Interview on NPR’s “Talk of the Nation” about the outrageous goofs that can be caused by smartphone autocorrect. (Jan. 13, 2011)
Have you ever typed a text into your smart phone and sent it, only to realize that the auto correct feature changed “Disney” to “divorce?” Ben Zimmer, On Language columnist for The New York Times Magazine, talks about hilarious and shocking messages sent after auto correct went wrong.
(Show page, streaming audio, download, related On Language column)
Interview on WCBS Newsradio on the controversy over Sarah Palin’s use of the term “blood libel.”
Interview on Voice of America’s “Wordmaster” program about Words of the Year for 2010. (Transcript, audio)
Paul Mulshine, “On Language, Ben Zimmer Gets the Last Word” (The Star-Ledger, Jan. 9, 2011)
What’s it like being an expert in a field in which every wise guy on the planet thinks he’s an expert?
That’s the life of Ben Zimmer. Last spring, the 39-year-old replaced the late William Safire in what is perhaps the most coveted position in the rapidly growing field of popular linguistics: authorship of the On Language column in the New York Times Magazine.
Read the rest here.
Press release from the American Dialect Society, “‘App’ Voted 2010 Word of the Year” (Jan. 7, 2010)
In its 21st annual words of the year vote, the American Dialect Society voted “app” (noun, an abbreviated form of application, a software program for a computer or phone operating system) as the word of the year for 2010.
Presiding at the Jan. 7 voting session were ADS Executive Secretary Allan Metcalf of MacMurray College, and Ben Zimmer, chair of the New Words Committee of the American Dialect Society and executive producer of VisualThesaurus.com. Zimmer is also the “On Language” columnist for the New York Times Magazine.
“App has been around for ages, but with millions of dollars of marketing muscle behind the slogan ‘There’s an app for that,’ plus the arrival of ‘app stores’ for a wide spectrum of operating systems for phones and computers, app really exploded in the last 12 months,” Zimmer said. “One of the most convincing arguments from the voting floor was from a woman who said that even her grandmother had heard of it.”
Read the rest here.
Keith Darcé, “Airport ‘Junk’ Up for Word of the Year” (San Diego Union Tribune, Dec. 30, 2010)
Junk “is a strong candidate” for the title, said Ben Zimmer, a member of the society’s executive council who writes the “On Language” column for The New York Times Magazine.
The word became a pop-culture favorite in November after Oceanside software engineer John Tyner, 31, used it as part of a warning to Lindbergh Field security agents.
Read the rest here.
Interview on NPR’s “Morning Edition” about some candidates for Word of the Year. (Dec. 30, 2010)
The American Dialect Society announces the “word of the year” next week. Word scholars and the general public can submit “word” nominations anytime before Jan. 6. Linguist Ben Zimmer talks to Renee Montagne about words and phrases that have become a part of everyday chatter in 2010.
Amy S. Rosenberg, “Words to the wise: Summing up 2010” (Philadelphia Inquirer, Dec. 25, 2010)
“It’s exciting to have the ability to look through all of the textual output that young people are creating, to get a better handle on things,” said WOTY nominator Ben Zimmer, author of the online Visual Thesaurus and the On Language column for the New York Times Magazine. “But you need the human to tell you what’s significant.”
Read the rest here.
Appearance on MSNBC special, “Most Influential Americans of the 21st Century (so far),” talking about the word “influence.” (Dec. 24, 2010)
Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski bring you a special program counting down the most influential Americans of the 21st Century (so far) as determined by a poll. But what does “influence” mean, exactly?
