My latest post for Strong Language, the sweary blog about swearing, is about two sweary neologisms: enshittify and enshittification. Both were coined within the last year by journalist and author Cory Doctorow, who uses them to describe the current state of certain large internet platforms and e-commerce sites.
Read more about the history and morphology of enshittify and enshittification.
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Last week I was introduced to a new sense of the old word prompt, which comes from Latin promere (to bring forth) and has a long history in English, from its 15th-century beginnings as a verb (to urge, to incite to action) and modifier (immediate, without delay) to its extended senses in theater (noun: a reminder to an actor) and particle physics (adjective: emitted within a very short time interval). The novel usage—not just to me, but to the world at large—is prompt engineer and prompt engineering, new job descriptions within the field of artificial intelligence (AI). Prompt engineers aren’t gearheads who show up on time; they’re a new breed of communication professionals.
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Do hobos still ride the rails in America? Indeed they do, and City of the Rails, a new podcast from journalist Danelle Morton, gives you a firsthand look at their lives. Danelle had a personal reason for her quest: Her daughter left home to hop freight trains as soon as she received her high school diploma. Between attempts to locate “Ruby” (yes, nerds, Ruby on rails), Danelle investigates the history of the railroads, talks to current and former hobos, and seeks answers from train engineers and rail cops. New episodes drop on Wednesdays; prepare to listen to a couple minutes of ads before the podcast begins. A personal note: Danelle and I go way back, to the beginning of our journalism careers, and she got in touch a couple of years ago when she was brainstorming a title for the podcast. I’m delighted at the result! Available wherever you get your podcasts.
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Have you read my latest story for Medium? It’s about my attempts to use Chat GPT and other AI tools to create brand names and taglines. This friend link will bypass the paywall.
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My latest story for Medium explores the potential and limitations of artificial-intelligence tools like ChatGPT to create names and taglines. I gave a few of these tools a spin; read the story to find out my verdict: Can you use ChatGPT to create brand names?
If you hit a paywall, try this friend link.
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Happy Lunar New Year! It’s the Year of the Rabbit, so I’m digging deep into the archives to bring you a bunny-related* word I originally wrote about 15 years ago.
Watership Down, by Richard Adams (1972)
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