Life’s Weirder Than Fiction

The American Dialect Society (founded in 1889) voted “subprime“ as the word of the year for 2007.

Subprime is an adjective used to describe a risky or less than ideal loan, mortgage, or investment. Subprime was also winner of a brand-new 2007 category for real estate words, a category which reflects the preoccupation of the press and public for the past year with a deepening mortgage crisis.

Contrary to the Academie Française, the Dialect Society, comprised of lots of word people such as linguists, librarians, writers, and grammarians, do not judge whether a word should enter the English language. They simply note the appearance of a “new word” that is being used often and in different ways. For instance, a worker would say “I subprimed that project”, meaning that it came out less than best. Here are some other words the ADS felt were worthy of mention, with the number of votes for each word:

WORD OF THE YEAR

• WINNER subprime, an adjective used to describe a risky or lessthan ideal loan, mortgage, or investment. 79
• green- prefix/compounding form Designates environmental concern, as in greenwashing. 9
• surge an increase in troops in a war zone. 1
• Facebook all parts of speech. 11
• waterboarding an interrogation technique in which the subject is immobilized and doused withwater to simulate drowning. 1
• Googlegänger A person with your name who shows up when you google yourself. 7
• wide stance, to have a To be hypocritical or to express two conflicting points of view. When Senator Larry Craig was arrested in a public restroom and accused of making signals with hisfoot that police said meant he was in search of a anonymous sex, Craig said it was a misunderstanding and that he just had a wide stance when using the toilet. 2

MOST USEFUL

• WINNER green- prefix/compounding form Designates environmental concern, as in greenwashing. 43/59
• bacn Impersonal email such as alerts, newsletters, and automated reminders that are nearly as annoying as spam but which one has chosen to receive. 14
• celebu- prefix Indicates celebrity, as in celebutard. 13
• connectile dysfunction Inability to gain or maintain a connection. 5
• wrap rage Anger brought on by the frustration of trying to open a factory-sealed purchase. 39/55

MOST CREATIVE

• WINNER Googlegänger Person with your name who shows up when you google yourself. 84
• boom An instance of a military explosion in the phrases left of boom, which describes the US military’s efforts to root out insurgents before they do harm, and right of boom, which describes efforts to minimize attacks with better equipment, systems, and medical care. 1
• lolcat On the Internet, an odd or funny picture of a cat given a humorous and intentionally ungrammatical caption in large block letters. From LOL + cat. 20
• tapafication The tendency of restaurants to serve food in many small portions, similar to tapas. 4 ó

MOST UNNECESSARY

• WINNER Happy Kwanhanamas! [Kwanza + Hanukka + Christmas] Happy holidays! 63
• ruther Someone who espouses a conspiracy theory about the events of 9/11. 5
• vegansexual A person who eats no meat, uses no animal-derived goods, and who prefers not to ave sex with non-vegans. 35

MOST OUTRAGEOUS

• WINNER toe-tapper A homosexual. Senator Larry Craig was arrested in June for an encounterin a public restroom in which toe-tapping was said to have been used as a sexual come-on. 70
• nappy-headed ho An expression used on the Don Imus radio show, and repeated by the host,about the women’s basketball team at Rutgers University. 27
• make it rain To drop paper money on a crowd of people, especially in strip clubs, nightclubs, or casinos. 2

MOST EUPHEMISTIC

• WINNER human terrain team A group of social scientists employed by the US military toserve as cultural advisers in Iraq or Afghanistan. 60
• shmashmortion/smushmortion Abortion. 8
• va-j-j Also va-jay-jay or vajayjay The vagina. 30

MOST LIKELY TO SUCCEED

• WINNER green- prefix/compounding form Designates environmental concern, as ingreenwashing. 70
• global weirding An increase in severe or unusual environmental activity often attributed toglobal warming. This includes freakish weather and new animal migration patterns. 3
• Super-Duper Tuesday Feb. 5th, the day 23 US states will hold primary elections. Also knownas Tsunami Tuesday. 1
• wide stance, to have a To be hypocritical or to express two conflicting points of view. WhenSenator Larry Craig was arrested in a public restroom and accused of making signals with hisfoot that police said meant he was in search of a anonymous sex, Craig said it was amisunderstanding and that he just had a wide stance when using the toilet. 13
• locavore someone who eats food that is grown or produced locally. Nominated by Dick Bailey.13
• texter a person who sends text messages. 5

LEAST LIKELY TO SUCCEED

• WINNER strand-in Protest duplicating being stranded inside an airplane on a delayed flight.31/74
• Billary/Hill-Bill Bill and Hillary Clinton. 1
• earmarxist A congressman or senator who adds earmarks–money designated for a particular person or group–to legislation. Coined by the blog Redstate to refer to Democrats. 32/2
• quadriboobage The appearance of having four breasts caused by wearing a brassiere that is too small. 40/19

NEW CATEGORY: REAL ESTATE/MORTGAGE/LOAN WORDS

• WINNER subprime Used to describe a risky or poorly documented loan or mortgage. 65
• exploding ARM An Adjustable Rate Mortgage whose rates soon rise beyond a borrowerís abilityto pay. 10
• liar’s loan/liar loan Money borrowed from a financial institution under false pretenses,especially in the form of a ìstated incomeî or ìno-docî loan which can permit a borrower toexaggerate income. 1
• NINJA No Income, No Job or Assets. A poorly documented loan made to a high-risk borrower.34
• scratch and dent loan A loan or mortgage that has become a risky debt investment, especially one secured with minimal documentation or made by a borrower who has missed payments. 2

Tags: 2007, American Dialect Society, new words, words

Every morning, when I boot up my computer and check my email, I’m greeted with the Word of the Day from A Word A Day. Sometimes the words are obscure and simply add to my understanding of the language although there is little chance that I will use them. Sometimes, like this week, the words are shiny new and reflect the culture we live in. For instance today is:

carbon-neutral (KAHR-buhn NOO-truhl, NYOO-) adjective

Adding no net carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

[A greenhouse gas such as carbon dioxide is a contributor to global
warming. Carbon-neutral means contributing zero total emission of the gas
into the atmosphere. The earliest citation of the term is found in a 1992
article in The Independent (London, UK).]

Being carbon-neutral doesn’t necessarily mean producing zero carbon dioxide.
What it means is that the net addition is zero, offset by other actions,
such as planting trees, buying clean energy, etc. And it doesn’t have to be
all or nothing. If you cannot be completely carbon-neutral, you can definitely
reduce your carbon footprint.

Calculate your carbon footprint: http://carbonfootprint.com/calculator.aspx

-Anu Garg (words at wordsmith.org)

“As an award-winning leader in green design, it’s no surprise that
Vancouver architect Peter Busby is planning North America’s first
carbon-neutral office tower.”
Kerry Gold; Carbon-neutral Building Sets a Standard; The Globe and Mail
(Toronto, Canada); Nov 20, 2007.

What I like about A Word a Day, apart from its being completely free, is that in addition to the definition, it gives you the pronunciation an explanation where necessary, and its usage in a “real” quote from the world to put it in context.

There’s another thing I like about my daily word email: the quote section. A daily quote is included with the word definition, although it’s not always directly related to the word itself. Anu Garg, the owner of A Word A Way, always selects a thought-provoking one from a well-known person. Today’s especially resonated with me since I made a lifestyle choice ten years ago of leaving a well-paying job to write.

For money you can have everything it is said. No that is not true. You can
buy food, but not appetite; medicine, but not health; soft beds, but not
sleep; knowledge but not intelligence; glitter, but not comfort; fun, but
not pleasure; acquaintances, but not friendship; servants, but not
faithfulness; grey hair, but not honor; quiet days, but not peace. The
shell of all things you can get for money. But not the kernel. That cannot
be had for money. -Arne Garborg, writer (1851-1924)

I’ve never regretted my choice, not for one minute, but it’s often been interesting to juggle the necessities of life. This quote reminded me why I do what I do. Thanks, Anu.

Tags: a word a day, English, quote, words, wordsmith

I found this image on the internet (unfortunately there was no attribution to it) and found it not only hilarious but very telling. I’ve read somewhere that there are really only seven plots in all litterature. This is a small confirmation of it.

I found the image at http://i.thefairest.info/funniest_thumbs/QaDdYu.jpeg

If you’re a reader, you know that most stories don’t begin when the main character is born, following him/her through childhood and teenage years, etc. unless that’s the purpose of the story. Stories begin in the middle of people’s lives, they assume a background (which the writer may hint at or develop during the story), an already formed personality, friends, family or lack thereof, a place to live in, a path chosen. Authors usually concentrate on one slice of life, even when they write a family saga. That’s why the first sentence of a book is so important.

The first sentence allows you to jump in the middle but also to hook the readers and prompt them to read the next sentence, then the next, then the next…

John Gardner was a master at the first sentence. Here are a few of his most intriguing ones:

“One day in April–a clear, blue day when there were crocuses in bloom–Jack Hawthorne rand over and killed his brother, David.” (Redemption)

“I had been troubled for days–odd sounds, objects our of place, all the pitiful and mundane symptoms of a disordered mind, symptoms I know all too well, coming as I do from a family of lunatics, as everyone knows–when a few odd phrases in a book on aesthetics threw everything into sharp new perspective.” (The Library Horror)

“There once was a man who made pictures on boxes.” (Vlemk the Box-painter)

“There used to be a cook in our town, a “chef” he was called in the restaurant where he worked–one of those big, dark Italian places with red fake-leather seat cushions, fake paintings on the walls, and on every table a Chianti bottle with a candle in it–but he preferred to think of himself as simply a cook, since he’d never been comfortable with high-falutin pretense, or so he claimed, though heaven knew the world was full of it, and since, whereas he knew what cooking was, all he knew for sure about chefs, he said, was that they wore those big, obsene-looking hats, which he himself wouldn’t be caught dead in.” (The Art of Living)

Now jump in the middle of ten stories by writing the first sentence of it:

1. The first time I met my future husband, I disliked him on sight.
2. Sally hated her name; she said it was a dog’s name, or even a horse’s name, but certainly not a girl’s name.
3. Squeezed between the mountains to the south, and the tundra to the north, there lives a village with no personality.
4. We all are prisoners of our memories; reality and history do not necessarily coincide.
5. Torver Lockwood checked his watch. Damn, he thought, I blinked and another year disappeared.
6. That night, Lucy began to plot ways of getting rid of all the kids she had to watch over.
7. Sam Trudeau had not sold a car for three weeks now, and he was afraid he might have lost the magic.
8. The road to Quepos slices through the mountains before it plunges, like a pearl diver, to sea level.
9. “If you knew my secret,” said Lando the Magician, “it would damn you along with me.”
10. “In the name of His Majesty, King George V, you are hereby sentenced to hang by the neck until death.”

Putting description into motion

Writing a technical description of something is not easy, but things are rarely static and are rarely stand-alone.

In Tolstoy’s and Dickens’s times, there were no telephones, no TVs, no Internet, no movie theaters. Traveling fifty miles was a long trip, even by train, and expensive. People knew their village or their neighborhoods, and very little else. Authors had to resort to lengthy technical or pictorial descriptions so their readers could “see” what the writer wanted them to see or so they could understand the mechanism of a contraption.

Today, however, most people will know what I’m talking about if I write about the green expanses of Ireland, the Sahara, or the smog of Los Angeles. They know what a toaster, a TV, or even a science lab looks like, so I don’t have to describe every little thing about them. What I need to do is to put those things into motion to give them life. Below are four places where adding motion can make them more “real” to the reader. As last time, first write motion into the place, then use the place as a setting for putting your character into motion. Remember to keep it short.

A bagel bakery containing bagels, bagging machines and aluminum pans

1. Contrary to other large bakeries, this bagel shop, as huge as it was, still used employees to make, fashion and bake. Its only concession to modern times was the bagging machines. Once the bagels were cool enough, the bakers would upturn the aluminum pans onto a conveyor belt that led to the machines that sorted, counted and filled the bagels into plastic bags which, when filled, were dumped into cardboard boxes.

2. Ellen couldn’t believe the noise, and the heat. The roar of the ovens, the swish of the conveyor belt, the hop and skip of the bagels marching towards the bagging machines, the clang of the aluminum pans as the bakers stacked them, produced a mad symphony that made her dizzy.

A view of Switzerland containing trees, mountains and railroad tracks.

1. A few spindly trees clung to the side of the mountains that stretched to the heavens, while the railroad tracks seemed to hug themselves so they could squeeze into narrow passages or through long, dark tunnels.

2. Ellen remembered the endless length of railroad tracks, squeezed between barren mountains on one side and clusters of spindly trees on the other.

A house on the night before Christmas, containing silence, stockings, and dreams.

1. The silence hung heavy while the empty Christmas stockings waited. Dreams tiptoed through the children’s slumber, adding a smile to their expectations.

2. Ellen tiptoed through the silence of late Christmas eve. For the past week she’d  dreamt that Santa filled her stocking with rocks. I don’t think so, she thought. She’d wait for him and tell him she’d been a good girl. Well, mostly good.

A health club containing a swimming pool, a basketball court, and Nautilus machines.
1. The water in the swimming pool sparkled under the neon lights. The basketball court waited quietly for the sounds of the game. The Nautilus machines held their breaths until they clinked and clanked with the strain of use.

2. Ellen plunged into the cool water of the swimming pool and winced at her still-sore muscles. She’d take a turn at the Nautilus machines after her swim so she’d be warmed up before the pick-up basketball game on the outside court. A week at the health club and she’d be good as new.