Journalist, novelist, and author Kurt Andersen (Spy magazine, Fantasyland, Evil Geniuses) wrote about “how an article about genomic sequencing led to an afternoon playing around with AI branding tools.” The names and logos these tools spat out—Dynester, Aerodynamiq, ModernZeal—led Andersen to muse about how real life is increasingly indistinguishable from science fiction.
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Speaking of science fiction, here’s a list of fictional super-metals, from Adamantium to Zortium.
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If you’re a fan of the New York Times Spelling Bee, you’ll want to try Tylogram, a new word-formation game created by William Shunn, the genius behind Spelling Bee Solver. As with the Bee, you’ll create words for points; slide the tiles around the grid to maximize their value. But it’s even trickier than that! (And fun.)
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The odd history of nod-crafty—“given to nodding the head with an air of great wisdom”—as explained by Ben Zimmer to the CBC’s Piya Chattopadhyay (audio). Thanks to Zoom, nod-crafty may be in line for a comeback.
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The Onion’s glossary of marijuana terms includes this definition of blunt: “A larger, wider marijuana cigarette invented to expand rhyming options in early ’90s rap verses.”
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Adventures in verbing:
Let’s grocery!
(Via Write_Again)
Let’s hero!
(Minor Figures oat milk from my refrigerator, via Grocery Outlet)
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A tweet from Mike Pope: “In the Ken Burns Hemingway series, they suggested that H's reporter training at the KC Star helped hone his style. They fleetingly showed the style guide, which is a DELIGHT.” Mike found the 1915 original, which contains gems like “The words donate and donation are barred from columns of The Star. Use give or contribute” and “Say luncheon, not lunch” and also the stuff that stuck with Hemingway; “Use short sentences. Use short first paragraphs. Use vigorous English. Be positive, not negative.”
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Also from Mike: What kind of menu is it?
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Tagline, the new podcast from Clio Awards editor-in-chief Tim Nudd, talks about “great ads and the people who make them.” I hadn’t known that the justly famous “Like a Girl” ad for Always menstrual products was directed by Lauren Greenfield, who also directed the documentaries Queen of Versailles and Generation Wealth.
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There’s a new free, searchable online version of Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary, which was first published (on paper, natch) in 1755. Beth Rapp Young directed the project; Jack Lynch wrote the lively and informative introduction. Try the random word search; it’s irresistible.
Lexico'grapher.
— Jack Lynch (@JackLynch000) April 19, 2021
n.s. [λεξιϰὸν and γϱάφω; lexicographe, French.]
A writer of dictionaries; a harmless drudge, that busies himself in tracing the original, and detailing the signification of words.https://t.co/tP6FSdRuA1
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A story by Beth—née Bich—Nguyen about changing her name: “As Bich, I am a foreigner who makes people uncomfortable. As Beth, I am never complimented on my English. I cannot detach the name Bich from my childhood, cannot detach it from the experience of people laughing at me, calling me a bitch, letting me know that I’m the punch line of my own joke, too stupid or afraid to do anything but take it.” I’ve written about my own name-hatred, so this essay really resonated.
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My kid just called a weathervane a “wind chicken” and I almost think that could catch on.
— Ken Jennings (@KenJennings) April 12, 2021
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With “infrastructure” in the headlines again, Politico asked two language experts, Peter Sokolowski and Lane Greene, to clarify its meaning.
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For Ragan, the communications-training company, Crystal Shelley compiled “a career’s worth of advice from accomplished writers, editors, and storytellers,” including this tip for editors from M. David Nichols: “You don’t have to know everything; you just have to be willing to look it up.”
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If you’re lucky enough to be in New York City before mid-May, check out the quirky exhibit at the Grolier Club called “Taming the Tongue in the Heyday of English Grammar (1711-1851),” described as “a revelatory glimpse into a time when English grammar was taught and studied with a grim fervor unthinkable to us now.” The documents in the exhibit come from the collection of usage maven Bryan A. Garner and include the first Old English grammar (written by a woman, Elizabeth Elstob, in 1715) and “the best-selling grammar with the big-print typo on the title page: ‘ENGISH GRAMMAR.’” And much more, as lovingly (and hilariously) detailed in this Language Log post.
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On m/M, the journal of modernism and modernity, Kevin Riordan writes about how “Kodak” became both a ubiquitous trademark and an almost instantly generecized word (“Remembering to Forget the Kodak”). “[Inventor George] Eastman squabbled with other pioneers over terminology,” Riordan writes. “…He realized that words, like cameras, do things, and a new photographic world required a new vocabulary. So in the 1888 patent Eastman coined “Kodak,” a peculiar word, the ks affording near-palindromic symmetry. … . In the marketing and in colloquial parlance, the name became an adjective (the ‘Kodak girl’), a verb (‘Let the children Kodak’), and a component for other nouns (‘Kodakery’).” (Via Language Hat)
A 1901 Kodak advertisement. In 1943 Kodakery became the title of a newsletter for Eastman Kodak employees. In 2016, the company launched a podcast about creative culture called “The Kodakery”; it ran for 138 episodes.
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