Fritinancy

Word of the week: Tsundoku

Tsundoku: The constant act of buying books and never reading them but instead letting them pile up.

I have a particular type of tsundoku that involves never reading most of the Kickstarter book projects I support.

— Iva Cheung (@IvaCheung) February 12, 2016

On the Visual Thesaurus: A 'journey' of a thousand similes

My latest column for the Visual Thesaurus looks at the many ways in which journey has become a dominant metaphor in English-speaking culture.

Department of dubious names: Pay For A Date

Pay For A Date, an “upcoming online dating platform” based in the UK, is, according to its Twitter bio, “dedicated to the joy of dating where quality, not quantity, is the measure of our dating success.”

Heterosexuals only? Gravity-defying women only?

Word of the week: Overton window

Overton window: The range of ideas the public will accept. Also called the window of discourse.

Trussed

Republicans are voting in another primary election tomorrow, this time in South Carolina. So let’s take a look at a couple of the candidates’ slogans, shall we?

February linkfest

Stuart Elliott, who used to be the New York Times’s advertising columnist, now writes about ads for Media Village. Here’s his take on the commercials that aired during Super Bowl 50. (“Though it's the biggest feel-good day of the year, Madison Avenue tried hard to bring viewers down – not only with those commercials, but also with spots with strange, off-putting and downright weird characters and premises.”

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Word of the week: Fourberie

Fourberie: A piece of deception; a fraud, a trick, imposture.

Looking for love: the names of online dating sites

Feeling romantically challenged this Valentine’s Day? Maybe it’s time to join – or reactivate – that dating-site membership. But before you upload your gently embellished personal details, make sure the service’s name is the perfect match for you. Herewith, my analysis of 10 dating-site names, from dated to dateworthy.

The patter on Twitter

Fun with words and names, from some of the smart people I follow:

Word of the week: Berniebro

Berniebro: “A white, male Bernie Sanders supporter who haunts Internet comment sections” (Amanda Hess, Slate). “A cohort of intense, sexist Bernie Sanders fans on social media who harass journalists they deem not adequately pro-Sanders” (Adam Johnson, AlterNet). Coined from Bernie (U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders, D-Vermont, who is seeking the Democratic nomination for president) and bro, a truncation of brother that has come to signify “a male youth subculture of ‘conventional guys’ guys’ who spend time partying in ways similar to each other” (Wikipedia). Also spelled Bernie Bro and BernieBro.