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If you haven’t already heard, unfriend is the New Oxford American Dictionary Word of the Year. In honor of this announcement, I surveyed Facebook users across the country about why they would choose to unfriend someone.

1. They’ve turned into a robot.
“People send me Green Patches all the time,” said Jane Kim, a television research assistant in NYC. “It’s annoying. And that’s all I ever get from them. Clearly, they’re not interested in actually being friends.”

That’s because your friends are robots, Jane. Marketing robots. These are the friends you never hear from except when they want you to join a cause, sign a petition, donate money, become a fan of a product, or otherwise promote something. Farmville robots are increasingly becoming problems as well, but are not yet grounds for unfriending.

2. You don’t know who they are.
“A few days ago, Facebook suggested I reconnect with a friend whose name I didn’t recognize,” said Jessica Kay, a lawyer in Kansas City. “She’d recently gotten married, but I hadn’t even known she was engaged. I’ll probably unfriend her later. Along with some random people I met at parties in college.”

“You’re tired of seeing [that mystery name] your newsfeed,” said Jonathan Evans, a contract specialist in Seattle. “You haven’t talked to that person since the random class you took together, and you’ll probably never talk to them again.”

3. They broke your heart.
Jonathan Lethem, author of Chronic City, shared that his number one reason to unfriend someone is “because they just broke up with you on Facebook.”

So, maybe they didn’t break your heart. But if the only reason you were friends on Facebook is because you two were somehow involved, it might be time to play some Beyoncé, crack open the Haagen-Dazs and click “Remove from Friends”.

4. You don’t like them anymore.
In the early years of Facebook, users would  friend everyone their dorm, everyone from high school, and every person they had ever shared a sandbox with. But now, many people are finding they no longer like a number of their friends, and spend time creating limited profiles, customizing the newsfeed, and avoiding Facebook chat.

Teresa Hynes, a student at St. John’s University, pointed out that it’s silly to be concerned one of these people might find out you’ve unfriended them and get angry. “You are never going to see them again,” she said. “You don’t want to see them ever again. You hated them in high school. Your mass communications group project is over.”

5. Annoying status updates.
“I don’t want to see ‘So-and-so wishes it was over,’” said Andrew Varhol, a marketing manager in NYC. “Or the cheers of bandwagon sports fans—when suddenly someone’s, ‘Go Yankees! Go Jeter!’ Where were you before October?”

Excessive status updates are one example of Facebook abuse. Amy Labagh of powerHouse Books admits she is irritated by frequent updates. “It’s like they want you to think they’re cool,” she said, “but they’re not.”

A professor at NYU, agreed, and said he finds a number of these frequent updates to be “too bourgie.” “It’ll say something like, ‘So-and-so is drinking whatever in the beautiful scenery of some field.’ I mean, really?!”

The style and type of each update is also important. A number of users agree that song lyrics, poetry, and literary quotations can be extremely annoying. Updates with misspellings or lacking punctuation were also noted. “I once unfriended someone because they updated their statuses in all caps,” said Erin Meehan, a marketing associate in NYC.

6. Obnoxious photo uploads.
Everyone has a different idea about what photos are appropriate to post , but a popular complaint from Facebook users in their 20s concerned wedding and baby photos. “It’s just weird,” said a bartender in Manhattan. “I know that older people are joining now, but if you’re at the stage in your life when most the photos are of your kids, I mean, what are you doing on Facebook?”

“I think makeout photos are worse,” said his coworker. “My sister always posts photos of her and her boyfriend kissing. Sometimes I want to unfriend and unfamily her.”

Across the board, a number of users found partially nude photos, or images of someone flexing their muscles as grounds for unfriending. Another reason, as cited specifically by Margitte Kristjansson, graduate student at UC San Diego, could be if “they upload inappropriate pictures of their stab wounds.”

7. Clashing religious or political views.
“I can’t handle it when someone’s updates are always about Jesus,” said Robert Wilder, a writer in New York.

In the same vein, Phil Lee, lead singer of The Muskies, said he’s extremely irritated by “religious proselytizing and over-enthusiastic praise and Bible quoting. Often in all caps.”

An anonymous Brooklynite shared that he purged his Facebook account after the last Presidential election. “It was a big deal to me,” he said. “I found it hard to be friends with people who didn’t vote for Obama.” After which his friend added, “I voted for McKinney.”

8. “I wanted a free Whopper.”
In January, Burger King launched the Whopper Sacrifice application, which promised each Facebook user a free Whopper if they unfriended 10 people. It sounded simple enough, but if you chose to unfriend someone via the application, it sent a notification to that person, announcing they had been sacrificed for the burger. Burger King disabled the application within the month when the Whopper “proved to be stronger than 233,906 friendships.”

Since Facebook has made the home page much more customizable than it used to be, you might wonder, “Why unfriend when I can hide?” More and more, Facebook users are choosing to use limited profiles and editing their newsfeed so undesirable friends disappear from view. “I find lately I’m friending more people, then blocking them,” said Gary Ferrar, a magician in New York. “That way no one gets mad, no one’s feelings get hurt.”

Do you have another reason? Tell us about it!

Birds are singing, the sun is shining and I am joyful first thing in the morning without caffeine. Why you ask? Because it is Word of the Year time (or WOTY as we refer to it around the office).  Every year the New Oxford American Dictionary prepares for the holidays by making its biggest announcement of the year.  This announcement is usually applauded by some and derided by others and the ongoing conversation it sparks is always a lot of fun, so I encourage you to let us know what you think in the comments.

Without further ado, the 2009 Word of the Year is: unfriend.

unfriend – verb – To remove someone as a ‘friend’ on a social networking site such as Facebook.

As in, “I decided to unfriend my roommate on Facebook after we had a fight.”

“It has both currency and potential longevity,” notes Christine Lindberg, Senior Lexicographer for Oxford’s US dictionary program. “In the online social networking context, its meaning is understood, so its adoption as a modern verb form makes this an interesting choice for Word of the Year. Most “un-” prefixed words are adjectives (unacceptable, unpleasant), and there are certainly some familiar “un-” verbs (uncap, unpack), but “unfriend” is different from the norm. It assumes a verb sense of “friend” that is really not used (at least not since maybe the 17th century!). Unfriend has real lex-appeal.”

Wondering what other new words were considered for the New Oxford American Dictionary 2009 Word of the Year?  Check out the list below.

Technology

hashtag – a # [hash] sign added to a word or phrase that enables Twitter users to search for tweets (postings on the Twitter site) that contain similarly tagged items and view thematic sets

intexticated – distracted because texting on a cellphone while driving a vehicle

netbook – a small, very portable laptop computer with limited memory

paywall – a way of blocking access to a part of a website which is only available to paying subscribers

sexting – the sending of sexually explicit texts and pictures by cellphone

Economy

freemium – a business model in which some basic services are provided for free, with the aim of enticing users to pay for additional, premium features or content

funemployed – taking advantage of one’s newly unemployed status to have fun or pursue other interests

zombie bank – a financial institution whose liabilities are greater than its assets, but which continues to operate because of government support

Politics and Current Affairs

Ardi – (Ardipithecus ramidus) oldest known hominid, discovered in Ethiopia during the 1990s and announced to the public in 2009

birther – a conspiracy theorist who challenges President Obama’s birth certificate

choice mom – a person who chooses to be a single mother

death panel – a theoretical body that determines which patients deserve to live, when care is rationed

teabagger -a person, who protests President Obama’s tax policies and stimulus package, often through local demonstrations known as “Tea Party” protests (in allusion to the Boston Tea Party of 1773)

Environment

brown state – a US state that does not have strict environmental regulations

green state – a US state that has strict environmental regulations

ecotown - a town built and run on eco-friendly principles

Novelty Words

deleb – a dead celebrity

tramp stamp – a tattoo on the lower back, usually on a woman

Notable Word Clusters for 2009:

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Once upon a time my mother was knitting a style of sweater that had many open holes in the weave. My father looked at it and said “no wonder it’s going so fast, it’s mostly air.”

That’s the thing about nets too, they’re mostly air; but it’s what’s around the air that does the job.

I was looking at the web based dictionary wordnik and one of the features they have is a little graphic representing frequency of a word’s appearance over time. It’s interesting that their plot for the word net falls off during the 1920s to 1950s and then pops back up again in the 1990s.

It seems obvious to me that the frequency of the word net over the past decade would have increased as an abbreviation for the word internet.

I wonder what made the word less frequent after 1950; perhaps more grocery store shopping and less small-scale fishing? I don’t picture small-scale fishermen as being terribly prolific writers who’d have bulked up the word-stock before that.

If you have any ideas let me know.

Of course it could be that the wordnik stats feature has a kink in it.

Clearly the internet is so called because it is full of links between nodes, just like other networks; streets, train tracks, groups of friends.

All of these networks are so called because a real net is strands linking knots.

But it turns out that a real net is called a net not because of the strands but because of the knots.

I mentioned knitting and nodes as well as net and knot and all of these words go back to a knotty origin. They have a granular kind of Old English taste to them don’t they?

Lauren, Publicity Assistant

It’s sad, but true. Historical Thesaurus week has come to an end. We feel like we’ve read it cover to cover (to cover to cover) and it’s hard to let go. And so, I’d like to leave you with a valuable lesson I learned: how to use the HTOED to call someone “stupid” in Old English. In this video post, Judy Pearsall (OUP’s Reference Publishing Manager) discusses how words are connected to one another in a HTOED entry, using the example of “foolish person.” Watch the video after the jump.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Lauren, Publicity Assistant

Ammon Shea is a vocabularian, lexicographer, and the author of Reading the OED: One Man, One Year, 21,730 Pages. In the videos below, he discusses the evolution of terms like “Love Affair” and names of diseases, as traced in the Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, demonstrating how language changes and reflects cultural histories. Shea also dives into the HTOED to talk about the longest entry, interesting word connections, and comes up with a few surprises. (Do you know what a “strumpetocracy” is?) Watch both videos after the jump. Be sure to check back all week to learn more about the HTOED.

Love, Pregnancy, and Venereal Disease in the Historical Thesaurus

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Inside the Historical Thesaurus

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Welcome to Historical Thesaurus Week on the OUPblog! Every day this week we will be looking at the first historical thesaurus to be written for any of the world’s languages, the Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary. Conceived and complied by the English Language Department of the University of Glasgow, and based on the Oxford English Dictionary, it is the result of over 40 years of scholarly labor. Today we have an article by Ammon Shea, a good friend of this blog, which looks at how the HTOED could be used to rewrite the Gettysburg Address. Be sure to check back all week to learn more about the HTOED.

Mark Twain once famously remarked that the difference between the almost-right word and the right word was the same as “the difference between the lightning-bug and the lightning”. Choosing words based on incomplete information can easily lead to writing that may range from the simply unclear to the laughably wrong. Below is an illustrative example of how the Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary might be of use when faced with the need to find the right word, as opposed to the almost-right one.

Imagine you are a student who has been asked to re-write the beginning of Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. As an example of how you might do this, we’ve posted the opening line with four words bolded. What options would you have to replace these words with synonyms if you were using the HTOED, as opposed to if you were using an online thesaurus?

“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”

Fathers – Looking in the HTOED, there are 26 different words listed as synonyms of father (ancestor). Every one of these words is provided with dates for the first recorded instance of its use in English. In a number of cases there is also a date provided for a word’s last recorded use as well. Given that the Gettysburg Address was written in 1863, the user of this thesaurus would be informed of the fact that fore-runner, antecestre, and eldfather were no longer in use at that time, but that grandsire, ancestor, and progenitor were.

In the event that one wished to be more specific, there are another 47 words and phrases that are related to the concept of ancestors, all of which are listed under a specific subcategory. For instance, the HTOED differentiates between ancestors in general and female ancestors. It provides separate categories for ancestors in direct line and ancestors collectively.

Furthermore, many of the words found here are assigned usage labels that can inform the user of when it might be appropriate or inappropriate to use them. Progenitrix is listed as figurative, collateral ancestor is specified as being a law term, and kin is listed as being dialectical.

Looking at Thesaurus.com, the first entry that comes up when one searches for ‘father’ exhibits the following range of words, all listed as synonyms: ancestor, begetter, dad, daddy, forebearer, origin, pa, padre, papa, parent, pop, predecessor, procreator, progenitor, sire, source.

The entries from Thesaurus.com are listed in alphabetical order, and do not have any indication of when they might have been current. There is no immediate indication that begetter or sire might be of older vintage than dad. Of the sixteen words, one (pop) is listed as being informal – none of the other entries are labeled in any way.

Nation – When looking at the entry for nation in the HTOED, the historical value of this work is immediately apparent. It shows how recently most of our words that deal with nationality came into existence. There is only one word listed under the category of ‘the state or fact of being a nation’, and that is nationhood, first recorded in 1850. The concept of ‘having a national quality or characteristic’ is first attested to by a single word in 1691 with nationality. And the term nation-building, so common in political speech of late, does not make its appearance in English until 1913.

In addition to providing a wealth of historical data that is not found anywhere else outside of the Oxford English Dictionary itself, the HTOED also gives a list of synonyms that were definitely in use in 1863, and which would be acceptable substitutes, including country, state, and nationality.

Turning again to the first entries in Thesaurus.com we find the following: commonwealth, community, democracy, domain, dominion, empire, land, monarchy, people, populace, population, principality, public, race, realm, republic, society, sovereignty, state, tribe, union. Again, there is no indication of whether any of these words are archaic, or when they entered the language. There are no usage labels for any of them. For some of these words, such as race, it is difficult to truly say that they are in fact synonyms.

Liberty – As was the case with nation, the word liberty has had strikingly few synonyms over the years. In fact, of the nine nouns listed for the concept of liberty (freols, freot, freedom, freeship, freelage, franchise, liberty, and largess) only freedom and liberty were in current usage when Lincoln wrote the Gettysburg Address. Your choices are suddenly much clearer.

As user of the HTOED would also have a far easier time in finding similar and related words to liberty, not only in the semantic subcategories, but also in the other parts of speech that have to do with liberty and freedom. Nouns that relate to ‘liberty and freedom’ are listed first. The next entry in the thesaurus deals with adjectives that pertain to ‘freedom’. This is followed by adverbs meaning ‘freely’, which is in turn followed by phrases meaning ‘free’ or ‘at liberty’. Once the subjects of freedom and liberty have been exhaustively treated, they are followed by concepts such as independence, liberation, and permission. This logical organizational structure of the HTOED makes it considerably easier to find the right word.

When one looks up liberty in Thesaurus.com one finds an impressive array of synonyms (autarchy, authorization, autonomy, birthright, carte blanche, choice, convenience, decision, deliverance, delivery, dispensation, emancipation, enfranchisement, enlightenment, exemption, franchise, free speech, immunity, independence, leave, leisure, liberation, license, opportunity, permission, power of choice, prerogative, privilege, relaxation, release, rest, right, sanction, self-determination, self-government, sovereignty, suffrage, unconstraint), but as before, it is difficult to say whether many of them share the actual whole meaning of liberty, or if they merely share some of the meaning. Free speech and power of choice may well have something to do with liberty, but it is perhaps not a workable substitute. Perhaps you would choose autarchy, since it is an impressive looking word. It may look good, but unfortunately autarchy carries a fairly specific meaning that refers to economic independence, and so would not be appropriate to use in this case.

Equal – The HTOED is based on the Oxford English Dictionary, and so can boast of having been mined from a resource that is unparalleled and unavailable to any other thesaurus. It is the reason why, when looking at the entry for equal, you will find 129 different words and phrases, divided amongst the main entry and 28 subcategories. It is why you will see categories as finely differentiated as ‘equal in effect’ and ‘equally powerful’ each of which has specific entries that are slightly different. It is why you have access to the full range of words from efen (which means ‘equal’ and dates back to Old English) to the expression toe-to-toe (which means ‘equal or well matched’ and was first recorded in 1942).

The user who is looking for a synonym for equal not only will find such choices as tantamount, even, and equipollent; they will also have all the necessary information to ensure that the choice that they make is guided by decades of scholarship, provided by a team of researchers that is unequalled in the history of the study of the English language.

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This is a special podictionary episode in which I interview Philip Durkin, the Principal Etymologist for The Oxford English Dictionary.

I contacted Dr. Durkin because his book The Oxford Guide to Etymology was recently released in North America and he was kind enough to spend a comfortable 20 minutes talking with me.

Podictionary often concentrates on the changes in meaning that a word goes through over time so when we talked we discussed the other side of etymology—changes in word form.

Dr. Durkin explained some of the tools of etymology as well as talked specifically about the etymologies of the words friar and penguin.

At the moment there is no transcript available of this interview but I encourage you to listen either by clicking the “download” link above or via the website audio player.

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Jesse Sheidlower is Editor at Large of the Oxford English Dictionary and author of The F-Word. Recognized as one of the foremost authorities on obscenity in English, he has written about language for a great many publications, including a recent article on Slate. Here, Jesse discusses the criteria for including certain words or obscenities in dictionaries.  Watch the video after the jump.

WARNING: This video contains explicit language.

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Lauren, Publicity Assistant

For years, the public has not been able to get enough of Paris Hilton. She’s famous as a socialite, heiress, model, and now for joining the likes of Socrates and Mark Twain on the pages of the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations. No, she’s not quoted for saying, “That’s hot.” Ms. Hilton is instead immortalized for her advice, “Dress cute wherever you go. Life is too short to blend in.”

But Paris’s entry is only one of more than 20,000 new quotations added to 7th edition. Other notable inclusions come from Sarah Palin, Stephen Hawking, Aung San Suu Kyi, and Philip Pullman. Here, Oxford Dictionary of Quotations editor Elizabeth Knowles reflects on the history of the almost 70-year-old treasury, and how new entries are chosen.  To learn more check out the companion site here.

A classic reference book like this has to be regularly remade, without compromising its essential identity. Can we in fact have the modern and frivolous without damaging our book? I would say most definitely yes, where usage so dictates, and adduce in support two luminaries of the Oxford University Press of over sixty years ago. In 1931, planning the book, Kenneth Sisam, who identified an “intelligent elasticity” as an essential editorial quality, wrote to a colleague, “We shall have to guard against things quotable, as apart from things commonly quoted.” And in 1949, when the second edition was being planned, Humphrey Milford (formerly Publisher to OUP) commented, “I think the levity—comparative—of ODQ is partly the reason for its success.” In other words, the diversity of the book, and its mixture of the deeply serious and the frivolous, based on what people are quoting, is part of its essential nature.

Quotations are part of the fabric of the language: we use, and meet them, every day. We quote when we find that the words of another person, in another time and place, express exactly what we want to say. Or, events bring certain quotations to prominence, as the last year has given new relevance to Thomas Jefferson’s comment that, “Banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies.”

A dictionary of quotations is not a roll-call of the great and the good, nor a listing of an editor’s favorite passages. Although having said that, of course we all do have items in which we take a particular pleasure. I was especially pleased that the formulation, “We must guard even our enemies against injustice” (attributed to the radical Tom Paine) was revealed as the writer Graham Greene’s paraphrase of Paine’s more formal eighteenth-century diction. The history of this misquotation—linking two significant figures across the centuries, and coming to light through its resonance today—was very satisfying to explore.

At Oxford, we track language to ensure that we have the quotations people are most likely to look up, so that the next time a half-remembered quotation is on the tip of your tongue, the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations is ready with the answer. Inclusion is based on usage: evidence that a spoken comment or written passage is being quoted by others. And while there is a common quotations stock (Shakespeare, the Bible), we all have our own quotations vocabulary, that which we remember and quote because we encountered them at a time when they were particularly significant. The antique and serious often rubs shoulders with popular culture. The same newspaper column, for example, may quote from both the Book of Common Prayer and the Rolling Stones. The result is marvelously diverse, and properly so.

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The word frolic seems to me forever associated with Newfoundland.

Long before my brother-in-law (a Newfie) even met my sister I heard a comedy skit where Newfoundlanders were rendered as loving to sing and frolic, moving to Ontario and turning into alcoholics.

This depiction was based on the economics of the time when the cod fishery was collapsing and Ontario was the economic engine of Canada.

Now Ontario is becoming the rusting industrial heartland of Canada while Newfoundland is gaining oil and energy aspirations just like Alberta.

Etymologically the word frolic has nothing to do with Newfoundland except perhaps in a sort of metaphorical sense that the economy tends to bounce up and down.

For the word frolic is suspected to go back to a root that relates to jumping up.

Frolic first appeared in English in the 16^th century and came from Germanic roots.

The word at first wasn’t a verb but an adjective and meant “joyful.” But it’s suspected that the “joyful” meaning was applied based on an even older root that meant “to jump” as you would when you’re feeling particularly joyful.

Thus the activity and motion that we might associate with frolicking points right back through the meaning of “high spirits” to a leaping source for the etymology.

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In August of 1826 Stanislas Baudry in Nantes, France introduced the idea of public transport to the world.

He did it a little bit by accident actually because what he was really trying to do was make it easier for customers to find their way to the public baths he owned and ran as his business.

The idea of giving people a ride was a big success but things didn’t exactly go as planned. The trouble was that everyone kept getting on and off the bus at all the stops between downtown and his bath house.

Stanislas was no dope though; he gave up on the public baths and instead began charging a flat fare to ride as far as a passenger wanted to go along the route.

The idea was so popular that people in other places heard about it and within 6 years busses were set up in London, Paris, Bordeaux, and Lyons.

Except they weren’t called busses, instead they were called “vehicle for all” which in French was voiture omnibus. In Latin omnis means “all.”

According to The Oxford English Dictionary Stanislas Baudry chose the name voiture omnibus because he knew of a local tradesman who was named monsieur Omnès and used the word play Omnès omnibus to publicize his business.

You could imagine a plumber named Everett putting up a sign advertising “Everett for everyone.”

Word travels fast—faster than public transit anyway—and it only took 3 years for the word omnibus to arrive in London. That’s half the time it took the omnibus service to arrive there.

I guess once omnibuses began operating in London, the people riding them could a afford to be a little lazier than they’d been before and so they quickly—in the same year, 1832 according to the OED—began abbreviating omnibus down to bus.

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1795 a fellow by the name of Mungo Park was spending some time in Africa.  I don’t know what the name Mungo might suggest to you, but it didn’t suggest to me that he was Scottish, but he was.

He subsequently wrote a book called Travels in the Interior of Africa in which he explains that Mumbo Jumbo “is a strange bugbear, common to all Mandingo towns, and much employed by the Pagan natives in keeping their women in subjection.”

Evidently a ranking male was decked out in some disguise and brought in to ritualistically intimidate any woman who had become quarrelsome.  This evidently included public beatings while naked and tied to a post.

This account is related in Brewers Dictionary of Phrase and Fable and it’s consistent with The Oxford English Dictionary’s citation of mumbo-jumbo’s first appearance in English about 60 years earlier in 1738.

The words themselves are thought to possibly have meant “a revered ancestor”—that’s mumbo—“wearing a pompom”—that’s jumbo; this in reference to the disguise worn by the enforcer.

The most recent OED etymology says the mask itself might have been called maamajomboo.

Our current understanding of mumbo-jumbo is more along the lines of the OED definition number two: “Obscure or meaningless language or ritual; jargon intended to impress or mystify; nonsense.”

Such a meaning was understood in English at the time of those revelations of African wife abuse but it’s unclear—to me at least—whether the meaning derives from the fact that the person representing the mumbo-jumbo was only disguised and not really an important ancestor, or that these guys were babbling meaninglessly as they beat their women.

Most sources seem to point to the former.

By Anatoly Liberman

Scalawag, whose origin is (predictably) “uncertain,” seems to have surfaced in American English, which does not mean that it was coined in America. Its earliest recorded sense (“a favorite epithet in western New York for a mean fellow, a scapegrace”) goes back to 1848. Many people must have known it at that time, but its heyday had to wait until after the Civil War, when it swept over the country as a buzz word applied to native white southern Republicans. Consequently, scalawags should not be confused with carpetbaggers, northern men who came South after the war for economic, political, and other reasons.

In the fifties of the 19th century, scalawag had the variants scallywag, scallaway (as we will see, a form of some importance in the present context), and even scatterway (most probably, a fanciful alternation of scalaway). The spelling with y and two l’s was common, and it is still preferred in England, where this word enjoys much greater popularity than on the American continent, as evidenced, among others, by the clipped form scally, a competitor of the ubiquitous chav (a slang term for an asocial youth) that fortunately did not cross the Atlantic. I am pleased to report that chav is also a word of debated origin. In the 19th century, the phrase our American cousins cropped up with some regularity in British periodicals. Well, a chav is a twin brother of a scally and a cousin of a scalawag. No one has yet discovered the etymology of either denomination.

Not only a contemptible person but also an undersized, scraggy, or ill-fed animal of little value can be called a scalawag. No evidence supports the contention that scalawag was originally a drover’s word for ill-conditioned cattle, and we are still in the dark about which came first: “a mean man” or “worthless animal.” I am aware of only one ramification of the main sense. In The Nation for 1910, an anonymous reviewer of the OED wrote: “Dr. Bradley strangely neglects to remark that scallywag, like scamp (which formerly meant a ‘highway robber’), has lost much of its early savor, and is now largely employed as a term of endearment for particularly vivacious and heart-ravishing infants.” Bradley should hardly have been faulted for that omission. Almost any word meaning “rascal” can be used facetiously about a vivacious individual. Even The Century Dictionary did not say anything about heart-ravishing infants. Other sources are also silent on this point. Only The Oxford American Dictionary refers to the sense “a white southerner who collaborated with northern Republicans during Reconstruction, etc.” as historical but begins the entry with “informal a person who behaves badly but in an amusingly mischievous rather than harmful way; a rascal.” A term of political opprobrium has been ameliorated to a name for a whimsical pest. I wonder whether anyone in the United States ever uses scalawag except in jest.

The suggestions about the etymology of scalawag are few and inconclusive. There is a district in the Shetland Islands called Scalloway, in which small, runty horses are bred, and scalawag has been tentatively derived from this place name. The small port of Scalloway was once the capital of Shetland, and inferior cattle or ponies were indeed imported from the Shetland Islands. Also the existence of the short-lived variant scallaway gives this hypothesis some credence, but the history of a loanword consists of at least two chapters: identification of the etymon in a lending language and tracing its routes in the new home. Who popularized this term of cattle breeding in North America? Scallag, a Scottish Gaelic word for “vagabond; menial servant; bondsman; predial slave” in the Hebrides, looks like another probable sibling. (One of the researchers remarked “Interestingly, the Hebrides Islands are located off the northwestern coast of Scotland, not far from Shetlands”; this fact may be interesting, but the connection evades me. Are Scalloway and scallag related?). Scottish Gaelic scalrag “tatterdemalion” (still another candidate for the evasive etymon) clearly contains the same element scal- and sounds somewhat like scalawag. The fact that scalawag cropped up in western New York sheds no light on the ethnicity of those who may have brought this word to America.

A few other hypotheses are even more daring. The word schalawag occurred once in a late medieval Swiss German poem; it seems to have meant “belled shackles” (German Schellenwerk). Those were put on criminals. “A term coined to apply to a criminal and social outcast, marked by society in such a fashion as to attract attention by his every movement, the term schalawag was ideally suited to apply to the scamp, loafer, or rascal who was a post-bellum ‘scalawag’ in the South.” The match is indeed close, but who in the English speaking world knew the word that even in Germany was hopelessly rare? Finding such a person would be more difficult than belling a cat. (A reminder to those who have forgotten the tale. A young mouse suggested that it would be a good idea to put a bell on the cat’s neck; then the beast would not be able to hide. Everybody agreed, whereupon an old mouse asked who was going to do the work. Apparently, there were no volunteers.)

From the Celts and the Swiss Germans, we will briefly turn our attention to the French. By a series of phonetic steps scalawag has been connected with the root of scavenger. The adventure was entertaining but unrewarding. Dictionaries suggest Scalloway or scallag as the etymons of scalawag or say: “Of unknown/uncertain origin.” About the only exception is Ernest Weekley (An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 1921), where we find the following cryptic remark: “? From scall.” Now scall is a skin disease, so that, if we follow Weekley, scalawag will be understood as a derogatory term of the same order as scab “blackleg, non-unionist.” (From the same root as in scab we have shabby, a word that, according to Samuel Johnson,” has crept in conversation and low writing; but ought not to be admitted into the language.” A losing battle, a forlorn hope: low words always triumph in the long run.)

I think no one came closer to the solution than Weekley. He did not say anything about the second half of the word, but here I have a suggestion. Scalawag may be scal-a-wag, a formation like rag-a-muffin and cock-a-doodle-doo, a compound with -a- in the middle. Wag “a mischievous person” (originally “a mischievous boy”!) is a noun in its own right; to play the wag is slang for “play the truant.” If it could be shown that scall had sufficient currency in American English (in western New York or elsewhere), a scalawag would emerge as a scabby wag, whereas diminutive horses, predial slaves, criminals wearing bells like the lepers of old, scavengers, and their daughters will stay where they belong: in Shetlands, Hebrides, Switzerland, and France. Good riddance if you ask me.

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When we think about the riches of King Tut and the mysteries of the Egyptian pyramids we can imagine those big stone coffins that the literati call sarcophagi.

Although it was Egyptian pharaohs that were entombed in the things, it wasn’t the Egyptians that invented that name; that came from Greek.

According to Brewers Dictionary of Phrase and Fable a special kind of stone was to be found at Assos, the now Turkish town where Aristotle lived.  This stone, it was believed, had the rather revolting quality that if one made a coffin out of it, and laid a body inside, the stone itself would eat the dead in a matter of weeks.

And so the Greeks took their word for flesh sarx and their word phagein “to eat” and named the particular stone appropriate for making coffins sarkophagos meaning “flesh eating.”

Pliny the Elder included this little piece of trivia in his book Natural History written more than 2000 years ago and from there the word sarcophagus popped into English in a 1601translation of the Classic work.

Megan Branch, Intern

Here on the OUPblog, we’ve been posting a series of Dictionary posts so be sure to check out the ABC’s of math and education. The language of law is confusing at the best of times, so today’s ABC’s come from the Oxford Dictionary of Law, edited by Jonathan Law and Elizabeth A. Martin. The Dictionary contains over 4,200 entries covering all types of law–from historical treaties, like the Treaty of Rome, to property law, and everything in between. Below, I’ve excerpted some terms from the “A,” “B,” “C,” and “Q,” “R,” “S” sections.

Actual total loss (in marine insurance): A loss of a ship or cargo in which the subject matter is destroyed or damaged to such an extent that it can no longer be used for its purpose, or when the insured is irretrievably deprived of it. If the ship or cargo is the subject of a *valued policy, the measure of indemnity is the sum fixed by the policy; if the policy is unvalued, the measure of indemnity is the insurable value of the subject insured.

Bench warrant: A warrant for the arrest of a person who has failed to attend court when summoned or subpoenaed to do so or against whom an order of committal for contempt of court has been made and who cannot be found. The warrant is issued during a sitting of the court.

Contra bonos mores [Latin]: Against good morals. It is a matter of controversy to what extent the criminal law should, or does, prohibit immoral conduct merely on the ground of its immorality. The tendency in recent years has been to limit legal intervention in matters of morals to acts that cause harm to others. However, there are still certain offences regarded as essentially immoral (e.g. *incest). There are also offences of conspiring to corrupt public morals (although *corruption of public morals is not in itself criminal) and of outraging (or conspiring to outrage) public decency, although the scope of these offences is uncertain.

Qualified right: A right set out in the European Convention on Human Rights that will only be violated if the interference with it is not proportionate (see PROPORTIONALITY). An interference with a qualified right that is not proportionate to the *legitimate aim being pursued will not be lawful.

Refreshing memory: A procedure in which a witness may, while testifying, remind himself of matters about which he is testifying by referring to a document made on an earlier occasion. Under the Criminal Justice Act 2003 a witness in criminal proceedings may at any stage while testifying refresh his memory from a document or transcript of a sound recording made or verified by the witness on a earlier occasion.

Soft law (in international law): Guidelines of behaviour, such as those provided by treaties not yet in force, resolutions of the United Nations, or international conferences, that are not binding in themselves but are more than mere statements of political aspiration (they fall into a legal/political limbo between these two states). Soft law contrasts with hard law, i.e. those legal obligations, found either in *treaties or customary international law (see CUSTOM), that are binding in and of themselves.

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There are a number of different species of flower with yellow centers and white petals that are called daisies, but the reason they are called daisies is because one of them in particular grew in England as Old English was developing.

That species would spend its days looking up at the sky, rain or shine and then as darkness came on would fold its white petals over its yellow center and settle down for the night.

It was kind of like an eye looking up at the heavens.

That yellow middle gave it an especially sunny look during the day.

So people began calling this cheery little flower the eye of the day, which, rendered as day’s eye you can quickly see becoming daisy.

Another welcome flower is the daffodil.  In Greek a lily was called asphodelos and the “d” at the beginning of daffodil appeared on, and overtook, an already existing English word affodil after that d-less version had been in use for about 150 years.

Perhaps a less delightful etymology than that for daisy is the one for the flower known as cowslip.

The reason cowslip is called cowslip is because it tends to grow well when it has the help of a little extra nutrients and moisture as might be left behind by a passing cow.

That slip part of cowslip really does refer to the sloppy gloppy leavings of those bovine fertilizers.

Megan Branch, Intern

The Oxford Dictionary of Education edited by Susan Wallace, covers educational terms and concepts from the UK, the US, South Africa, Australia and Canada. Some of the words, like “Big Brother Syndrome” are unique to the 21st century while others—“regius professor”—have been around for hundreds of years. The Dictionary is UK-focused, so I thought it would be interesting to look at some terms that we don’t hear very often in the US. Below, I’ve excerpted some of the words from the “A”, “B”, “C” and “R”, “S”, “T” sections.

Active vocabulary: The range of words which an individual is able to use accurately in their speech (active spoken vocabulary), or their writing (active written vocabulary), or both of these. The active vocabulary does not include words which are only recognized and understood, either by reading or hearing, but not actually used. At most stages of learning of a language, the learner’s active vocabulary will be more limited than their comprehension. In other words, their understanding will outstrip their ability to express themselves.

Big Brother Syndrome: A growing tendency among younger learners to voice an ambition for celebrity without notable achievement. Derived from a reality television programme of the same name, the term is now in widespread use by teachers and other professionals involved in work with young people. It expresses a concern not only about values, but also about the difficulties of motivating learners toward academic achievement or useful qualifications which learners themselves may dismiss as irrelevant to their goal of being thrust into a celebrity lifestyle, since their Big Brother role models often make a virtue of having achieved fame despite having little or no academic success at school.

Controlled schools: A specific kind of school in Northern Ireland, owned and funded by the *Education and Library Boards. Boards of governors are now taking more control. These are mainly Protestant schools and the Church is represented on the board of governors.

Regius professor:*Professorships (or chairs) at the *universities of Oxford and Cambridge and some Scottish universities, which were funded, or endowed, by the Crown and for which the Crown retains the right to nominate appointees. In practice, candidates are chosen on the advice of senior government ministers. The first such chair to be founded was that of Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford University in the 15th century.

Summative assessment: *Assessment which takes place at the end of a course of study and provides the final judgment on, or ‘sums up,’ the candidate’s performance. The most common form of summative assessment is the end examination.

Tripos: A course of study leading to an *honours degree at Cambridge University, where the student is required to pass two tripos examinations in order to be awarded their *Bachelor of Arts. The name refers to the three-legged stool on which, in medieval times, graduates sat to deliver a satirical speech at their degree ceremony.

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Pop the word expo into a search engine and you will be rewarded with a long list of trade shows and business conferences.

Expo is an abbreviation of exposition, which from Latin through French has a meaning of “putting something out in the open.”

But the literal meaning can be very easily seen by remembering that the ex in exposition—as in many other words starting with ex—means “not” or “out of.”

Displace the ex from exposition and we get position and thus the literal meaning of exposition is that something has been put “out of position,” it is “out of place.”

Although the word exposition has been around in English since before William Shakespeare was a glimmer in his parents eyes, the truncation down to expo didn’t happen until my own lifetime. The Oxford English Dictionary cites 1963 as the first occurrence of expo, and in this case it was spelled with a capital E.

That’s because it was during the planning stages of Expo 67, the world exposition for which the City of Montreal more or less built new islands upon which to stage the exposition.

I was there.

Expo 67 was such a big hit that two years later when Montreal got a major league baseball team, the team also got named after this wonderful new word; The Montreal Expos.

But I guess the Expos must have been—like their etymology—out of place, because in 2004 the were moved and became the Washington Nationals.

Somehow this too seems to me to be out of place; a team that had been Canadian suddenly becoming Nationals in Washington.

The Oxford Concise Dictionary of Mathematics, edited by Christopher Clapham and James Nicholson, covers both pure and applied mathematics and statistics and includes linear algebra, optimization, nonlinear equations, and differential equations.  With over 3,000 authoritative entries it is a one-stop math resource.  Since I usually don’t deal with math I thought it would be fun to excerpt some entries.  Below are some samples from the “A”, “B”, “C”, “Q”, “R”, and “S” sections.  Enjoy!

Achilles paradox: The paradox which arises from considering how overtaking takes place.  Achilles gives a tortoise a head start in a race.  To overtake, he must reach the tortoise’s initial position, then where the tortoise had moved to, and so on *ad infinitum.  The conclusion that he cannot overtake because he has to cover an infinite sum of well-defined non-zero distances is false, hence the paradox.

Break-even point: The point at which revenue begins to exceed cost.  If one graph is drawn to show total revenue plotted against the number of items made and sold and another graph is drawn with the same axes to show total costs, the two graphs normal intersect at the break-even point.  To the left of the break-even point, costs exceed revenue and the company runs at a loss while, to the right, revenue exceeds costs and the company runs at a profit.

Cuboctahedron: One of the *Archimedean solids, with 6 square faces and 8 triangular faces.  It can be formed by cutting off the corners of a cube to obtain a polyhedron whose vertices lie at the midpoints of the edges of the original cube.  It can also be formed by cutting off the corners of an *octahedron to obtain a polyhedron whose vertices lie at the midpoints of the edges of the original octahedron.

QED: Abbreviation for quod erat demonstrandum.  Latin for ‘which was to be proved’.  Often written at the end of a proof.

Radius (radii): A radius of a circle is a line segment joining the centre of the circle to a point on the circle.  All such line segments have the same length, and this length is also called the radius of the circle.  The term also applies in both senses to a sphere.

Subtraction: The mathematical operation which is the inverse operation to *addition which calculates the difference between to numbers or quantities.  So 7-2=5, and (3x+5y)-(x+2y)=2x+3y.

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For a while there, couple of decades ago, it was pretty common to hear people talking about “the state of the art” and meaning leading-edge advanced technology.

This really was a fitting phrase since the word technology in most dictionary definitions harkens back to art.

Technology evolved from an originally Greek word technologia, but got imported into English back in 1615.

Now, and even back to the original Greek, technology has been a careful, thoughtful, systematic approach to doing something; a technique.

Technique as a word came from the same source but came to English a little later through French.

The first part of the word, techn actually did mean “art” or “craft” from Greek, while the second half logy means more literally “the writings on” or “the accumulated knowledge about.”

This construct means that technology could be figuratively translated to mean “the field of knowledge about the art.”

The American Heritage Dictionary takes the techn root back beyond Greek to Indo-European teks meaning to weave, linking it to the root of the word textile.

These days the art in question is more likely to be developing the next generation of handheld devices, or the art of decoding DNA sequences, as opposed to weaving skills.

But when technology first arose as a word back in Greek, the arts then being systematically organized were things like grammar.

I’ve done a similar post on publishing terminology, but I realize that it can never hurt to do it again. For those who have been regular readers of the blog, I apologize for the repetition. What I’ve done today is pulled out that old list and added to it so that hopefully we have a strong list of terms that new and experienced authors can use when they feel stumped. Think of it as the New and Updated Publishing Dictionary.

AAR: The Association of Authors’ Representatives is an organization of literary and dramatic agents that sets certain guidelines and standards that professional and reputable agents must abide by. It is really the only organization for literary agents of its kind.

Advance: The amount the publisher pays up front to an author before the book is published. The advance is an advance on all future earnings.

ARCS: Advance Review Copies. Not the final book, these are advance and unfinalized copies of the book that are sent to reviewers.

Auction: During the sale of a manuscript to publishers sometimes, oftentimes if you’re lucky, you’ll have an auction. Not unlike an eBay auction, this is when multiple publishers bid on your book and ultimately, the last man standing wins (that’s the one who offers the most lucrative deal).

BEA: BookExpo America is the largest book rights fair in the United States. This is where publishers from all over the world gather to share rights information, sell book rights, and flaunt their new, upcoming titles.

Blurb: A one-paragraph (or so) description of your book. People often compare a blurb to back cover copy, and while it’s similar, it’s frequently more streamlined and focuses on the heart and the chief conflict in the story. This is the pitch you use in your query letter as well as the pitch you would use in pitch appointments.

Commission: The percentage of your earnings paid to your agent, typically 15%.

Copy Edits: Edits that focus on the mechanics of your writing. A copy editor typically looks for grammar, punctuation, spelling, typos, and style.

Cover Letter: This is the letter that should accompany any material you send to an agent or an editor. A cover letter should remind the agent that the material has been requested, where you met if you’ve met, and of course the same information that is in your query letter—title, genre, a short yet enticing blurb of your book, and bio information if you have any. This can often be interchanged with Query Letter.

Fiction: A story/book based on research and imagination.

Full: A full manuscript.

Galleys: Another word for ARCs. Galleys aren’t always bound, but are also sent to reviewers as well as other sources for publicity. Galleys are often a copy of your Page Proofs.

Genre: The classification of books. Examples of genre in fiction include mystery, romance, science fiction, fantasy, nonfiction, and in nonfiction you might see sub-genres like business, health, parenting, pets, art, architecture, memoir, or current events.

Hardcover: A book printed with a hard cover.

Imprint: The name within the publishing house that the book is published under. Usually done as a way to market certain types of books. For example, Aphrodisia is an imprint of Kensington. It is still a Kensington book, but by publishing under Aphrodisia you are branding the book as erotic romance. Prime Crime is an imprint of Berkley that brands the books published as mysteries.

Literary Agent: A literary agent works on behalf of the author to sell her book and negotiate with publishers. A literary agent also helps with career planning and development and sometimes editing and marketing.

Marketing: Marketing is advertising that is paid for, including ads in magazines, display units in stores, and things like postcards or posters.

Mass Market: Also called “rack size,” these are paperback books originally designed to fit in rotating book racks in non-bookstore outlets (like grocery stores and drugstores). Mass market paperbacks are roughly 4” x 7” in size.

MWA: Mystery Writers of America is the national organization of mystery writers and a great source of information for all writers.

Narrative Nonfiction: Nonfiction written in story form like memoir, biography, autobiography, etc.

Nonfiction: Writing based on fact.

North American Rights: These are the type of rights licensed to the publisher, allowing the publisher only to handle and represent book rights in North America. This means that the author and the author’s agent are responsible for selling/licensing rights anywhere outside of North America (and usually a designated set of territories).

Novel: Book-length fiction. Therefore, note that it is redundant to say “fiction novel.”

Partial: A partial is frequently what an agent will ask for when taking a book under consideration. For fiction and narrative nonfiction a partial usually includes a cover letter, a designated number of chapters from the book, and a synopsis. For non-narrative nonfiction a partial usually contains an extended author bio, an overview of the book, an expanded table of contents, detailed marketing and competitive information, and of course sample writing material (usually a chapter or two). Also called a Proposal.

Pitch: Frequently verbal, the pitch is your Blurb. It’s a one-paragraph (or so) description of your book. It’s what you use to entice readers to read the book and describe the story.

Preempt: When a publisher makes an advance and royalty offer high enough to take the book off the auction table. In other words, a publisher offers enough money that the author and agent agree that they will sell the book without asking for bids from other publishers.

Proofs/Page proofs: This is the last stage of editing that a book goes through. They are a copy of the designed pages, and the author is given one last chance to review the typesetter's “proofs” to check for typos or other small errors. Proofs are also what are used to make review copies for reviewers and sometimes rights sales.

Proposal: A proposal is frequently what an agent will ask for when taking a book under consideration. For fiction and narrative nonfiction a proposal usually includes a cover letter, a designated number of chapters from the book, and a synopsis. For non-narrative nonfiction a proposal usually contains an extended author bio, an overview of the book, an expanded table of contents, detailed marketing and competitive information, and of course sample writing material (usually a chapter or two). Also called a Partial.

Publicity: Advertising that is free. Publicity includes magazine and newspaper articles, radio and television interviews, and of course MySpace and other networking Web sites.

Query: A one-page letter sent to agents or editors in an attempt to attain representation. A query letter should include all of the author’s contact information—name, address, phone, email, and Web site—as well as the title of the book, genre, author bio if applicable, and a short, enticing blurb of the book. A query letter is your introduction and sometimes only contact with an agent and should not be taken lightly.

Revisions: This is when the bulk of your edits are done. Revisions are typically done with the editor acquiring your book and sometimes with your agent before even submitting a project. Revisions can include anything from fixing punctuation to rewriting the entire book. It’s a collaborative process between editor and author.

Royalties: The percentage of the sales (monetary) an author receives for each copy of the book sold.

RWA: Romance Writers of America is the national organization of romance and women’s fiction writers and a great source of information for all writers.

Sell-Through: This is the most important number in publishing. It’s the percentage of books shipped that have actually sold. For example, if your publisher shipped 100,000 books but only sold 40,000, your sell-through is 40%. Not so great. However, if your publisher shipped 50,000 books, and sold 40,000, your sell-through would be 80%. A fantastic number.

SFWA: Science Fiction Writers of America is the national organization of science fiction and fantasy writers and a great source of information for all writers.

Slush/Slush Pile: Any material sent to an agent or an editor that has not been requested.

Synopsis: A detailed, multipage description of the book that includes all major plot points as well as the conclusion.

Tag Line: The one line often used on the front cover of the book to grab a reader’s attention. Tag lines, while fun for writers to write, really aren’t necessary until you have a publishing contract.

Trade: To make it easy, trade is the shortened name for trade paperback books and is basically any size that is not mass market. Typically though they run larger than a mass market edition.

Vanity Press: A publisher that publishes the author’s work at the author’s expense (not a recommended way to seek publication by most agents or editors).

World Rights: When World Rights are sold/licensed to the publisher the publisher has the ability to represent the book on the author’s behalf and sell foreign translation rights anywhere in the world. Keep in mind that the author does get a piece of the pie no matter where the book is published.


Jessica

Ammon Shea recently spent a year of his life reading the OED from start to finish.  His book, Reading the OED, has been published by Perigee, so go check it out in your local bookstore. In the post below Ammon reports on the Dictionary Society of North America Conference.

I spent four days last week sitting in a mildly uncomfortable chair and experiencing the distinct pleasure that comes from listening to people far more knowledgeable than I speak on the subject of dictionaries. It was the biannual meeting of the Dictionary Society of North America, held at Indiana University, in Bloomington, and although I learned an enormous amount, I have to confess that there is one question from my time there that still plagues me – why don’t more people go to conferences?

To be more specific about this query, I mean that I don’t quite understand why more people who are not connected with lexicography, linguistics, or some related field do not attend this meeting. I routinely meet people who say they are enchanted by dictionaries, and have questions about how they work and their history, what better way to indulge one’s interest in a subject than to go where you are surrounded by dozens of experts in a field?

Granted, this is not the typical holiday that comes to mind for most, and I guess that is reasonable. But I did see a few attendees, such as my friend Leonard Frey, whose interest in dictionaries is purely amateur (in the best sense of that word), and who drove up from Memphis with his wife. Their obvious enjoyment was so pure and infectious that it constantly reminded me how lucky I was to attend. Among the highlights:

Kate Wild, of the University of Glasgow, gave a talk on re-assessing Samuel Johnson’s usage labels that forever changed the way I’ll read that dictionary. Grant Barrett demonstrated an impressive and potentially enormously productive use of Amazon Turks in creating a database of user-created definitions. And Sarah Ogilvie showed that scholarship and sustaining audience interest need not be mutually exclusive, in a paper that effectively made the case that, while James Murray was certainly one of the greatest lexicographers in history, he was also prone to inordinate bursts of peevishness and paranoia.

However, the greatest enjoyment came from listening to the editors of the Historical Thesaurus of the OED, especially Christian Kay and Irené Wotherspoon (who between them have close to 80 years experience working on that magnificent project). I’ve mentioned the HTOED before, and feel no compunction to avoid repeating myself. If you have any curiosity about the English language go buy yourself a copy – it is not cheap by any means, but no matter the price it is a bargain. And I can imagine no better advocates for it than Kay and Wotherspoon, who exude intellectual grace and humor like few I’ve ever seen. If they decided to write a book on the history of Popsicle sticks and watch fobs I would run out and buy it.

On a side note, I will be taking a hiatus from this blog for the next three months, while I finish a book. See you all again soon.

Purdy, Director of Publicity

A recent study out of Harvard confirms Twitter is all vanity. This is not a big surprise to the dictionary team at Oxford University Press. OUP lexicographers have been monitoring more than 1.5 million random tweets Since January 2009 and have noticed any number of interesting facts about the impact of Twitter on language usage. For example the 500 words most frequently used words on Twitter are significantly different from the top 500 words in general English text. At the very top, there are many of the usual suspects: “the”, “to”, “as”, “and”, “in”… though “I” is right up at number 2, whereas for general text it is only at number 10. No doubt this reflects on the intrinsically solipsistic nature of Twitter. The most common word is “the”, which is the same in general English.

Since January OUP’s dictionary team has sorted through many random tweets.  Here are the basic numbers:
Total tweets = 1,496,981
Total sentences = 2,098,630
Total words = 22,431,033
Average words per tweet = 14.98
Average sentences per tweet = 1.40
Average words per sentence in Twitter= 10.69
Average words per sentence in general usage = 22.09

Other interesting tidbits include:

Verbs are much more common in their gerund form in Twitter than in general text. “Going”, “getting” and “watching” all appear in the top 100 words or so.

“Watching”, “trying”, “listening”, “reading” and “eating” are all in the top 100 first words, revealing just how often people use Twitter to report on whatever they are experiencing (or consuming) at the time.

Evidence of greater informality than general English: “ok” is much more common, and so is “f***”.

And that is how we roll here at OUP, monitoring new social media and the changes in the English language up to the minute.  Tweet on.

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The black stuff on the road is alternately called asphalt, pavement or tarmac.

Tarmac was originally a registered trademark from 1903 and the black, smelly, gooey consistency of the stuff as it’s steam-rollered in place gives an obvious clue to the tar part of the word.

Before roads were essentially glued in place with tar they began as tracks through the mud.  Horses and wagons regularly almost disappeared into these impediments to transportation and thus a star was born when the Scottish surveyor John Loudon McAdam invented a new kind of road.

First he dumped a bunch of rocks along the surface and after they got trampled into the grime by the passing traffic he added smaller and smaller stones and gravel to eventually form a roadbed similar to that beneath major highways today.

For this wonderful idea the new type of road was said to be McAdamized, after John McAdam.

John was long dead before anyone thought to glue the gravel together with tar, but they kept honoring him anyway and so do we, since its from his name that we get the mac in tarmac.

Ammon Shea recently spent a year of his life reading the OED from start to finish. Over the next few months he will be posting weekly blogs about the insights, gems, and thoughts on language that came from this experience. His book, Reading the OED, has been published by Perigee, so go check it out in your local bookstore. In the post below Ammon looks at I’m Not Hanging Noodles On Your Ears.

I don’t know what the collective noun is for master’s degrees, but I would like to propose that we consider bhalla as a possibility. The reason for this is that I’ve recently had the opportunity to read a delightful book on idioms written by a man named Jag Bhalla, and he has five of them.

This curiously named work, I’m Not Hanging Noodles On Your Ears, is an exploration of over 1,000 idioms in ten languages, collected by Bhalla over the course of what must have been extremely extensive travel. This is not an academic work (and I mean that only in the sense that it is not at all boring), but it is enormously educational.

Hanging Noodles is divided thematically, and the chapter headings were enticing enough to make me immediately want to skip ahead (I think far more writers should follow Bhalla’s example, and use titles such as ‘Give it to someone with cheese’ or ‘Swallowed like a postman’s sock’). Each of these chapters is comprised of an essay on a particular aspect of language, followed by a list of pertinent idioms.

I’ve long thought that books on language and words shared some characteristics with travel books. At their best they have the capacity to be transporting, to make some part of your reading brain feel as though it might be in some other place or time. This book transported me, in the senses that I felt able to travel to other places and also in that I utterly lost several afternoons to reading it. The writing is adroit, the subject fascinating, and the execution impeccable.

The only quibble I have with it is that Bhalla is his habit of being overly deferential to the many other writers whose work he discusses. It’s certainly not the case that I think that David Crystal and Stephen Pinker are undeserving of praise, but too often their names are prefaced panegyrically, which makes Bhalla appear slightly uncertain. He needn’t be – Hanging Noodles is a delightful book, and well worth getting yourself lost in.