Word Crimes

16 July 2014

“Weird Al” Yankovic has a new video that’s making the rounds. It’s Word Crimes, a parody of Robin Thicke’s Blurred Lines. It’s very clever (despite the “cunning linguist” chestnut; that ancient pun was only mildly amusing upon first hearing and just plain not funny subsequently; no self-respecting comedian should use it), but it’s also very wrong. Many of the “errors” that Yankovic descries are not wrong at all.

The things that Yankovic doesn’t understand about English:

  • Less used to modify count nouns is perfectly acceptable

  • I could care less is correct; it’s an idiom and doesn’t have to be logical (hint: acceptable usage is never determined by logic)

  • Innovative abbreviations are okay; what’s important is that the message gets across

  • Whom is dying; using who in its place is okay in most contexts

  • Good can be an adverb too

  • Literally has a figurative meaning too

In short, Weird Al is exposing himself as a peever, someone who doesn’t understand that:

  • Language changes

  • There is no single “correct” style that works in all cases; different contexts call for different styles and diction

  • Use determines what is “correct,” not arbitrary rules or logic

There’s a place for artful, well-written English prose, but this kind of peeving has never led to better English, and when it’s wrong—as in this case—it tends to lead to stilted, poorly written prose.

Still, it’s an amusing and well-constructed parody.

Word Origins Quiz

15 July 2014

Medievalists.net has this twenty-question quiz that asks you to guess whether words come from Old English or not. Try it out.

(I got twenty out of twenty. Any less would have been embarrassing.)

The Future of the Crossword Puzzle

12 July 2014

The Atlantic has a solid article on the subject. Unlike many articles of its ilk, this one actually sensibly discusses the differences between digital and paper puzzles. (The chief difference as it relates to the future of crosswords is demographics.) And while the lead paragraph discusses the “impending print collapse,” it’s specifically talking about the collapse of print newspapers (which is a real thing) and not the collapse of print in general (which isn’t).*

Personally, I solve the New York Times crossword on my iPad. Unlike the users cited by the article, I think the new version of the app is a godsend. The old version was buggy and never worked properly. I’ve yet to experience problems, beyond the usual adjustment to a new interface, with the new one. And even the new interface wasn’t a major issue. Unlike most user interface redesigns, this one changed only the things that were clumsy, clunky, or didn’t make sense. There was no moving controls around or changing what icons look like just for the sake of doing so. I was shocked at the $40 annual price tag though. Last time I re-upped my subscription it was $17. Given that much less expensive crossword apps are available, I’m not sure I’ll pay $40 when it comes around again, which should be in a few weeks.

* I’m not saying that the digital technologies won’t shake up the market for what content appears in print, just that paper is not going to disappear, i.e., “collapse.” After all, we still have radio some 60+ years after the advent of television. Plus the collapse of newspapers really has little to do with the internet. The problem is aging demographics and lifestyles—a trend that was solidly in place before public access to the internet became a thing—and the mountain of debt that media companies assumed through consolidation and mergers and acquisitions. Newspapers remain tremendously profitable cash cows, but all the profits now go into servicing the debt of their parent companies.

Ur-etyma Count

7 July 2014

Linguist Victor Mair has a post over at Language Log on how many root-concepts appear in Proto-Indo-European and other language families. Mair concludes that there are only some 1,200–1,500 root concepts in each of the language families that are used to form other words.

There are a lot of problems with the data, which Mair acknowledges, primarily that the number can vary wildly depending on how one defines what a root-concept is, not to mention that any detailed work on proto-languages is highly speculative. He is conducting a “back of the envelope” estimate, and we must be careful not to put too much faith in the data. Still, it’s an interesting result.

The 1,200–1,500 figure is a plausible one. There is an upper limit to the number of roots and words that can exist in a language at any given time—our human brains are limited. And that number of roots seems about right to support the standard vocabulary counts we find in languages.

I’d like to see someone do a similar, albeit more rigorous, study using modern languages.