Linquistic innovation is weirdly frowned upon. Groups who use a lot of new words for things, like rappers, valley girls in the '80s and surfers in the '60s, are labeled as stupid. Even perfectly servicable business jargon like "prioritize" is ridiculed.
When words are used for in-group cohesion, people outside the group put the smack-down. I just want to catch people on the flippity-floppy.
After having the big "V', the so-called "minor surgery," I say that "minor surgery" is when it happens to you. When they cut my balls it is MAJOR surgery, baby!
Of course I should have used a semicolon, not a comma, between "toe" and "comedy". And in my experience it's not bloggers but, you know, reasonably creative people who are constantly inventing terms. I'll allow that the medium can expedite the sharing, though.
Christ, Wolfson, you'll be auto-correcting on "whom" next. I say this as a friend and companion in nitpickery: The comma's perfectly appropriate there. "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." Back to ball-cutting.
He never used one in his writing, I know that much, but did he really think it expressed nothing? If so, he was wrong; I find the semicolon one of the most attractive and compelling members of the punctuational armamentarium.
Language Log is a rich source--check out "eggcorns" and "snowclones," though I'm not sure precisely what they mean by that. (Or rather, what I think they mean isn't what I wish they did.)
Now as for this semicolon debate, I'm with ben wolfson. The semicolon is a wonderful thing, and its appropriate use can bring a certain je ne sais qua to a sentence; on the other hand, way too many people just don't know how to use it. By the way, I may be inviting scorn on myself by saying this, but I'm also a huge fan of the ellipsis as pause-indicator... you know, for effect. The hyphen just doesn't always get the job done, in my opinion.
the three dot elipses should only be used to indicate (a) that something has actually been removed from the writing, or (b) that the writing has a secondary, sexual meaning ... which is what I always infer when I see them, no matter what the context.
But you risk hurting the feelings of those, like myself, who will infer a sexual context when there is none.
I suppose the possibility of a sexual context provides the frisson that keeps us going through monotonous days. I take it back. Keep using elipses in all possible situations.
That's interesting, textualist. It reminds me: the other day, I went to the...and she said, "Sir, you know it's been a very long time since...," but I'd seen that one coming, so I said, "Madam, have you considered...?" She laughed, a devilish little laugh, and said, "I should introduce you to my...."
I enjoyed The Daily Show's Stephen Colbert's coinage, when he said that some administration officials had to obtain a "Writ of Douchebaggery."
Since hearing that, I have attached "-ery" to every possible word, producing, for example, "fucktardery." It's best when used in a phrase like, "Despite his manifest fucktardery...."
If I were gay, and lived in a modern Western democracy with laws based on principles of equality, I would totally marry Stephen Colbert and have his children. He is my non-theological secular humanist personal savior, and Jon Stewart is his prophet.
Did you see the one where he was talking about bloggers revealing personal secrets and he tried to preempt them by coming out and admitting that he was Hitler's grandson?
Hmm. Ideally you could proposition a woman without elipses, without being accused of anything. That is, so long as she is not your subordinate and you are not too scary about it.
Interestingly, I think women use the elipses-as-pause more often than men do in e-mail situations, and I think it is because they all secretly want to have sex with me.
Yes. That was one of the best ones ever. It's always hilarious when you can tell they're working hard at not completely losing their shit. There was another one like that where Colbert was supposedly "in England," and he was talking about how English aristocrats sound so gay. He just about collapsed from laughing. It was hysterical. Hence, my desire to be his baby's mama, in a totally non-sexual way.
Walter says: "...I'm also a huge fan of the ellipsis as pause-indicator... you know, for effect. The hyphen just doesn't always get the job done, in my opinion."
It's allowable, and has a necessary place, but people should need to get a license to be able to make such use of ellipses. Most people are clearly unqualified and some should be jailed for criminal overuse; as a liberal, I suggest EPA regulation, or possibly OSHA.
What the heck is or are "elipses"? Defter eclipses?
Sort of getting back to the original post topic of neologisms, I want to complain about one that should never have come into existence. Except I don't think it's actually new, just annoying. What's the deal with the word pre-funding? Doesn't it mean exactly the same thing as funding?
Ellipses is the plural of ellipse, a conic section whose plane is not parallel to the axis, base, or generatrix of the intersected cone. (It's a freakin oval.)
"Ellipses is the plural of ellipse, a conic section whose plane is not parallel to the axis, base, or generatrix of the intersected cone. (It's a freakin oval.)"
Indeed. Aside from the gramatical usage, there's a not-obscure Ellipse in Washington, D.C. Was someone here unaware of either usage? But an "elipse"? Tsk.
1. Someone already said "neologism," so I don't have to.
2. Back during the all-night boogie known as the Vietnam War it was sufficient to call it THE ESTABLISHMENT PRESS. Rightists know call it something like the main stream media. It's foolish, it's snarky, and worst of all, it's theirs.
1. Methinks that an oval can (must?) have straight sides, whereas an ellipse is round all the way 'round.
2. Daniel Davies has observed somewhere that MSM, the idiot right's favored abbreviation for "mainstream media," has a more longstanding use in epidemiological contexts for "men who have sex with men."
3. I like "craptacular." Maybe Simpsons-originated neologisms don't count.
On (2): I can't believe I didn't see that. I use the old use of MSM in some contexts-- for example, when describing ogged-- and I totally missed it. Damn.
I came up with one (with some help from a friendly blogneighbor): precarious pinnacles. You can think of them as the opposite of slippery slopes. With a slippery slope, if you stray from the pure, extreme ideal then you risk gradually slipping away from your original position. With a precarious pinnacle, if you try to maintain the pure, extreme ideal then you risk suddenly falling far away from that position once the extreme version becomes untenable. Being unbending can raise your risk of breaking.
For instance, if you avoid all germs, then that could make you more susceptible to disease because your immune system isn't built up. Other examples involve disillusionment, with religion or with science.
On the more important issue at hand, I think that ovals usually (always?) are round, and that ellipses are ovals.
Lydgate (v.t.): to write a negative review of academic work, esp. when a contributing factor to said review is frustration with one's own career.
(After Alaric Lydgate, a character in Barbara Pym's Less Than Angels who is known as a specialist in sarcastic reviews--one of his reviews elicits from the editor the thought "It is a pity to have three consecutive paragraphs beginning 'It is a pity.'")
The problem is that there would never be an occasion to use this verb, because I don't know anyone who would do such a thing.
Oh, my claim about ovals is not that all their sides are straight, but that some are: they have 2-4 straight sides joined by curves. An aerial photo of the oval racetrack at Daytona speedway. The Oval Office does seem to be an ellipse, though. So ellipses are a kind of oval, and bg was originally right.
Linquistic innovation is weirdly frowned upon. Groups who use a lot of new words for things, like rappers, valley girls in the '80s and surfers in the '60s, are labeled as stupid. Even perfectly servicable business jargon like "prioritize" is ridiculed.
When words are used for in-group cohesion, people outside the group put the smack-down. I just want to catch people on the flippity-floppy.
Posted by joe o | Link to this comment | 02-25-05 11:55 AM
The first paragraph reminds me of Mel Brooks' definitions: tragedy is when I stub my toe, comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 02-25-05 11:57 AM
After having the big "V', the so-called "minor surgery," I say that "minor surgery" is when it happens to you. When they cut my balls it is MAJOR surgery, baby!
Posted by Tripp | Link to this comment | 02-25-05 12:07 PM
Of course I should have used a semicolon, not a comma, between "toe" and "comedy". And in my experience it's not bloggers but, you know, reasonably creative people who are constantly inventing terms. I'll allow that the medium can expedite the sharing, though.
(I'll tell you what I like, is des von bladet's style.)
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 02-25-05 12:13 PM
How did we get to ball-cutting in just three posts?
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 02-25-05 12:15 PM
Christ, Wolfson, you'll be auto-correcting on "whom" next. I say this as a friend and companion in nitpickery: The comma's perfectly appropriate there. "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." Back to ball-cutting.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 02-25-05 12:16 PM
These are the standards to which I hold myself, Weiner.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 02-25-05 12:20 PM
Kurt Vonnegut is of the opinion that a semi-colon expresses nothing and is basically never to be used.
So it goes.
Posted by Adam Kotsko | Link to this comment | 02-25-05 12:29 PM
He never used one in his writing, I know that much, but did he really think it expressed nothing? If so, he was wrong; I find the semicolon one of the most attractive and compelling members of the punctuational armamentarium.
Poo-tee-weet.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 02-25-05 12:34 PM
So *that's* what Hegel was doing? And I thought it was just my translation of the PhG.
Posted by Anderson | Link to this comment | 02-25-05 12:52 PM
Googlorphans.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 02-25-05 1:03 PM
101st Fighting Keyboarders.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 02-25-05 1:12 PM
Language Log is a rich source--check out "eggcorns" and "snowclones," though I'm not sure precisely what they mean by that. (Or rather, what I think they mean isn't what I wish they did.)
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 02-25-05 1:24 PM
Speaking of ballcutting, you've seen this?
Posted by Bob | Link to this comment | 02-25-05 1:33 PM
There's also an eggcorn database. "French benefits" is so much more evocative than "fringe benefits".
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 02-25-05 1:38 PM
"Douchebags of liberty"
Posted by Walter Sobchak | Link to this comment | 02-25-05 1:46 PM
Now as for this semicolon debate, I'm with ben wolfson. The semicolon is a wonderful thing, and its appropriate use can bring a certain je ne sais qua to a sentence; on the other hand, way too many people just don't know how to use it. By the way, I may be inviting scorn on myself by saying this, but I'm also a huge fan of the ellipsis as pause-indicator... you know, for effect. The hyphen just doesn't always get the job done, in my opinion.
Posted by Walter Sobchak | Link to this comment | 02-25-05 1:52 PM
my three dots...my supposed original style...real writers will tell you what to think of that!
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 02-25-05 1:57 PM
the three dot elipses should only be used to indicate (a) that something has actually been removed from the writing, or (b) that the writing has a secondary, sexual meaning ... which is what I always infer when I see them, no matter what the context.
Posted by textualist | Link to this comment | 02-25-05 2:11 PM
As any colostomy patient will tell you, a semicolon is better than no colon at all.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 02-25-05 2:11 PM
I know they're supposed to be used that way... I just like using them the other way too. It's like visual onomatopoeia.
Posted by Walter Sobchak | Link to this comment | 02-25-05 2:13 PM
But you risk hurting the feelings of those, like myself, who will infer a sexual context when there is none.
I suppose the possibility of a sexual context provides the frisson that keeps us going through monotonous days. I take it back. Keep using elipses in all possible situations.
Posted by textualist | Link to this comment | 02-25-05 2:19 PM
That's interesting, textualist. It reminds me: the other day, I went to the...and she said, "Sir, you know it's been a very long time since...," but I'd seen that one coming, so I said, "Madam, have you considered...?" She laughed, a devilish little laugh, and said, "I should introduce you to my...."
Try not to get any on the keyboard, 'k?
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 02-25-05 2:21 PM
oh the endless possibilities that could be contained in those three tiny dots! But what could he have seen coming? But what?
Even better than the titillating frat house banter with profgrrrl. Perhaps now profgrrrl will comment in response, using elipses ...
Posted by textualist | Link to this comment | 02-25-05 2:26 PM
That woman you met, ogged, she wasn't the Duchess of G_____ by any chance?
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 02-25-05 2:29 PM
She wasn't a Duchess, no, but she did have..., which is almost as good, you'll grant.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 02-25-05 2:31 PM
Oh quite.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 02-25-05 2:33 PM
I enjoyed The Daily Show's Stephen Colbert's coinage, when he said that some administration officials had to obtain a "Writ of Douchebaggery."
Since hearing that, I have attached "-ery" to every possible word, producing, for example, "fucktardery." It's best when used in a phrase like, "Despite his manifest fucktardery...."
That was a non-sexual use of ellipses. I think.
Posted by Adam Kotsko | Link to this comment | 02-25-05 2:38 PM
So what you're saying is, you "elided" past the sex?
Posted by Walter Sobchak | Link to this comment | 02-25-05 2:40 PM
"That was a non-sexual use of ellipses. I think."
Au contraire.
Posted by textualist | Link to this comment | 02-25-05 2:42 PM
So, if I want to proposition women without being accused of sexual harassment, all I have to do is go up and go ... ... ..., whaddya say?
How do you pronounce ... , anyways?
Does .... means it's like extra kinky?
(No, really! It's like this .................................... ! )
ash
['How about Morse ... ?']
Posted by ash | Link to this comment | 02-25-05 2:43 PM
If I were gay, and lived in a modern Western democracy with laws based on principles of equality, I would totally marry Stephen Colbert and have his children. He is my non-theological secular humanist personal savior, and Jon Stewart is his prophet.
Posted by Walter Sobchak | Link to this comment | 02-25-05 2:45 PM
He's catholic, you know.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 02-25-05 2:51 PM
Did you see the one where he was talking about bloggers revealing personal secrets and he tried to preempt them by coming out and admitting that he was Hitler's grandson?
Posted by Adam Kotsko | Link to this comment | 02-25-05 2:51 PM
Hmm. Ideally you could proposition a woman without elipses, without being accused of anything. That is, so long as she is not your subordinate and you are not too scary about it.
Interestingly, I think women use the elipses-as-pause more often than men do in e-mail situations, and I think it is because they all secretly want to have sex with me.
Posted by textualist | Link to this comment | 02-25-05 2:53 PM
Maybe it's because they all think they're Louis-Ferdinand Celine Dion.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 02-25-05 2:57 PM
Adam:
Yes. That was one of the best ones ever. It's always hilarious when you can tell they're working hard at not completely losing their shit. There was another one like that where Colbert was supposedly "in England," and he was talking about how English aristocrats sound so gay. He just about collapsed from laughing. It was hysterical. Hence, my desire to be his baby's mama, in a totally non-sexual way.
Posted by Walter Sobchak | Link to this comment | 02-25-05 3:18 PM
Walter says: "...I'm also a huge fan of the ellipsis as pause-indicator... you know, for effect. The hyphen just doesn't always get the job done, in my opinion."
It's allowable, and has a necessary place, but people should need to get a license to be able to make such use of ellipses. Most people are clearly unqualified and some should be jailed for criminal overuse; as a liberal, I suggest EPA regulation, or possibly OSHA.
What the heck is or are "elipses"? Defter eclipses?
Posted by Gary Farber | Link to this comment | 02-25-05 3:37 PM
Sort of getting back to the original post topic of neologisms, I want to complain about one that should never have come into existence. Except I don't think it's actually new, just annoying. What's the deal with the word pre-funding? Doesn't it mean exactly the same thing as funding?
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 02-25-05 3:45 PM
Ellipses is the plural of ellipse, a conic section whose plane is not parallel to the axis, base, or generatrix of the intersected cone. (It's a freakin oval.)
Posted by bg | Link to this comment | 02-25-05 3:52 PM
Louis-Ferdinand Celine Dion
Oy, that has to get some props. How about HP Laura Croft?
Posted by r | Link to this comment | 02-25-05 4:19 PM
That of course be Lara
Posted by r | Link to this comment | 02-25-05 4:20 PM
"Ellipses is the plural of ellipse, a conic section whose plane is not parallel to the axis, base, or generatrix of the intersected cone. (It's a freakin oval.)"
Indeed. Aside from the gramatical usage, there's a not-obscure Ellipse in Washington, D.C. Was someone here unaware of either usage? But an "elipse"? Tsk.
Posted by Gary Farber | Link to this comment | 02-25-05 5:50 PM
as usual typo editing (not even of grammatical variety) kills the thread. awesome.
Posted by textualist | Link to this comment | 02-25-05 6:53 PM
Actually, I think it's the next post up that's killed this thread. Ann Coulter can put a damper on anybody's fun. Worthless fucking bitch.
Posted by Walter Sobchak | Link to this comment | 02-25-05 7:42 PM
elipse.
e-lipse.
lipse. 'He was lipsing.' 'They were lipsing.'
Ok, but what does it mean?
ash
['They were lipsing about the place!']
Posted by ash | Link to this comment | 02-25-05 8:08 PM
where would Wittgenstein under this reading of Hegel?
(WWWS) what would wittgenstein say?
Posted by azad | Link to this comment | 02-25-05 10:08 PM
1. Someone already said "neologism," so I don't have to.
2. Back during the all-night boogie known as the Vietnam War it was sufficient to call it THE ESTABLISHMENT PRESS. Rightists know call it something like the main stream media. It's foolish, it's snarky, and worst of all, it's theirs.
Posted by Josh Narins | Link to this comment | 02-25-05 11:56 PM
1. Methinks that an oval can (must?) have straight sides, whereas an ellipse is round all the way 'round.
2. Daniel Davies has observed somewhere that MSM, the idiot right's favored abbreviation for "mainstream media," has a more longstanding use in epidemiological contexts for "men who have sex with men."
3. I like "craptacular." Maybe Simpsons-originated neologisms don't count.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 02-26-05 10:09 AM
On (2): I can't believe I didn't see that. I use the old use of MSM in some contexts-- for example, when describing ogged-- and I totally missed it. Damn.
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 02-26-05 10:13 AM
I came up with one (with some help from a friendly blogneighbor): precarious pinnacles. You can think of them as the opposite of slippery slopes. With a slippery slope, if you stray from the pure, extreme ideal then you risk gradually slipping away from your original position. With a precarious pinnacle, if you try to maintain the pure, extreme ideal then you risk suddenly falling far away from that position once the extreme version becomes untenable. Being unbending can raise your risk of breaking.
For instance, if you avoid all germs, then that could make you more susceptible to disease because your immune system isn't built up. Other examples involve disillusionment, with religion or with science.
On the more important issue at hand, I think that ovals usually (always?) are round, and that ellipses are ovals.
Posted by Blar | Link to this comment | 02-26-05 2:06 PM
"Mandatious" (to describe the Bush administration) is another of The Editors' notable contributions to the lexicon.
Posted by Kriston | Link to this comment | 02-27-05 10:20 PM
I think this might be an interesting verb:
Lydgate (v.t.): to write a negative review of academic work, esp. when a contributing factor to said review is frustration with one's own career.
(After Alaric Lydgate, a character in Barbara Pym's Less Than Angels who is known as a specialist in sarcastic reviews--one of his reviews elicits from the editor the thought "It is a pity to have three consecutive paragraphs beginning 'It is a pity.'")
The problem is that there would never be an occasion to use this verb, because I don't know anyone who would do such a thing.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 02-28-05 8:30 AM
Oh, my claim about ovals is not that all their sides are straight, but that some are: they have 2-4 straight sides joined by curves. An aerial photo of the oval racetrack at Daytona speedway. The Oval Office does seem to be an ellipse, though. So ellipses are a kind of oval, and bg was originally right.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 02-28-05 8:37 AM
What about "Patriotically Correct"?
Authorship uncertain.
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 02-28-05 10:53 AM