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Every year Lake Superior State University bans a bunch of words and phrases from the English language for good. They just released their list today and, I must say, it is amazing. Oh wait, we can't say "amazing" anymore. More »
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The Marist College Institute for Public Opinion has done its annual survey and declared "whatever" the "word or phrase considered to be the most annoying in casual conversation" in 2011. Right. Ummm... sure. I mean... whatever. More »
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Seems like it was only last week when we decided that we needed to come up with a new word for "bro." What a journey it's been. More »
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Yesterday we asked you, the professional etymologists that make up the vast bulk of the Gawker readership, to suggest a new word to replace "bro," so that we may be freed from the yoke of having to called people "bro," as we do now on a regular basis. More »
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Bros. They're here. They're bros. Get used to it. They're not, however, poetic. "Bro." It sounds like an Eastern European cough. Can you think of a better word for these creatures? More »
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Since late 2007, an obscure Twitter account has been automatically tweeting a single word every half an hour. The ultimate goal: to tweet every word in the English language. We spoke to the guy behind Everyword. More »
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How do talk about 9/11, ten years later? What stories do we tell? What ideas grab us? We made a word cloud of editorials from 15 prominent local and national papers to see what came up. More »
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The Oxford Dictionaries Online has apparently added the popular internet exclamation "ZOMG" (short for Zak Orth's Mating Grounds) to its big list of words. They've also included "NSFW" (Nudie Sex Fisting Women) and "Twittersphere." Oh brother. I mean, they're citing them as abbreviations and informal words and stuff, not actual King's English, but still. What an age we live in! More »
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The Oxford Dictionaries Online have added a "buttload" of new words, many of which are related to the internet and texting. Yes, "buttload" is one. So is "sexting." Now we're never going to get rid of that horrible word. There are more. More »
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How did President Obama rally the nation last night with his Newt Gingrich-lifted slogan, "Winning the Future"? Are inspired 12-year-olds across the nation already building electric cars from algae? Perhaps. But mostly, people just remember Obama's "salmon" joke. More »
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After Chris Brown called Raz B a "butplugged" "homothug," Raz's brother Ricky Romance threatened Chris with murder. Now Ricky's burying the hatchet, and his Jabberwock-like apology—featuring words like "fallaciloquences," "eclaircise," and "humgruffin"—is a work of art. More »
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Merriam-Webster.com announced today that austerity was their most looked-up word in 2010, ahead of pragmatic, moratorium, and, gasp!, socialism. Fitting that people are looking for austerity in these penny-pinched times. "With great austerity, Sarah Palin boundered across the Alaskan tundra..." More »
]]> http://gawker.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5715429&view=rss&microfeed=true The word "information" got a very long overhaul in the latest Oxford English Dictionary revision. More »
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New York City high school teacher Carlos Garcia was suspended and fined $15,000 for saying "coño" in his class — a Spanish word that can be taken several very different ways. He's suing the city and denies saying it. More »
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Where did Hunter S. Thompson get the word "gonzo?" The accepted story's always been that it was a bit of Boston slang that a Boston newspaper editor first hung on Thompson. But—suck it Boston—that may be a myth! More »
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This beautiful video of sounds and pictures is super pretty and made entirely of found YouTube video clips. It comes to us as a follow-up to their original "Words" video. One man's trash is another man's mashup. More »
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The new Google Instant tries to guess what you're searching for while you type. But not if it thinks your search is dirty. Some enterprising people have compiled an exhaustive list of words and phrases Google Instant won't auto-search for. More »
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I am pleased to announce that vagina tattoos are officially mainstream, with a how-to video on YouTube and blog posts here, here, and here. Unfortunately, the internet keeps calling it a "vatoo," when the superior term is clearly "twattoo." More »
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Clash of the Titans is finally open! But friends and reviewers told me that the 3D version is a rip off. But what about the "regular" version? Well, I might check it out if it had a better name. More »
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Hipsters are dead. Long(?) live Fauxhemians. More »
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The thoroughly unwarranted level of interest in finding word to replace "hipster" has reached a fever pitch! We gave you 20 options to choose from. The top five vote-getters are below. This vote will determine everything. So, vote. More »
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You hipsters really came through. We asked for a new slur to replace "hipster," and nearly a thousand of you (presumably unemployed) commenters made suggestions. Jesus. We've narrowed it down to 20. Cast your vote below. More »
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Okay. Yes. We said we were going to ban the god damn word "hipster," but we have lapsed. Mea culpa, and shit. The real problem is that there's not a pithy replacement word. That's where you come in. More »
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Remember High Society? It's that Tinsley Mortimer reality show that's most notable for Jules Kirby, a drunken partygirl who says bad things about blacks, Jews, and gays. Now she's claiming that the CW put those words in her mouth. More »
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While we're fine with people using the word "retard" liberally, there are some words, phrases, and linguistic constructions that are so tired and lazy they need to be ended. Here are a few things that drive us mad. More »
]]> http://gawker.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5480270&view=rss&microfeed=true "Retard." It is still legal to say it. But should it be? More »
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First Rahm Emanuel called a plan he didn't like 'fucking retarded.' Then Sarah Palin called for his resignation. Then he apologized and made nice. Now a Department of Justice job advertisement welcomes applicants with 'mental retardation'. More »
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What a wonderful summer it has been, for fans of the dragged-out meltdowns of prominent Republican politicians! We should perhaps pause to recognize the contributions John Ensign, Mark Sanford, and Sarah Palin have made to our American language. More »
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Voicemail is totally dead. It takes too much listening. Is this just some fancy notion, or the truth? Either way, it's a New York Times trend story, blammo! More »
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Academics remove themselves to ivory towers to puzzle over hard problems. But their isolation sometimes leads to hilarious results — like the discovery that "bad" and "dirty" are endangered linguistic species. More »
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America hated the first "bailout," according to pollsters. Until pollsters described it without using the term "bailout," which made Americans much more supportive of it. So Barack Obama's multi-billion dollar economy-saving expenditure plans were soon referred to as "stimulus packages," which connotes happy visions of Bush sending everyone checks for a few hundred bucks. But now that isn't good enough for whiny Americans either! So please enjoy your economic recovery program, everyone! More »
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Meh, the unimpressed expression of "who cares" coined on The Simpsons, has now officially entered the lexicon. It's being listed in the Collins English Dictionary! In these crazy times of war and crumbling economy it could have been some dread-filled "word" like ZOMG that got the honor, or it may have been a Hope and Change rally word like Obamamania (well, all right, that would never happen, but still). I guess it speaks to a young generation defined not by apathy exactly, but by a sense that we're (they're?) not supposed to be easily impressed, that this dismissive, tarty little word made the list. More »
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One way to not have an intelligent discussion about race these day is to use the term "colored" to describe black people. It's antiquated and grampa-ish, like saying "Oriental" or "cripple." I think you're allowed to say "person of color" but not "colored." (Right?) So it's too bad to see that some big-time celebrities are using the term while trying to sound progressive and One Worldy. Both lesbians and the British alike. More »
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So weird orange rutabaga Blayne, from the new season of Project Runway, likes to nance around the design room saying "girlicious," among other annoying things. He seems to be reeeeally pushing it as a catchphrase (though, he didn't coin it). This has incurred the wrath of last season's fitfully gay catchphrase machine Christian Siriano, who more organically wove "fierce," "tranny," "hot mess," and various combinations of the three into the fabric of the New York fashionista vernacular. Though, you know, "fierce" was there way before little mister monkey man Siriano came chimping along. As were the other two. I guess he just used them more effectively than people before him, or something. What fucking ever, he doesn't like Blayne's lame "forced" word and he's not afraid to say so. Watch a video, from Popwrap, of Christian doing just that after the jump. Oh, and that new collection of his? Already sold out. How rude, tranny. You got it, girlicious. Cowatranny! Or, um, Eat my hot mess. Ew. Wait. Um, one more. Life is like a box of trannies. Does that work? More »
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Just as the late, great George Carlin had his wonderful 7 Words You Can't Say on Television bit, comedian Max Silvestri now knows of 20 or so words that one just cannot say on Verizon's VCast cellphone television programming. Silvestri (of the delightful Gabe and Max's Internet Thing) attempted to say the word "choad" on a podcast that was to be distributed to mobile companies. Curious as to why that word, out of so many, was singled out, he went in search of Information. He was eventually given a detailed list of inappropriate content and verbiage that will be censored, including the ultimate list of 20 "Level 0" no-no words that can never, under any circumstances slip from the lips on VCast. That list includes the obvious "n-word" variations (but, apparently, other racial slurs are A-OK?) and the typical group of naughty sexual terminology. Makes sense, fair enough. But um, why make the "cornhole"/"corn-hole" distinction? And what in green acres is a "Ruby Red Bag"? Oh, it's this. Check out the full list after the jump, and perhaps add your own colorful words in the comments! More »
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Yes, there was one in the headline! Good job. Clichés are so tempting to bloggers because we have so much great stuff to write and we want to get it out right away. And using words like "internets" makes us feel like part of a superior in-crowd, even if that's a crowd that includes Adam Sandler. Gawker banned the worst phrases over a year ago, but since then we've found much more. This time we're also adding good clichés, like "sad." More »
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There is a charming story that Malcolm Gladwell has told over and over again about how he used to try to sneak funny phrases into the newspaper he worked for, back when he was a journalist and not yet a personality. Turns out everyone's done it! Michael Scherer, currently with Time, explains that when he was working at an unnamed newspaper bureau in Easthampton, Mass, he and his "colleague" would try to sneak "obscure 10-dollar word[s]" into their copy. The best he ever did was "dun." But the dude who wrote noted Scrabble champion William F. Buckley's obit for the Times got his Roget's on and used "Sesquipedalian" in an A1 headline. Jesus, journalists need hobbies. What happened to drinking and fucking again? [Swampland] More »
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One reason getting older isn't so bad is that at the end of every year, one gets to watch as the Times trots out words coined in the year previous, courtesy of Gawker pal Grant Barrett. Who really can complain of an increased risk of prostate cancer, a few more wrinkles and a lack of stamina while words like "gorno" "life-stream" and "mobisode" made the passage of time worth it? On the other hand, none of these words mean what they sound like they mean. More »
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In tomorrow's "On Language" column (not yet online), the linguist William Safire concludes that "In borrowing, as speakers of Standard English do, cool words and phrases from hip-hop and rap ('You the man!' 'You go, girl!'), we should recognize the savvy sociopolitical methods behind its dialectical formulations." Which is to say, those people/rappers are not just making random sounds after all. What brought about this revelation? An e-mail from an English professor at Florida Gulf Coast University, who thought it was pretty funny that her students were using phrases like "back in the day" and "old school" in reference to things like the first-generation iPod. Intrigued, Safire took the ball and ran it all the way down, tapping not one, not two, but three "serious students of hip-hopese" to explain the phenomenon. More »
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