Cory Doctorow
language
Cory Doctorow buzzsprout.com
buzzsprout.comWe're talking about a guy who received one complaint from a student who came to his office to talk to him, and then he himself voluntarily canceled the course. He took his ball and went home. And yet we're supposed to be like, “All of these kids today, they're so over-sensitive”.Fantastic conversation that connects 90s political correctness discourse with cancel culture discourse. They show how flimsy moral panic stories were fabricated, used as evidence of liberal overreach, and repeated ad nauseam.
The Guardian
The GuardianFrom coronamüde (tired of Covid-19) to Coronafrisur (corona hairstyle), a German project is documenting the huge number of new words coined in the last year as the language races to keep up with lives radically changed by the pandemic.This is great, Schnutenpulli (pout sweater?) for mask is not in this article but I like it so much better than "mask". The full list.
“Changing this name is overdue,” Ray said. “While not intended as reference to the actual Civil War, OSU sports competition should not provide any misconstrued reference to this divisive episode in American history. That we did not act before to change the name was a mistake.”Happy to see that OSU and UO are willing to examine their traditions and make changes to make them more inclusive.
merriam-webster.com
merriam-webster.comDarkest timeline continues. I’m just going to get news via the dictionary now.
MediumI am guilty of using this word as filler or an intensifier all the time. This is a public note to myself to cut it out.
The New Yorker
"It is the choice between thinking that whatever is happening in reality is, by definition, acceptable, and thinking that some actual events in our current reality are fundamentally incompatible with our concept of ourselves..."I think this is an important concept that I'm trying to understand. I wish there was a term for this idea: If the problem was really bad someone would have stopped it already. My hunch is this line of thinking is pervasive.
latimes.com
I agree with this. Repeating a frame or an idea—even to mock it—distributes and strengthens that idea. I love Colbert but I stopped watching a long time ago. Laughing wasn't enough to make up for the disturbing source material. It reminds me again that the old Internet cliché don't feed the trolls is something the media hasn't adopted yet. See also the great way Jay Smooth put it: Don't Link to the Line Steppers.
The Outline
Listen up you stinklinguists! This formula for creating new, creative swear words is the crapgrenade you've been waiting for. (NSFW, obviously.) What I find even more hilarious are phrases that are not remotely related to swear words but sound like they are. Prime example: this cracks me up every time I think about it.
OUPblogThey call it Cyber Monday. (But Tuesday's just as wired?) Why do we call anything internet-related cyber-? Oxford University Press describes the etymology as a mashup between cybernetics in the 40s and William Gibson's coinage cyberspace in the 80s. Interesting that it has the connotation of "steering" or "control". And here's some cybermusic for your cyberbackground as you cybershop with your newfound cyberknowledge. I propose we ditch the old fashioned cyber and call it Information Supermonday instead.
Emojipedia
I've things you wouldn't . This article about emoji history on iOS is great. I remember downloading some sketchy app in 2008 just to unlock the hidden emoji keyboard. It's hard to remember how unusual it seemed to see pictures in the keyboard area. Many were hard to decipher and there didn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to them. The mystery made them compelling. Previous phones had built-in smileys but they weren't in wide use. I think the variety of emoji available made them something special that we're still enjoying incorporating into our language. Apple is missing something about their ambiguity by making emoji hyper-realistic, but they are pretty to look at on their high-resolution screens. I'm glad Emojipedia is keeping this history so past emoji won't be lost like in the .
See also: Who Created The Original Apple Emoji Set?
See also: Who Created The Original Apple Emoji Set?
Medium
Here's another great article by linguist George Lakoff about our current media environment. It's frustrating to see the same dynamics play out over and over again. It's like seeing legacy code in action while lives depend on refactoring. Two other folks I tune into for analysis of the media are Ezra Klein and Jay Rosen and they recently had a conversation about what's happening now. Also also, don't miss Klein's article about Enemy of the People. And after you digest all of that important garbage, a reminder from Warren Ellis: You can tune your Internet connection until it is useful and fun.
p.s. Here's a good NFT joke.