Ben Zimmer

Interview on the WGBH show “Boston Public Radio” about the “living Latin” movement. (Mar. 12, 2013)

When Pope Benedict XVI announced his resignation in Latin in February, he thrust the long dead language into the spotlight. In the United States, few Catholics still celebrate Mass in Latin, and we’re far from the days of mandatory Latin in schools (you’d be hard pressed to find a person under the age of 20 who knows the Latin phrase “semper ubi sub ubi”).

Linguist Ben Zimmer joined Boston Public Radio to talk with Jim Braude and Margery Eagan about Latin’s comeback.

(Show page, audio, related Boston Globe column)

Jennifer Howard, “In the Digital Era, Our Dictionaries Read Us” (The Chronicle of Higher Education, Mar. 11, 2013)

Blending once-discrete references online creates a “kind of blossoming map of words and meaning” that readers can explore, says Ben Zimmer, a linguist and executive producer of the Web site Visual Thesaurus and its sister site Vocabulary.com. He chairs the New Words Committee of the American Dialect Society and writes columns on language for The Boston Globe. “Dictionaries are not just static entities anymore,” he says. “You have to be able to react to current events, how people are going to look things up.”

On Vocabulary.com, Zimmer and his colleagues serve up not just a standard dictionary definition but what he calls “blurbs,” chattier and sometimes whimsical explanations designed to help a reader understand and remember what he or she looks up. Look up “hirsute,” for instance, and you get this: “What do Santa Claus, Bigfoot, and unicorns have in common? Aside from the fact that they’re completely real, they’re also hirsute: very, very hairy creatures,” the site explains. “The word is pronounced ‘HER-suit,’ so if you see a woman wearing a furry jacket with matching pants, you could say, “Her suit is hirsute.” Just make sure it’s actually a suit and not her real hair.”

Like online versions of print dictionaries, sites like Vocabulary.com also give users the sounds as well as the meanings of words. (Trained opera singers “are perfect for this kind of work,” Zimmer says. “They know how to enunciate.”) And in the handy bells-and-whistles category, quizzes and other extras reflect the enthusiasm for language-learning games that’s taken hold among students and educators, he says. “You have to meet young learners on the terrain they’re comfortable with.”

Read the rest here.

Interview on Minnesota Public Radio’s “The Daily Circuit” about dictionaries in the digital age. (Mar. 11, 2013)

As dictionaries head for a digital-only presence, we’ll look at what we can expect from our handy reference guides. Will publishing companies have to adapt their text with visuals and other digital elements to attract readers?

(Show page, audio)

Jen Doll, “How Do We Love Thee, Grammar? Count the Ways on Grammar Day” (The Atlantic Wire, Mar. 4, 2013)

Linguist and lexicographer Ben Zimmer was one of the judges for this year’s Grammar Day Haiku Contest (stay tuned for the results, which will be announced later today by Mark Allen. Update: The winning haiku is here!). Zimmer told me he hopes Grammar Day can be about more just curmudgeonly nitpicking. “I have to admit that much of the public talk about grammar fills me with sorrow rather than joy, because so often the conversation is dominated by those clinging to outmoded or flat-out bogus rules, and expressing outrage at anyone who doesn’t obey those rules,” he says. “Cranky indignation becomes the dominant tone about grammatical issues when the ‘peevologists‘ hold sway.” (He points out, too, that certain peeves over spelling, punctuation, and word choice aren’t about grammar at all. While such linguistic peeves certainly fall into the trade of a good copy editor, they’re not technically grammatical. Whoops.)

Zimmer says, “Let’s use National Grammar Day as an opportunity to think about what grammar actually is, and to be open to differing opinions about grammatical propriety. If grammar evokes anxiety or crankiness, relax for a day! Don’t get hung up on the rise of singular ‘they’ or the decline of ‘whom.’ Don’t fret about the correct placement of ‘only,’ or whether ‘none’ needs to take a singular verb. Instead, embrace the living, breathing grammar of English in all of its varieties.”

Read the rest here.

Interview on NPR’s “Weekend Edition” about the expression “devil’s advocate.” (Mar. 3, 2013)

With all the news about the papal conclave, Weekend Edition wonders: what’s the story behind the phrase “devil’s advocate”? Host Rachel Martin checks in with the Boston Globe’s language columnist, Ben Zimmer.

(Show page, audio)

Geoff Nunberg, “Historical Vocab: When We Get It Wrong, Does It Matter?” (NPR Fresh Air, Feb. 26, 2013)

In a climate of insistent authenticity, there’s nothing harder to get right than a period’s vocabulary. The past speaks a foreign language that even those who grew up with it can’t recover. The producers of Mad Men take pride in fitting out their characters with the correct ties and timepieces. But as the Boston Globe‘s Ben Zimmer observed, they can’t seem to keep anachronisms out of the scripts. Were we already saying “keep a low profile” in 1963? Actually, no — it didn’t catch on until 1969, but who can remember these things?

Other writers don’t even seem to make an effort to get the dialogue right. Spotting linguistic anachronisms in Julian Fellowes’ Downton Abbey is as easy as shooting grouse in a barrel. “I couldn’t care less,” Lord Grantham says. Thomas complains that “our lot always gets shafted.” Cousin Matthew announces he has been on a steep learning curve, a phrase that would have gotten a blank reception even in the Sterling Cooper boardroom.

(Show page, audio)

Noreen Malone, “What We Mean When We Say ‘Bids Wanted in Competition'” (The New Republic, Feb. 26, 2013)

The habit of appropriating the language of work for the bedroom is an old one. The word “intercourse” itself came out of the business world, as did “partner” and “affair.” In fact, “the business” has been a euphemism for sex since the seventeenth century, points out Ben Zimmer, Boston Globe language columnist. But more recently (with some exceptions, like “he’s a closer”), we have favored slang that hints at a more leisure-driven kind of conquest—“rounding the bases,” for instance, or “rocking someone’s world.” “That may say something about society’s shifting views toward sex, which now tends to get euphemized by appropriating the language of more pleasurable pursuits,” explains Zimmer.

Read the rest here.

Ari Shapiro,  “Loaded Words: How Language Shapes The Gun Debate” (NPR Morning Edition, Feb. 26, 2013)

But words are not fixed points on a map. They exist on shifting ground. A phrase that once carried a punch may grow toxic or just fall limp.

“An example of this can be seen in the recent announcement that Planned Parenthood would no longer be using the term ‘pro-choice,’ ” says Ben Zimmer, executive producer of the Visual Thesaurus.

Zimmer says Planned Parenthood realized that some people support abortion rights but don’t identify with the term “pro-choice.”

And he has lots of examples from government. Democrats used to proudly call themselves “liberal.” They abandoned that word for “progressive.” And now “liberal” is making a comeback.

Then, there’s “reform.” Zimmer says politicians of both parties tack that word onto any effort to change a program — from tax reform to immigration reform.

” ‘Reform’ is one of those terms that is very charged and helps to present one’s own position as something positive — a way of advocating change in a positive light,” Zimmer says. “But what counts as reform, of course, is in the eye of the beholder.”

Politicians might call any proposal for change a “reform.” But not every change is a good change.

(Show page, audio, transcript)

Jen Doll, “Why Drag It Out?” (The Atlantic, March 2013 issue)

Ben Zimmer, a linguist and lexicographer, notes that elongations, like emoticons and initialisms (OMG! LOL!), tend to flourish in those venues most starved for nuance. “When you’re dealing with IM, texting, and Twitter, those discursive functions that add to the simple message are really crucial,” he said. These tactics suggest that the process linguists call “accommodation”—the way speaking styles converge when humans talk to one another, facilitating both conversation and a sense of common identity—is not limited to spoken communication. “We’re navigating different registers all the time, finding out what’s appropriate,” Zimmer said. But “when those registers don’t match our expectations”—when our best friend begins a text with “Dear Jennifer,” or someone responds Hello to our Hiiiiiii—“that’s when we wonder if things are running afoul.”

Read the rest here.