Four more Words of the Year 🎉 New chat robot surpassing all expectations 🤖 Free book for English teachers 🕮
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Word of the Year 2022
And the winner is…
The Oxford word of the year 2022 is “goblin mode” (a type of behaviour which is unapologetically self-indulgent, lazy, slovenly, or greedy, typically in a way that rejects social norms or expectations). “Metaverse” came second, and “#IStandWith” came third. Here’s the official Oxford page about it, where they explain that they were surprised to get as many as 300,000 votes. Here’s an article for The Guardian (UK), and from The Washington Post (US), discussing it. I have noticed that the Oxford word of the year is the one that has received the most press around the world by far. Perhaps because Oxford is seen as the main authority on English? Because “goblin mode” tickles people’s imagination? Or did they just do a better job at promotion? Let me know if you know!
American dictionary Merriam Webster has also posted its word of the year: “gaslighting” (the act or practice of grossly misleading someone especially for one’s own advantage). Other notable mentions include “oligarch”, “LGBTQIA”, and “raid”.
In my last newsletter I reported that Australia’s word of the year had been chosen (“teal”), but I have now learned that Australia has two institutes that declare an Australian word of the year. The one from the last newsletter was by the National Dictionary Centre, but there’s also the Macquarie Dictionary. And the Macquarie Dictionary word of the year 2022 is…. “teal”. Yep. It’s the same word.
Macquarie also has a people’s choice award, which this year goes to “bachelor's handbag” (a roast chicken takeaway in a plastic bag). Gotta love the Australian inventiveness when it comes to English!
Julie Moore from Lexicoblog has her own suggestion for a word of the year 2022: “in-person” as a modifier in front of a noun. This has only recently become the standard way to clarify that a meeting will not be taking place online. (A clarification which itself was mostly unnecessary up until a few years ago!)
There’s more Words of the Year still to come, though! Grammar Girl Mignon Fogarty has reached the final stages of voting on Mastodon for her word of the year. And Australian proofreading and English training company Plain English Foundation is collecting votes for its worst word of the year. Join here.
American English
The word “y’all” is going mainstream, according to history professor David B. Parker.
I loved this thoughtful piece on the history and future of the American Scrabble dictionary, and American dictionaries in general. Are American dictionaries dying out? (This article is also an interesting read if you (like me) are not particularly into Scrabble.)
Susie Dent takes on the idea that many Brits have that their English is being overrun by Americanisms in UK newspaper The Scotsman.
Tech
If you are on Twitter or Mastodon, you will already have heard of ChatDPT, the new AI that people can talk to online that is giving quite amazing responses. Everyone is talking about it. I asked it to introduce itself below.
This blog post does a good job at explaining why the new chatbot is a big deal. You can also log in here and try it out yourself.
In other languagy tech news, this article from The Times (UK) about algospeak is worth it if you can get through the paywall. People who are being monitored by algorithms for whatever reason are inventing new language that the robots won’t recognise, like “seggs” for sex and “accountant” for sex worker.
Teaching English
If the kind of AI I discussed above becomes ubiquitous, it will be used for cheating. English teachers need to especially aware, as generating a good-quality, unique essay is a doddle with this software.
The UK-based teacher resource centre English and Media has released the book “English Allsorts” as a PDF for free. A 148-page PDF compendium of strategies to engage and challenge students from 11 to 18, drawing on over 30 years of the English and Media Centre’s work with teachers – all sorts of ideas for good, fun, do-able classroom activities. You can download it here. (This is the free book I mentioned in the title, in case you were looking for it.) There is also a free package of 10 remote learning lessons.
Nigeria has announced a policy aimed at promoting the teaching of primary school pupils in local languages rather than in English.
New Words
The Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction has added the verbed nouns “to fan” and “to fangirl”.
Cambridge has observed the new words “desk-bombing” (the activity of suddenly going to talk to someone who is working at their desk, rather than phoning them or sending them an email, seen by some people as impolite) and “warm bank” (a place such as a library, museum or other public building where someone can go to get warm in the winter if they cannot afford to heat their home, run as a public service by a town council, charity etc.)
Slang
In a rather elegant study, researchers found that over multiple languages, swear words are less likely to contain approximants (which are created with slight obstruction to the airflow, such as l, r, w, and y). The existing idea that swear words often contain plosives (consonant sounds made by completely blocking the flow of air as it leaves the body, such as p, t and k) seems to be true only for English.
Not new, but recently found by me: Jonathon Green aka 'Mr Slang'‘s timeline of slang. An amazingly elaborate overview of slang terms for various body parts, activities and people over the years and even centuries.
There is also his beautiful online dictionary of slang. I haven’t had time to have a good perusal, but it looks glorious.
Jonathon also has a substack newsletter. Check it out here.
Odds and ends
When a cartographer wrote "Name?" next to an Alaskan cape on his map to indicate it was yet unnamed, a colleague assumed his "a" was an "o," and thus "Nome" was born. Correct, Indiana, suffered a similar mis-Nomer when a postmaster requested the name "Comet," but it was misread as "Correct." - “Word guy” Rob Kyff on the sometimes remarkable origins of place names
Every single surviving letter written by Charles Darwin is now online. There are more than 15000 of them.
Perhaps Darwin was so successful because he wrote all those letters by hand? According to this well-sourced article, writing by hand is the best way to commit information to memory.
Here’s an article on why Irish people never say what they mean.
Rohitha Naraharisetty writes for The Swaddle why a ‘neutral’ English accent erases Indian history.
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Picture courtesy of flickr.com/photos/wonderlane