Stresstest

Press release from Die Gesellschaft für deutsche Sprache (GfdS)/the Society for German Language, on the word of the year

Wort des Jahres 2011 ist Stresstest. Dieses Wort, ursprünglich aus der Humanmedizin stammend, begegnete im Laufe des Jahres auffällig oft. Es erwies sich dabei aus sprachlicher Sicht als äußerst produktiv und war in den verschiedensten Bereichen anzutreffen: Nicht nur Banken wurden auf ihre Belastbarkeit getestet, auch etwa das Bahnhofsprojekt Stuttgart 21, die grün-rote Landesregierung in Baden-Württemberg und deutsche Atomkraftwerke wurden Stresstests unterzogen. Diese Praxis und somit das Wort erlangten dadurch politische, wirtschaftliche und gesamtgesellschaftliche Relevanz. So ist Stresstest mittlerweile als fester Bestandteil der Alltagssprache anzusehen. 

Read more, for the other nine words in the top ten list.

Borrowed from the English term, it was originally used in German in a medical sense. Lately, it has been applied in the financial sector as a measure of an institution's resilience and 'health'. The term has also been applied to describe whether transport systems and indeed nuclear reactors are able to withstand stresses and 'overloading'.

See also Duden for a more official definition.

In 2011, the word captures the fear of systems failing.

Gibberish

Prisencolinensinainciusol was a song composed by Adriano Celentano, a prolific singer and songwriter, and released in 1972.



The song has enjoyed a resurgence following a mention by Boing Boing in 2009 as an illustration of how English sounds to non-English speakers.

While that wasn't the intention of Celentano, it is certainly Gibberish and was not meant to mean anything.

... we're not in Kansas anymore.

A classic line from the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz spoken by Dorothy to her dog Toto, was "Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore" followed by "we must be over the rainbow" [scene].

The phrase is often 'quoted' to express being far from home or the unfamiliar.

Rich Juzwiak, for his blog fourfour has patiently compiled the phrase as used in numerous films (click on link for list of films).



Are we ever in Kansas?

Wutbürger

Press release from Die Gesellschaft für deutsche Sprache (GfdS)/the Society for German Language, on the word of the year

Am 16. Dezember 2010 hat die Gesellschaft für deutsche Sprache bereits zum 35. Mal die Wörter des Jahres gekürt und damit wieder einmal aufgezeigt, in welcher Weise diesjährige charakteristische Themen aus Politik, Wirtschaft und anderen Bereichen des gesellschaftlichen Alltags sprachlich markiert worden sind.

Ausgewertet wurde eine Sammlung von etwa 2000 Wörtern und Wendungen, hauptsächlich Belege aus verschiedenen Medien, aber auch Vorschläge von Außenstehenden. Hieraus wählte die Jury, die sich aus dem Hauptvorstand der Gesellschaft sowie den wissenschaftlichen Mitarbeiterinnen und Mitarbeitern zusammensetzt, zehn Wörter, die die öffentliche Diskussion wesentlich bestimmt und dieses Jahr besonders geprägt haben.

Für die Auswahl der Wörter des Jahres entscheidend ist aber nicht die Häufigkeit eines Ausdrucks, sondern vielmehr seine Signifikanz und Popularität: Die Liste trifft den sprachlichen Nerv des sich dem Ende neigenden Jahres und stellt auf ihre Weise einen sprachlichen Jahresrückblick dar. Als ein solches Zeitzeugnis sind die ausgewählten Wörter dabei mit keinerlei Wertung oder Empfehlung verbunden.

Wie in den vergangenen Jahren ist zu erwarten, dass auch die diesjährigen Wörter des Jahres im In- und Ausland mit großem Interesse wahrgenommen werden:

Als Wort des Jahres wurde Wutbürger gewählt. Diese Neubildung wurde von zahlreichen Zeitungen und Fernsehsendern verwendet, um einer Empörung in der Bevölkerung darüber Ausdruck zu geben, dass politische Entscheidungen über ihren Kopf hinweg getroffen werden Das Wort dokumentiert ein großes Bedürfnis der Bürgerinnen und Bürger, über ihre Wahlentscheidung hinaus ein Mitspracherecht bei gesellschaftlich und politisch relevanten Projekten zu haben.

Read more, for the other nine words in the top ten list.

Wutbürger describes people protesting or rebelling as a means of expressing their frustration at not being involved in political decision-making processes. There is not an English-language equivalent single word, though Wutbürger can be literally translated as angry citizens, but it means more than that, as so-described above.

See also Duden for a more official definition.

Definitely an apt description of the Zeitgeist of 2010.

"overcoming insurmountable odds"

An overused phrase is "overcome/overcoming insurmountable odds".

As 'insurmountable' means that, which, cannot be overcome, then clearly to overcome something insurmountable is impossible.

Worst than an oxymoron.

Selling like hotcakes

I've often been confused by the phrase "selling like hotcakes", meaning selling quickly and in large numbers. I have never ever seen hotcakes, or just-cooked pancakes, sold in this manner. The Word Detective did provide a plausible explanation

The term “hotcake” is an American invention, dating back to the late 17th century (”pancake,” meaning the same food, is older, first appearing in England around 1400). To “sell like hotcakes” has meant “to be in great demand” since about 1839, and there doesn’t seem to have been any particular “hotcake fad” leading to the origin of the phrase. But hotcakes have always been popular at fairs and church socials, etc., often selling as fast as they can be cooked, so they make a good metaphor for a very popular product that sells quickly and in great numbers.

It seems rather strange to serve hotcakes (pancakes) at fairs and the like.  Perhaps the phrase should be revised or replaced with "flying off the shelves".

OM NOM NOM NOM NOM

OM NOM NOM NOM NOM, or portion thereof, is commonly used to describe delicious food. We can thank Cookie Monster for this phrase.

See interview by Ella with Cookie Monster on 9 November 2009 for Rocketboom

The Great Typo Hunt

Just over two years ago, I wrote about the Typo Eradication Advancement League. Much has happened since then.

It resulted in The Great Type Hunt and a book. You can listen to a story from NPR back in August 2010 (transcript).

More recently, CBS News featured a story about it.

A parliament of owls and other collective nouns

Most people know about a pride of lions, a flock of sheep, a herd of cattle, a school of fish, an army of ants, a bunch of flowers, a swarm of bees, and a coven of witches in describing a collective.

Logically, a bunch of roosting owls might be described as a school of owls but no, they are a parliament. Perhaps the school came from Harry Potter.

Collective nouns are now rarely used except for the most common. Lists of collective nouns can be found here and here.

If in doubt, just use the word bunch.

The DNA of what?

The misuse of scientific terminology continues unabated. One of the most common is DNA, as in 'DNA of advertising', 'DNA of customer experience', 'DNA of relationships' etc.

DNA is abbreviated from deoxyribonucleic acid. DNA is made of nucleotides and codes genetic information.

Instead, use 'blueprint' or something similar if that is what is intended.

Using scientific terms for non-scientific matters doesn't sound clever. It is idiotic.

The Oxford English Dictionary's secret vault of non-words, innit

Reported in the (UK) Daily Telegraph on 4 August 2010

Graphic designer Luke Ngakane, 22, uncovered hundreds of 'non words' as part of a project for Kingston University, London.

He said: ''I was fascinated when I read that the Oxford University Press has a vault where all their failed words, which didn't make the dictionary, are kept.

''This storeroom contains millions of words and some of them date back hundreds of years.

''It's a very hush, hush vault and I really struggled to find out information about it because it is so secretive.

''But when I spoke to them they were happy to confirm its existence and although I didn't actually get to see the room they did send me some examples.

''I picked out the words that resonated with me and really seemed to fit the purpose they were intended for.

''I get really excited when I hear someone using one of them because if enough people pick them up then maybe they will make it into the dictionary after all.''

Mr Ngakane researched hundreds of 'non words' before choosing 39 to etch onto a metal press plate and print onto A4 paper for his graphic design degree.

Read more. Mr Ngakane printed over 150 copies, which were distributed to writers, journalists, designers, copy writers and others to help bring expose the words. The 39 non-words Mr Ngakane selected were

Accordionated – being able to drive and refold a road map at the same time

Asphinxiation – being sick to death of unanswerable puzzles or riddles

Blogish – a variety of English that uses a large number of initialisms, frequently used on blogs

Dringle – the watermark left on wood caused by a glass of liquid.

Dunandunate – the overuse of a word or phrase that has recently been added to your own vocabulary

Earworm – a catchy tune that frequently gets stuck in your head

Espacular – something especially spectacular

Freegan – someone who rejects consumerism, usually by eating discarded food

Fumb – your large toe

Furgle – to feel in a pocket or bag for a small object such as a coin or key

Glocalization – running a business according to both local and global considerations

Griefer – someone who spends their online time harassing others

Headset jockey – a telephone call centre worker

Lexpionage – the sleuthing of words and phrases

Locavor – a person who tries to eat only locally grown or produced food

Museum head – feeling mentally exhausted and no longer able to take in information; Usually following a trip to a museum

Nonversation – a worthless conversation, wherein nothing is explained or otherwise elaborated upon

Nudenda – an unhidden agenda

Oninate – to overwhelm with post-dining breath

Optotoxical – a look that could kill, normally from a parent or spouse

Parrotise – a haven for exotic birds especially green ones

Peppier – a waiter whose sole job is to offer diners ground pepper, usually from a large pepper mill

Percuperate – to prepare for the possibility of being ill

Pharming – the practice of creating a dummy website for phishing data

Polkadodge – the dance that occurs when two people attempt to pass each other but move in the same direction

Pregreening – to creep forwards while waiting for a red light to change

Quackmire – the muddy edges of a duck pond

Scrax – the waxy coating that is scratched off an instant lottery ticket

Smushables – items that must be pack at the top of a bag to avoid being squashed

Spatulate – removing cake mixture from the side of a bowl with a spatula

Sprog – to go faster then a jog but slower then a sprint

Sprummer – when summer and spring time can't decide which is to come first, usually hot one day then cold the next

Stealth-geek – someone who hides their nerdy interests while maintaining a normal outward appearance

Vidiot – someone who is inept at the act of programming video recording equipment

Whinese – a term for the language spoken by children on lengthy trips

Wibble – the trembling of the lower lip just shy of actually crying

Wurfing – the act of surfing the Internet while at work

Wikism – a piece of information that claims to be true but is wildly inaccurate

Xenolexica – a grave confusion when faced with unusual words

See also Luke Ngakane's website This is Luke - Non Words and BBC News (video). The Daily Mail also reported on 8 August 2010 with a photo.

I'll furgle for coins in my pocket but hope I don't get an earworm.

It's not rocket science, but...

It's not rocket science is considered to be one of the worst clichés in the English language (there is even a book about it - see Amazon.com).

The phrase is used to emphasise that something is not that difficult.

Rocket science is now part of a wider field of aerospace engineering, with principles based on physics and in particular, fluid dynamics.

It's actually not that difficult.

Neuro-surgery on the other hand...

EDIT - Thanks to batarista for this clip from the BBC's That Mitchell and Webb Look

Vancouver Winter Olympics - Frenchgate

The opening ceremony of the Vancouver Winter Olympics has sparked a national debate over the use of the French language amongst Canadians, with claims that there was not enough or that there was too much. Werner Patels was embarrassed and wrote in his blog

Turn to any news channel or open any newspaper, and one topic you’ll likely find discussed just about everywhere in Canada right now is the perceived slight of the French language at the Olympic Games in Vancouver. At the same time, letters pages in (Albertan and Western Canadian) newspapers are filling up with irate comments about how the “French should go home and shut up”.

I first became aware that there was an issue on the night of the opening ceremony, when my Twitter page started being inundated with angry comments about the use, not lack, of the French language. I decided then not to reply to or comment on any of them, because, frankly, they made me feel embarrassed and ashamed. Albertans tend to have a bad reputation in the rest of the country, and the last thing we need is to be known as French bashers (particularly in a province where, like in the rest of the country, the rate of functional illiteracy – in just one language! – now borders on fifty per cent).

Those who criticized the use of French at the Olympics proved only one thing: that they’re utterly uneducated and uninformed about what goes on in the world. The Olympics organization is an international organization, and its first and primary official language is French. Naturally, any official Olympics business is conducted in French first, and English second. So, when, for example, Canada’s Governor-General Michaëlle Jean spoke in French first and then switched to English, she merely adhered to the practices of the international organization. Now, though, many Canadians (in the West) appear to be calling for her head to roll over this “affront”.

Read more

The editors at La Presse (a daily published in Montreal) are not happy. I agree with them. In fact, I would go as far as suggesting that instead of the usual practice of alternating between French and English, they should have mangled it into Franglais.

Who said sport and politics don't mix?

Misunderstanding the Zeitgeist

Zeitgeist is a German word that translates to mean 'spirit of the times' and conveys a sense of mood of a period in time through collective public consciousness, particularly through cultural, intellectual, political, ethical, spiritual and sociological interests.

Unfortunately, the word is often misunderstood and used as a convenience in denoting media interests.

The Guardian recently launched their Zeitgeist as a visual record of what online readers currently find interesting on guardian.co.uk at the moment.



Not exactly a Zeitgeist, but a graphical representation of popular articles in the online edition of The Guardian. Why not just label it popular articles? Ironically, in introducing that new part of the website, The Guardian blogged with the headline 'What's hot? Introducing Zeitgeist' - so why not call it 'What's hot?'. Pretentious and a gross misuse of a wonderful word. The Guardian definitely does not understand the Zeitgeist.

Der Spiegel, being a German news magazine, understands what it means and has a separate Zeitgeist section in its online English language edition in which editors include a mix of articles. Of course, its German language edition doesn't need a separate Zeitgeist section because the Zeitgeist is evident in its various sections.

Google uses the word Zeitgeist at the end of every year to list the most popular search terms of that year as an indicator or list that reflected interests for that year. A better use of the term, but probably more appropriate to label those lists as an annual aggregated list of 'popular search terms'. However, they are an indicator of the Zeitgeist, but not the Zeitgeist.

Twitter lists the most popular topics of tweeting (comments in 140 characters or less) in real time under the heading 'Trending: Worldwide' (or various other locations). It should be possible for Twitter to aggregate this at the end of each year. Twitter's trending topics would be an even closer indicator of the Zeitgeist, but given the word limitations of the platform, would only be superficial.

The real people who understand the Zeitgeist are actually in a position to influence it. And of course, certain bloggers.

dink

Some colleagues in the office cycle to work. Today, I asked someone who lives in the same suburb if he'd cycled, and if so, could I get dinked. I said "dink me". My colleague laughed, but other people looked confused.

The (Australian) Macquarie Dictionary defines dink as

--verb (t) 1. to convey as a second person on a horse, bicycle, or motorcycle.
--noun 2. a ride obtained from being dinked.

When I was a kid growing up, we lived less than a block away from the local primary (elementary) school so we walked to school. Some kids had bikes and it was fun to be dinked home. Usually, the person being dinked would ride behind the cyclist on the rack, or sitting over the front handle bars with legs hanging over the front. If the person being dinked was really lucky, the cyclist would ride over the front bar and give their 'passenger' the seat.

Nobody dinks these days and children today have no idea what the word means. In fact, the word is so particular to certain parts of Australia, that a lot of older people have never heard of it.


Photographer Heidi Swift took this photo of cyclist Chris Horner dinking Billy Demong during the Cascade Cycling Classic in 2008 (from Velo News - which did not use the word dink at all).

How far can an apple fall?

There is a proverb that is often cited - the apple does not fall far from the tree, to mean children resemble their parents.

According to Wolfgang Mieder from the Department of German and Russian at the University of Vermont, the proverb is of German origin. Der Apfel fällt nicht weit vom Stamm.

It is also a common Hebrew proverb. .התפוח לא נופל רחוק מהעץ

Well, the apple (any random one on an apple tree), is not going to fall any further than the height of the tree, assuming that the tree is not situated on a slope.

The apple tree, Malus domestica reaches a height of between three to 12 metres (10 to 39 feet) so the most an apple will fall, assuming the tree is growing on flat ground, is 12 metres.

So basically the literal meaning of the phrase is true most of the time. Duh!

How this has anything to with children being similar to their parents is quite perplexing. Some children are nothing like their parents.

Lizzie Miller is perfect the way she is

A photograph of model Lizzie Miller (by Walter Chin) featured on page 194 of the September issue of Glamour magazine has the fashion world talking.



"rocks fashion world" according to MSNBC Today
"shocked by this photo" according to Atlanta Journal Constitution
"shook the world" according to UK Daily Mail
"caused a storm" according to UK The Guardian

Here, she appears on MSNBC Today

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Lizzie Miller isn't "plus size". Rather, those stick thin skeletal models are "minus size". She should be benchmarked as normal.

More importantly, why is the magazine spelt glamour and not glamor? Surely by convention, American spellings of similar -our words should be humour, labour, etc

withdrawing sausage and mash

photo by Will Pavia for The Times

ATMs in East London run by Bank Machine are bamboozling non-Cockney customers with a new gimmick. They're 'aven a giraffe.

See
- The Guardian
- Daily Telegraph
- The Times

Somehow, it would be more efficient to just use the plain English word than garbling it with another three words.

good and bad jokes of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe

Edinburgh Festival Fringe is one of the best arts festivals in the world. I have yet to attend any in the world. BBC News reported on the awarding of the funniest joke of the Fringe.

Top ten were

1) Dan Antopolski - "Hedgehogs - why can't they just share the hedge?"

2) Paddy Lennox - "I was watching the London Marathon and saw one runner dressed as a chicken and another runner dressed as an egg. I thought: 'This could be interesting'."

3) Sarah Millican - "I had my boobs measured and bought a new bra. Now I call them Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warnes because they're up where they belong."

4) Zoe Lyons - "I went on a girls' night out recently. The invitation said 'dress to kill'. I went as Rose West."

5) Jack Whitehall - "I'm sure wherever my dad is; he's looking down on us. He's not dead, just very condescending."

6) Adam Hills - "Going to Starbucks for coffee is like going to prison for sex. You know you're going to get it, but it's going to be rough."

7) Marcus Brigstocke - "To the people who've got iPhones: you just bought one, you didn't invent it!"

8) Rhod Gilbert - "A spa hotel? It's like a normal hotel, only in reception there's a picture of a pebble."

9) Dan Antopolski - "I've been reading the news about there being a civil war in Madagascar. Well, I've seen it six times and there isn't."

10) Simon Brodkin (as Lee Nelson) - "I started so many fights at my school - I had that attention-deficit disorder. So I didn't finish a lot of them."

Some others were judged to be the worst.

• Carey Marx - "I'm not doing any Michael Jackson jokes, because they always involve puns about his songs. And that's bad."

• Frank Woodley - "I phoned the swine flu hotline and all I got was crackling."

• Alex Maple - "Michael Jackson only invented the moonwalk so he could sneak up on children."

• Phil Nichol - "She's got a face like a rare Chinese vase - minging."

• Alistair McGowan - "I've just split up from my girlfriend, which is a shame, because it was a long-standing arrangement. Perhaps if we'd sat down a bit more..."

Adam Hills (sixth of the top ten best jokes) is Australian.

Actually I did attend events at the Melbourne Comedy Festival one year with my friend Leah, and stand up acts in Brisbane and Seattle.

What it meant - coming from a land downunder

The BBC's Smashed Hits thinks they've worked out what Men at Work's song Down Under is about.

Some songs are just absurd and don't mean anything, like I am the Walrus.