Thursday, May 25, 2006

Usage in speech - nouns as verbs

I will confess to the fact that I occasionally verb nouns. But I do it intentionally and with the understanding that said noun is acceptable as a verb (or for fun, like "I just APAed those references."). There are those however who do it without knowing they're wrong, like a certain someone in my office who just used the phrase "amount up to," as in "This document can only amount up to 60 pages." Whatthe?

I was recently at an editors' refresher course where we spent a bit of time talking about mistakes vs. transitions in English usage. The usage of "they" as opposed to "he or she" seems to be making its way into modern usage, as is using NOUNS as VERBS. For example: to partner with, to factor in. The funny thing is that those two examples don't bother me in the slightest. However, I'm sure it does bother other people who were taught that these were incorrect, just like "amount up to" REALLY bothers me. It's all about at what stage of transition you were first taught. I bet few of you are bothered by using "you" in place of "thou" as a plural pronoun.

I'm finding recently that I really enjoy linguistics. I've been formally educated more in the linguistics of French than English I think. I had a great French grammar professor in college who told all sorts of fun stories about the evolution of the language. A fun example: the word for head in French is "tete." This came from the Latin "testa," or vessel, and my professor joked that this was because the Romans thought the French had empty heads. Though I guess this is etymology and not linguistics. Details!!

expergefaction

From the Oxford University Press's Erin's Weird and Wonderful Word of the Day:

expergefaction: waking up, from a Latin word meaning 'make awake.' Alarm clocks could be called expergefactors.

Jen shall now use this word in a sentence (will that "make it mine?"):

Expergefaction is not one of my stronger skills, and often requires coffee.

Thursday, May 18, 2006

QC and the editress (Josie and the Pussycats?)

This has nothing to do with Josie and the Pussycats. I must say that while sometimes a bit of mindless QC work is a good way to work mindlessly after a long, trying day's work, doing ONLY QC all day long is not my ideal work situation. I have my little list of jobs in my notebook here--QC, QC, QC--and it's frustrating. How do people deal with down time? I know I could be reading style guides but honestly, who wants to do that when the day has already proved to be full of brain sludge. That's a rhetorical question so I chose not to use a question mark. ;)

So, I'm sitting here with a coffee and a diet coke (oh the choices!), trying to amuse myself by watching CNN videos and pondering life. I guess this post really qualifies as a musing of an editress, though I don't feel like an editress at the moment. I feel like a lump in a cube. Maybe two lumps. Speaking of "editress," I KNOW it's not a real word, and I should just be ashamed of myself for being an editor and screwing with words in the most fundamental part of my EDITING blog. But I thought it was funny, and I sort of like the fact that in French, you can use the masculine or feminine version of ANY descriptive title: acteur-actrice, edtudiant-etudiante, avocat-avocate, editeur-editrice... well maybe I'm exxagerating. I'm not sure if editrice is a real word either, but at least the construction is far more common in French than in English. In English I'd almost prefer there to not be ANY distinction, because there are so few. You know, an actor is an actor is an actor.

Wednesday, May 03, 2006

Comic-Book Superrman Impervious To Copyediting

In the Onion:

Comic-Book Superrman Impervious To Copyediting

May 3, 2006 | Issue 42•18

NEWARK—Executives at DCC Comics have announced the debut of comic-book character Superrman, whose invulnerability to copyediting protects him from nefarious outside forces and intellectual-property lawsuits. "Thrill to the exploits of Superrman, the only child of a doomed plant! Gasp in awe at his Superr-Strength, X-Roy Vision, and his ability to leap mall buildings in a single bounce!" read a press release issued by DCC. "Superrman's only weakness? His vulnerability to Cryptonight… and his star-crossed love for sassy, sexy, trouble-prone reporter Louis Lane!" The editors of Superrman say the comic book will be released alongside those of other popular DCC characters such as Wander Woman, the Flush, and Batdan.

Musing on spelling

"It's a damn poor mind that can only think of one way to spell a word."
-- Andrew Jackson

Tuesday, May 02, 2006

Starling songs in the news: Origins of language?

I've had a bit of a thing for starlings since I found an audio clip online of a starling repeating its owners' entire phone ringing/answering machine message/beep sequence. I read that they are illegal to sell as pets because they were introduced illegally to the country, but if you take one from a nest it's yours. There are so many starlings in DC that I don't really see why this rule needs to be in place anymore, but whatever. I looked for that audio clip again but I only found something similar: starling speak. (Note: I think this site may be pretty busy because of the NYT article, and people doing what I'm doing: Googling.) I sent this to Ben because I think it's funny. I was surprised to see today this article in New York Times about starlings giving us more information about the origins of language. It seems that the starlings could understand better grammar than monkeys. Of course, scientists are having little egotistical brain wars over whether this is actually important to the evolution of human language. I just think starlings are neat.