In addition to the already posted locavore from the New Oxford American Dictionary (Vote for Webster’s 2007 Word of the Year; Visual Dictionary) and w00t! from Merriam-Webster (Merriam-Webster’s 2007 Word of the Year), the latter from an online poll:

• Webster’s New World Dictionary named grass station and
• the American Dialect Society voted subprime as words of the year.

Grass station (a gas/petrol station for ethanol, perhaps made from switch grass) is clever, but I doubt it would ever be a serious word.

Subprime (as in “subprime mortgage”) has certainly been in the news a lot in the United States. I suppose it will be around a long time unless the laws change; has anyone had a need to say “junk bond” since the late 1980s?

Meanwhile, until January 31, 2008, you can vote for Australia’s Macquarie Dictionary 2007 word of the year.

I’d like to point out a couple of omissions in the Macquarie Dictionary entries.

Helengrad

noun NZ Colloquial (humorous) Wellington, seen as controlled by the government of Prime Minister Helen Clark. [Helen Clark + -grad common Russian ending meaning `town']

Helengrad isn’t just Helen + -grad; it’s clearly a blend of Helen and [Sta]lingrad and perhaps to a lesser extent of [Len]ingrad.

data smog

noun electronic information as by emails, internet searches, etc., which, by its volume, impairs performance and increases stress.

Data smog is most likely based on the accessible data cloud (popularmechanics.com/technology/industry/4205068.html?page=2) [EDIT (6/7/10): revised content on linked page] of all your digital stuff (a different meaning at Wikipedia, a way of visually displaying data).

See also my posts:
Webster’s (and Webster’s) 2006 Word of the Year
American Dialect Society Word of 2006
Macquarie Dictionary 2006 Word of the Year, Australianisms surveys

Here are some links about a variety of dialects of English:

• Recording Highland Scots Cromarty fisher dialect (20 short audio interviews of octogenarians Bobby and Gordon Hogg)
• Compiling a Yorkshire dictionary (including the terms attercop, ettle, and pafalled)
• Revising a Canadian dictionary (lengthy article, including laying claim to the terms Generation X, insulin, and possibly light bulb)
• Remembering American old-time diner slang (heralddemocrat.com/articles/2006/12/06/local_news/news13.txt) [EDIT (6/6/10: dead link] (not really a dialect but amusing, including the terms nervous pudding, put a hat on it, and dough well done with cow to cover)

See also:
BBC Voices UK-dialect recordings

Given the complete lack of coverage by any print, television, or online source, you’re probably unaware that the seventh and final Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Bloomsbury Publishing), went on sale today.

In honor of this pop-culture event, I’ll offer two Harry Potter language-related items.

1. A couple of fans did a line-by-line British/American text comparison of the first book, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone [U.K. original: Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone], such as American:

• “on [in] the next street”
• “had gotten [had got] the new computer”
• “almost bald except for his bangs [fringe]“
• “make him and your father even [quits]“
• “This needs [want] thinking about”

2. French fans who want to use Harry Potter for English learning or want to discuss the books with English-speaking fans can now get help from the Dictionnaire Harry Potter Anglais-Français, with over 3,600 English-to-French terms from Harry Potter volumes 1-6.

According to this article:

Thus “namby-pamby” means “gnagnan” in French and “nutter” becomes “cingle”, but notions from within the Potter-world such as “muggle” or “quidditch” are not listed.

Vive le muggle!

Last month U.K. dictionary publisher Collins (site) came out with its ninth edition, including some recent words.

Now U.S. dictionary publisher Merriam-Webster (site) has released its 2007 update.

The U.K. words don’t move me one way or the other, but a few of the U.S. words bothered me. To wit:

Hardscape (benches and such in landscaping): Aren’t trees pretty hard? And have you heard of rocks?

Microgreen (celery shoots, etc.): What’s wrong with shoots? They don’t even seem small enough to deserve “micro.”

Viewshed: Is this actually different from view or vista?

I’ve never heard or seen any of these words used. We’ll see how common they become.

Coming soon, from the people who brought you sickie (“sick day”; see my November post: MS Office embraces Australianisms):

British regional dialect words for Microsoft Office 2007 products.

You can offer your suggestions to judge Jonathan Robinson, curator of English accents and dialects at The British Library (site) via E-mail: dialect at microsoft dot com.

Speaking of The British Library, you can listen to British dialects (with Windows Media Player) from the archive:

Sounds Familiar?

See also:

• (British) English Translated For Americans
• The English-to-American Dictionary

For all your high-seas skulduggery needs:

The Pirate Primer: Mastering the Language of Swashbucklers and Rogues
by George Choundas
ISBN: 978-1-58297-489-7
$19.99, hardcover, 484p

This book is not only a dictionary but a grammar as well with examples from historical and fictional writings about pirates. From publisher Writer’s Digest Books (wdeditors.com/wordpress/spring-2007-titles/the-pirate-primer) [EDIT (6/4/10): dead link]:

This is the authoritative work on the subject, containing and explicating every distinctive term, phrase, usage, and speech structure uttered by or attributed to pirates in film, television, literature, and historical accounts over the last threee [sic] centuries. Every entry in the Primer is accompanied by an illustrative historical example of pirate speech or dialogue. Thus, the user sees the contents of the Primer deployed in actual context by actual pirates. This use of excerpts mobilizes the same instructional benefits of the immersion method considered so effective in foreign-language training. However, it also serves to remind the user that the pirate language is, and always and most importantly, a way to tell stories about pirates and ourselves.

This book sounds like fun for people who like depth (all the way down to Davy Jones’s locker!) and illustrative examples. However, I have to take issue with this claim:

This use of excerpts mobilizes the same instructional benefits of the immersion method considered so effective in foreign-language training.

No, it doesn’t.

1. Some examples are from the book Treasure Island and other fictional pirate speech. You aren’t necessarily learning a language variety that anyone ever spoke.
2. To get a beneficial language immersion, you would have to go live somewhere that has actual old-fashioned British pirates conversing a lot and to desire to interact with them. Reading examples (some of them fictional) in a book that doesn’t even have sound files can help you learn some phrases and grammatical structures, but you won’t be immersed in a linguistic-cultural community.
3. Language learners aren’t all the same. Some people are very analytical and learn languages better through study than through immersion. (However, through immersion very young children can naturally acquire a new language like a native speaker, including accent.)

Also, if this is a primer, by definition it contains first principles; it wouldn’t be a “comprehensive book on pirate language,” as is claimed above the long quote I included.

With all that said, however, The Pirate Primer looks to be the most thorough guide you could have.

Abbreviated Table of Contents:

FOREWORD
INTRODUCTION

PART I: WHAT TO SAY

CHAPTER 1 GREETINGS & PARTINGS
CHAPTER 2 CALLS
CHAPTER 3 FLOURISHES
CHAPTER 4 COMMANDS
CHAPTER 5 THREATS
CHAPTER 6 OATHS
CHAPTER 7 CURSES
CHAPTER 8 INSULTS
CHAPTER 9 EPITHETS
CHAPTER 10 RESPECTFUL ADDRESS
CHAPTER 11 RETORTS
CHAPTER 12 QUESTIONS & REPLIES
CHAPTER 13 TOASTS AND DECLAMATIONS
CHAPTER 14 CONTRACTIONS
CHAPTER 15 ARRGH
CHAPTER 16 CULTURAL TERMS

PART II: HOW TO SAY IT

CHAPTER 17 PRONUNCIATION
CHAPTER 18 WRONG TALK
CHAPTER 19 CONVERSIONS
CHAPTER 20 STRUCTURAL FORMS
CHAPTER 21 FUNCTIONAL FORMS
CHAPTER 22 PARTS OF SPEECH

APPENDIXES

APPENDIX A OPENERS, MIDDLERS & CLOSERS
APPENDIX B SOUND LIST
APPENDIX C PIRATE COMPANY ARTICLES

See also my post:
Arrr! Talk Like a Pirate Day 2006 [September 19th]
and:
Talk Like a Pirate Day Official Site

Here are two youth-slang quizzes you can try:

• a U.S. one and
• a U.K. one.

On the U.S. one, I missed two out of twenty. On the U.K. one, I missed eight out of ten. I’m familiar with some of the U.S. words, but I’ve never heard of any of the U.K. ones. But then, I’m fairly new to being aware of the latter’s established slang like chuffed (“very pleased”) and knackered (“exhausted,” “damaged”; via The Office [UK]).

U.S. youth slang

• a beat box: Why, I remember back in the olden days of the early ’90s when we called this a human beat box, as opposed to a beat box (“portable stereo”).
• to chunk the deuce: I get the “two” fingers, but “chunk”?
• a dot-gone: probably for the post-teen crowd
• fives
• to gank
• ginormous adj.: This has become pretty common.
• a grade digger: I don’t like this because it sounds like it comes from “grave digger,” not “gold digger.”
• Hasselhoffing n.
• a jabroni
• a January joiner
• LOL: This is well established. But if you aren’t laughing out loud, aren’t you smiling?
• sauce adj.
• a serial chiller
• to shop naked
• a soul patch: This was recently added to America’s Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary.
• to tag
• Texas tea: This is used in the theme song to the 1962 TV show The Beverly Hillbillies. Is the term making a comeback?
• to trip: This is another dephrasing of a phrasal verb (trip out), like cave (cave in, figuratively), freak (freak out), chill (chill out), crank it (crank it up), etc.
• unprotected sleep
• to wig: This is yet another dephrasing of a phrasal verb (wig out).

U.K. youth slang

• bare adj.
• to bosh
• chenzed adj.
• confuzzled adj.
• dekecking n. I’m guessing keck means “trousers.” (Nope, it’s kecks.)
• fetch adj.: From the U.S. movie Mean Girls. I assume the word is from the old-fashioned fetching.
• a flim
• a grimmer
• gopping adj.
• hollage n.
• a McFittie
• a meg
• moobs n.
• p . . . [followed by] . . . orn adj. [Sorry, I get enough of that kind of spam-comment here already without including such terms in posts.]

For British youth slang, see also:

• From the mouths of teens
• BBC – Lancashire – Fun Stuff – Ludicrous lists

Word of the year

The overall winner of Australia’s Macquarie Dictionary Word of the Year contest (see prior post: Vote for 2006 Macquarie Dictionary Word of the Year) has been announced.

May I have the envelope, please?

For being “the most valuable contribution to the English language in 2006,” the winner is . . .

muffin top
(bulge of midriff fat accentuated by tight pants/trousers or skirt).

Muffin top may originally be an Australianism that has spread far and wide.

Winners in categories and discussion

If you don’t follow the Word of the Year awards season closely, you may be unaware that muffin top was a nominee for the 2005 American Dialect Society Word of the Year back in January 2006, in the category Most Creative (PDF file).

Muffin top lost back then to the admittedly stronger contender whale tail (visible thong underwear from a low-slung waistband). Never discount the appeal of rhyming. But muffin top applauded heartily when the winner was announced, at least when the cameras were on it.

After whale tail then lost the overall 2005 award to truthiness, muffin top and whale tail were seen at a gala after-party in good spirits (and wines), chatting away about their mutual interests: drawing attention to the midsection of the body and world peace. Then they went and found truthiness‘s car and slashed the tires.

See also my posts:

American Dialect Society Word of 2006

Webster’s (and Webster’s) 2006 Word of the Year

Australian English Monthly Surveys

The Macquarie Dictionary also wants to survey Australian English speakers every month about their use of Australianisms: Survey 1. I’m curious whether milk run is an Australianism. I think it’s a broader World War II Allies term for a bomber mission or other trip finished without incident.

If you missed out on other 2006 word of the year votes, there’s still time in Australia. Macquarie Dictionary has voting in various categories until midnight on Sunday, January 21, 2007 (presumably Sydney’s Australian Eastern Daylight Time, GMT +11).

Look for “the most valuable contribution to the English language in 2006 in each category.”

I don’t want to influence your voting, but I have to point out a one thing.

Spaghettini? That’s been around for years and years. Is it new to Australia or in the news there? It’s in America’s 2002 Webster’s New World College Dictionary (4th ed.). While we’re on the subject, I found out the thickness goes spaghetti (“little cords”) as the thickest, then spaghettini (“little little cords”), then vermicelli (“little worms”), then angel-hair pasta.

I posted a few months ago (Standard Appalachian English) about the English dialect of the Appalachian Mountains of the Eastern United States. A new article (citizen-times.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061217/LIVING07/612170301/1031/ENT) [EDIT (5/30/10): dead link] has the same themes of linguistic prejudice and preservation but also contains some Southern Appalachian vocabulary.

Observations

“Dropped consonants: Going becomes goin’ or a’goin’.”

There’s no dropped consonant here (except in writing). The sound that is a back-of-the-mouth (soft palate/velum) nasal is instead a front-of-the-mouth (gum ridge/alveolar ridge) nasal. Nothing is missing with the pronunciation -in’ any more than anything is missing with the standard pronunciation of “phone book” as “phome book.” We just don’t have a letter for ng because it started out as merely the pronunciation of n before g (finger).

“Holped: Helped.”

Help is a regular verb in Modern English (help-helped-helped), but it used to be irregular (help-holp-holpen), as it still is in Modern German (helfen-half-geholfen). They’ve just regularized it with the -ed.

“Afeared: Afraid.”

Afeared was used in Shakespeare. As with holped, a form that has dropped out of the emerging standard has been retained by another variety of the language.