You know that David Foster Wallace speech about fish? Two young fish swimming along, older fish passes and says "Morning boys, how's the water?" The young fish swim on, then one turns to the other: "What the hell is water?" That's the point. We don't notice what we're swimming in. The Furniture We Sit In … Continue reading Why Fish Don’t Know They’re Wet
Tag: language
Words & Phrases, 2022
no fixed address, homeless asphodel, Greek land of the dead bioreactor meat food's comforting inner cuddle pay-triots, money-grubbing grifters exploiting a nationalist cause the death of nuance axolotls, Mexican salamander mononymous moral holiday the holiday from history call of the void, wanting to jump from a high place, hit a guard rail det stora oväsendet, … Continue reading Words & Phrases, 2022
Words & Phrases, 2021
disaster voyeurismStakhanovites, model workers who produced higher than expectationsuniversity, a synthesis of two words: "unity" and "diversity."collimination, adjusting the line of sight of a telescopemuhaha, evil laughIsekai, an anime genre of going to another world and having adventuresZugzwang, worse position than if opponent's turn to play(R)azi Party, portmanteau of (R) Republican and Nazi Partymad-eyed, staring … Continue reading Words & Phrases, 2021
Between the “Quotes” & Control
“Not needing a family member for support or because you plan to inherit the family farm means that who we choose to spend time with is based more on our identities and aspirations for growth than survival or necessity,” he explains. “Today, nothing ties an adult child to a parent beyond that adult child’s desire … Continue reading Between the “Quotes” & Control
Crystal Nights by Greg Egan
"The Phites who’d invented the boost had had one big advantage as they’d tinkered with each other’s brains: it had not been a purely theoretical exercise for them. They hadn’t gazed at anatomical diagrams and then reasoned their way to a better design. They had experienced the effects of thousands of small experimental changes, and … Continue reading Crystal Nights by Greg Egan
Words & Phrases, 2020
diktats, a harsh punishment unilaterally imposedgriot, West African storytelleramanuensis, transcriptionistAnholt cultuviolent entertainment of context collapsefissiparous, an organism is one that produces new individuals by fission/splittingwegan diet, a vegan diet modified to include only wild-harvested meatsaxis of assholesslow-rolledTTP, techniques, tactics and proceduresMoonlight Maze, Russian cyberattack on DoD in 1990ssemiotarchy, tyranny of signskenopsia, eerie feeling when you … Continue reading Words & Phrases, 2020
Dirty, Naughty, Obscene, and Otherwise Bad Words
"“With millions of images in our library and billions of user-submitted keywords, we work hard at Shutterstock to make sure that bad words don’t show up in places they shouldn’t.” The company’s dataset of Dirty, Naughty, Obscene, and Otherwise Bad Words contains the block-lists for their autocompletion and recommendation features, covering 2,600+ words and phrases … Continue reading Dirty, Naughty, Obscene, and Otherwise Bad Words
StoryWrangling.org
"StoryWrangler instrument reflects our first step towards wrestling the day’s events into coherence. It is an approximate daily leaderboard for language popularity around the globe......Half of a billion messages are posted to Twitter every day! Written on post-it notes, they would wrap around the Earth’s equator in a neon hug full of politics, pop music, … Continue reading StoryWrangling.org
How to Write Great Microcopy
Be clear, concise, and usefulUse consistent wordingCreate a microcopy frameworkBe conversationalUse humors and idioms carefullyHighlight your brand's characterBe wary of word translations(Almost) always use active voiceUse the passive voice (sometimes)Provide contextAssume your user is smartKeep it scannableWrite short paragraphs an sentencesDon't overuse contractionsWhen to use sentence caseWhen to use title caseCapitalize proper names & termsWhen … Continue reading How to Write Great Microcopy
English Split Composition
"English is a language built mostly out of two others. Much of it was created out of the language of invaders who came to Britain around 450 ad from Anglia and Saxony (in what we'd now call northern Germany). About 600 years later the French invaded and brought their language with them, too; it was … Continue reading English Split Composition
Women & Language
"...women tend to learn language from their peers; men learn it from their mothers."—Carolyn Wells, "The Adaptation of Language Evolution." LongReads.com. November 25, 2019.
Words We Don’t Have
"Language and culture are inextricably linked. The words that exist (or that we make) form our language, and hence, are definitive of our culture. This place explores words that are unique to dialects or non-English languages, with an aim to examine what these words might illuminate about their cultures (and ours)."—WordsWeDontHave.com
Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) on StarDict on Ubuntu/Debian
So, after reading "You’re probably using the wrong dictionary," I thought I would give installing Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) on a Debian-flavor of Linux a try and write it up the process and some observations of its use. Installation on a Debian-flavor of Linux is straight-forward: $ sudo apt-get install stardict$ cd Downloads$ wget … Continue reading Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) on StarDict on Ubuntu/Debian
Better Thought Technology
"Technological innovation, in the conventional sense, won’t help us slow the publishing process back down. Slowing down requires better thought technology. It requires a willingness to draft for the sake of drafting. It requires throwing away most of what we think because most of our thoughts don’t deserve to be read by others. Most of … Continue reading Better Thought Technology
cafebedouin.org 