22 July 2010
I’ve mentioned crash blossoms before. I normally don’t post about particular ones that appear, but this one is is choice because of the reader poll that accompanies it. The Sentence First blog has the story.
Zimmer’s Mad Men Hat Trick
22 July 2010
Mad Men avatar of Dave Wilton
Ben Zimmer has triplet of articles on the language of the television show Mad Men, the fourth season of which premieres this weekend.
First is this week’s “On Language” column in the New York Times Magazine.
Next up is his Language Log commentary on his own column, where he explains his avoidance in the Gray Lady of a taboo term.
Finally, is a Word Routes column that points out six potential anachronisms in the scripts of the series.
(And if you are a really obsessed fan of the show, you can create your own Mad Men avatar here, as I have done.
CMOS 16th Sneak Peak
22 July 2010
The Subversive Copy Editor has a sneak peek at the changes in the new 16th edition of the Chicago Manual of Style. The new edition is officially released on 1 August, but it is already available for purchase.
(Tip o’ the boater to You Don’t Say.)
Chicago Words
21 July 2010
Chicago Magazine has compiled a list of forty words that the city of Chicago has, supposedly, contributed to the lexicon and that capture the spirit of the city in some way. Some of the the connections to Chicago are tenuous, such as a first citation in the OED from a Chicago newspaper, but it’s an interesting list of words. Plus, for a journalistic endeavor it appears to be surprisingly accurate. Usually reporters get articles on language (and just about everything, frankly) so wrong, but here writer Graham Meyer seems to get it mostly right.
(Tip o’ the hat to Wilson Gray on ADS-L)
LA Times on Electronic Books
20 July 2010
Here’s an article on the future of books in a digital age in the Los Angeles Times. Unlike they typical gloom and doom accounts of the “end of reading,” this one focuses on the advantages of a digital format over print.
(Tip o’ the hat to Grant Barrett & Martha Barnette of A Way With Words)
