Vowels Control Your Brain | Krulwich Wonders… | NPR

Robert Krulwich writes, “When comparing words across language groups, says Stanford linguistics professor Dan Jurafsky, a curious pattern shows up: Words with front vowels (“I” and “E”) tend to represent small, thin, light things. Back vowels (“O” “U” and some “A”s ) show up in fat, heavy things.”

Brits And Americans Don't Speak The Same Language In The Kitchen | The Salt | NPR

NPR’s Alison Richards on translating British recipes for American audiences.

Falser Words Were Never Spoken | NYTimes.com

Brian Mortan writes, “In a coffee shop not long ago, I saw a mug with an inscription from Henry David Thoreau: ‘Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you’ve imagined.’ At least it said the words were Thoreau’s. But the attribution seemed a bit suspect. Thoreau, after all, was not known for his liberal use of exclamation points.”

Americanisms: 50 of your most noted examples | BBC News Magazine

“The Magazine’s recent piece on Americanisms entering the language in the UK prompted thousands of you to e-mail examples.” Some of these pet peeves are just funny, others are just bad grammar.

He spells it as it sounds. It’s not a bad strategy. The alternative is to guess where the errant letters are hidden, and in that way lies madness.

— From “American Bee” by James Maguire (source)

From Churchill to Libya: How the V symbol went viral | The Washington Post

Nathaniel Zelinsky on the history of the “V for Victory” / “peace” hand sign.

Fighting Words

This week at work we launched Fighting Words, an experimental effort to track the use of certain keywords on the campaign trail this fall. NPR editors have identified about 40 political figures to track — Democrats and Republicans, active candidates …

what price decadence?

At the Silver Diner, decadence apparently can be found for just $4.99.

flick-arr!

I love how Flickr got into the spirit of things for yesterday’s Talk Like a Pirate Day. The site, which offers a variety of language options (from English to Chinese to Portuguese), added a “pirate” language option for the day, …

quote of the day: small talk

“Small talk is small in every way except when you try to get around it. Then it’s enormous.” — Chip Kidd on avoiding awkward conversations, in the novel The Cheese Monkeys

word of the day: meh-tastic

Spotted today in a comment thread on DCist: Naan and Beyond is meh-tastic. Ugh. “Meh” — as in, “an expression of indifference and and a decided lack of enthusiasm, bordering on disdain.” The “tastic” suffix just multiplies the inherent “meh”-ness …

a story in search terms

Much has been made recently of AOL’s inadvertent public release of its logs of user search terms. Doug took a look at the data and came up with some fairly sad, PostSecret-like narratives, told through individual users’ interactions with the …

life imitates art

A new contest announced in this week’s iTunes Music Store “New Music Tuesday” e-mail sounds like a certain Saturday Night Live sketch come to life: Win A Private Showby Prince at His Home Universal/Motown has the ultimate prize for the …

zeitgeist

Just as it’s interesting to see what kind of traffic search engines direct my way, it’s also fascinating to see what people are searching for in general. With the end of the year approaching, Yahoo! has posted a list of …

too addicted

From the makers of addictive typing game Letters2 comes Words, which is just like Letters except you’re typing words rather than individual letters. I actually like it better, because with Letters I kept trying to find some kind of order …

rhetorical strategies

The Post’s Howard Kurtz explains the rhetorical flourishes politicos use to smear each other and renounce the blame for said smearing: It is an age-old device in politics, making a personal slam sound more high-minded by attributing it to someone …

news lingo decoded

Lost Remote has a funny list decoding frequently-used terms heard on television news. The list explains what the terms used to mean, and what they mean now. Among my favorites: “We have new details…” OLD: We have found out additional …

the pirate made me do it

Once again, it’s time for the annual Talk Like a Pirate Day. The Going Out Gurus at washingtonpost.com last week offered a list of ways to celebrate the occasion here in the D.C. area. Arrr.

silver surfer

BBC News uses a novel term to describe older Internet users: silver surfers. It’s a cute play on words, particularly if you’re a comic book aficionado. I’d never heard the term used with respect to a particular online demographic before, …

snarkfest

I must express my love for one of my favorite domain names ever: SnarkMarket.com. (It comes a close second to SnarkyBlue.com.) I love how “snark” is carried through the site, like the “permasnark” for each entry. Related: See the entry …