Interview on Voice of America’s “Wordmaster” program about what to call the last decade and the next one. (Transcript, audio)
Ben Zimmer in the News
Interview on Voice of America’s “Wordmaster” program about words of the year (2009) and words of the decade (2000-09). (Transcript, audio)
Stephen W. Smith, “‘Google’ Wins Top Word of Nameless Decade” (CBS News, Jan. 9, 2010)
Chances are, in the past year, you read a blog about a bank bailout, a balloon boy and a beer summit.
And you may have been inundated with tweets about mini-Madoffs, Climategate and Octomom.
Indeed, 2009, like every other year, spawned a vocabulary torn from the headlines: “inaugurate,” “H1N1” and “rogue” all caused gridlock in Web traffic. Depending on which dictionary you trust, either “admonish” (Merriam-Webster) or “unfriend” (New Oxford American) was anointed 2009’s word of the year.
But what was the top word of the past decade?
“Google” (the verb) takes the prize, according to the American Dialect Society, which made the declaration Friday evening in Baltimore.
“It’s hard to imagine life before we were Googling,” American Dialect Society executive council member Ben Zimmer tells CBSNews.com.
Read the rest here.
Interview in Washington Post video, “‘Kanye,’ ‘Twitterati’ Top Word of 2009?” (Video)
Amy S. Rosenberg, “Sayings Without Staying Power” (Philadelphia Inquirer, Dec. 31, 2009)
It was a year in which words and phrases showed up and got used up in record time. Catchphrases no longer catch on these days, but get bobbled around in everyone’s hands for a nanosecond before dropping for an incomplete pass.
Like a December blizzard, or our hero Cliff Lee, nothing sticks around for long. I’mma let you finish, Kanye, but nobody cares anymore. As the signs at Citizens Bank Park read in the blink-and-it’s-over Cliff Lee era, unbeLEEvable.
Remember the epic-at-the-time beer summit between President Obama, Skip Gates, and some cop? Bud Light, Red Stripe, and a Blue Moon, for posterity.
How about hiking the Appalachian trail? That phrase’s journey from lame but imaginative alibi from South Carolina Adulterer-Governor Mark Sanford to “jocular political euphemism” is cited by Visual Thesaurus exec producer Ben Zimmer in his list of nominations for the always anticipated Word of the Year vote by the American Dialect Society, to be held Jan. 8 in Baltimore.
Read the rest here.
Jessica Rettig, “Q&A: The Power of Words” (U.S. News Weekly, Dec. 24, 2009)
How much could one word describe? Possibly a whole decade, says Ben Zimmer of the American Dialect Society, an organization devoted to the study of language in North America.
Read the rest here.
Mélody Enguix, “Na’vi, la Langue d’Avatar” (Agence Science-Presse, Nov. 17, 2009)
Benjamin Zimmer, lui-même linguiste, s’est intéressé aux langues dans les films : « le risque d’inventer une langue est de renforcer les stéréotypes sur d’autres langages qui ne sont exotiques que pour des oreilles occidentales. Mais faire appel à un linguiste permet de ne pas se limiter à des sons ridicules sans rapport les uns aux autres. D’ailleurs, c’était tout l’intérêt du Klingon. »
Read the rest here.
Larry McDermott, “Word Sleuth Finds Ms. Origin in Springfield” (Springfield Republican, Nov. 1., 2009)
Ben Zimmer, executive producer of visualthesaurus.com and a bona fide word sleuth, set out in classic “Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?” fashion to find the earliest use in America of the title Ms. How fitting it is that he discovered it in the City of Firsts and on the pages of one of America’s oldest newspapers, The Springfield Republican.
Read the rest here.
Interview on “NFL Films Presents” about the role of cursing in pro football. (Video)