23 September 2007
Slate has a neat video featuring a British-born reporter visiting a dialect coach to find out how British actors learn to speak with American accents.
Do you have any little bottles of water?
New York Times Archive
21 September 2007
With the New York Times ending their disastrous “TimesSelect” online service (that charged people for “premium” content, the equivalent of which was given away for free by every other newspaper in the country), the entire archive of New York Times articles, dating back to 1851, is now available for free to everyone. Simply go to www.nytimes.com and do a search.
The archive is broken into two sections: articles since 1981 and articles published between 1851 and 1981. The older articles are delivered as PDF documents. Unfortunately, they’re not full text searchable once downloaded, so locating the exact word or phrase your looking for in the article can be a challenge. But for a free service, this is a minor annoyance.
Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, 6th Edition
18 September 2007
The 6th edition of the Shorter OED is officially released on 20 September, but it’s actually been available for some time from Amazon and other outlets.
The Shorter OED is not simply an abridged version of the OED, but an independently edited dictionary. The Shorter OED focuses on words that have been in use since 1700, so archaic words that fell out of use before that date are omitted. It is also not a historical dictionary, so it doesn’t contain all the citations of use in th big OED. But this makes it more useful as a quick reference for writers. It’s a two-volume work, also available on CD-ROM.
It’s listed at $175, but Amazon currently has it for $110.
OED Update, Sep 2007
18 September 2007
The latest quarterly update of the OED online has been released. This one contains words between proter and purposive, plus a lot of out-of-sequence updates. New words in the range of Ps include Prozac, pubbing, and pupusa (mmmmh...pupusa). New out-of-sequence words include balls-out, chimichanga, and Kuiper belt. The complete list of new additions can be found here. Editor John Simpson has a short essay on the new additions here.
Strangely, the OED continues its policy of not correcting known errors in existing entries. Somehow, the greatest benefit of being online has not sunk into the editors heads. The 1909 misdating of jazz, for example, persists, even though the editorial staff are well aware and have amply verified and documented that this is an error.
Hilton v. Hallmark
9 September 2007
In yet another case of a celebrity claiming ownership of a commonly used term, the AP reported yesterday that Paris Hilton is suing Hallmark over the use of her likeness and the phrase that’s hot in a greeting card. The card has a photo of Hilton’s head superimposed on a waitress’s body and she is telling a customer not to touch a plate because that’s hot.
A search of the US Patent and Trademark database shows that Hilton has indeed trademarked that’s hot for use in marketing alcoholic beverages, electronic devices (cell phones, video games, etc.), and for use on clothing. But greeting cards is not one of the uses filed by Hilton. Having a trademark does not grant you sole license to use a word or phrase in any context, but rather protection is limited to marketing products specifically referred to in the trademark application. The point of trademark law is to prevent customers from becoming confused about who is manufacturing what products.
The AP article errs in referring to the parody fair use defense. Fair use and parody relate to copyright law, not trademark. There is no fair use in using someone else’s trademark to market a competing product, parody or not. All that counts is whether a reasonable person might confuse the Hallmark product and Hilton’s products. But as this appears unlikely in this case, Hallmark is probably on pretty solid ground regarding any possible trademark violation. (Less so on the charges of commercial appropriation of identity, misappropriation of publicity, and false representation. Although, the charge of invasion of privacy is rather silly; as if Hilton herself had not already destroyed any shred of privacy that she might have once possessed.)
The AP report, to its credit, does not refer to this, but many people believe that coining a term is necessary in order to trademark it. It is not. What is important is being the first to use a term to identify particular products and services. Apple Computers obviously did not coin the word apple, but they were the first to use the word in the selling of computers, hence their trademark. If Apple Computers went into the fruit business, they would not be able to prevent competitors from selling apples. Similarly, Hilton was not the first to use the phrase that’s hot, but she is probably the first to slap the phrase onto a line of t-shirts and other clothing.
