If you’re interested in English-language slang from the early 19th century—and who wouldn’t be?—you’ll want to follow @Vulgar_Tongue, which tweets citations from Francis Grose’s 1811 Dictionary in the Vulgar Tongue. A few examples: scandal broth (tea), sir reverence (a turd), and sea lawyer (a shark). The entire book is available online, courtesy of Project Gutenberg.
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“Eight-point type? I’m sure that’s legible” and other encouragement copywriters can give to art directors: Go Art Director Go. (Hat tip: Lori Burwash.)
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Cartoonist Brian McFadden totally nails the naming style of social-media startups in his Sunday New York Times strip. “Slackify”? Perfect.
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Past naming trends—remember all those “tronics”?—hold clues to the future of naming. Alan Brew, a principal at brand strategy firm RiechesBaird, makes the case.
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“Stop talking about names, start talking about characteristics of names”: good advice from Nancy’s Baby Names that works for the company- or product-naming process too.
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Episode 6 of Lexicon Valley, the linguistics podcast on Slate.com, is about how Scrabble, “a math game disguised as a word game,” reveals “the essential beauty of English.” The podcast features an interview with Word Freak author Stefan Fatsis. (All of the Lexicon Valley podcasts are well worth your time. Each one is about 30 minutes long.)
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What makes a movie quote memorable? A team of Cornell University computer scientists compared short, memorable lines from about 1,000 movies and compared them to other lines spoken by the same characters in the same films. Read about their findings at Technology Review (I love the title of their paper: “You Had Me at Hello: How Phrasing Affects Memorability”), then take the test yourself.
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To atone for her absence from blogging, trademark lawyer Lara Pearson of Brand Geek researched SORRY trademarks. She found 22 registered marks and 19 pending marks with SORRY in their names, including the famous board game, an apparel brand, and SORRY FOR PARTYING, “a lifestyle brand connecting those who need an elegant way to apologize for doing everything wrong, yet so right.”
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What’s the connection between hood, hoodlum, and hoodie? Jan Freeman of Throw Grammar from the Train investigates.
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Twitter’s “Who to Follow” feature is grammatically OK, writes Stan Carey. “Not only that: it sounds natural and normal, whereas whom in the same context runs the risk of sounding fussy, affected, and pretentious.”
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The hidden messages in 28 famous and not-so-famous logos.
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“The name of these cookies was changed from Blueberry Craze to the more prosaic Blueberry Cookie, so the sweets were less appealing to children.” A naming lesson from a marijuana bakery, via The Hairpin.
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Mike Pope is conflicted about typos. Or spelling errors. Or whatever you want to call them.
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URGENT REQUEST FROM MOOR OF VENICE and other Shakespearean spam from comedy writer Megan Amram, who(m) you should follow on Twitter, too. She had me at Bravest Avatar Ever.
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“When copywriter Robert Pirosh landed in Hollywood in 1934, eager to become a screenwriter, he wrote and sent the following letter to all the directors, producers, and studio executives he could think of.” It begins “I like words,” and it’s delicious. From Lists of Note. P.S.: Pirosh went on to win a screenwriting Oscar in 1949.
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Fifteen minutes of literary bliss: former US Poet Laureate Billy Collins talks about the collaboration that turned some of his poems into short animated films. One of the best TED Talks I’ve seen.
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