Sonar, defined by thefreedictionary.com, is:
1. A system using transmitted and reflected underwater sound waves to detect and locate submerged objects or measure the distance to the floor of a body of water.
2. An apparatus, as one in a submarine, using sonar.
3. Echolocation.
So-Gnar, on the other hand, is a hyphenated blend of the adverb "so" and the shortened, version of the adjective "gnarly".
Gnarly, defined by thefreedictionary.com, is:
1. Gnarled; misshapen.
2. Slang
a. Remarkable; outstanding.
b. Unpleasant; disgusting.
Check out this very outstanding air. It is so gnarly.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
