TUMBLR
A scrapbook of stuff I'm reading / looking at / listening to / thinking about...
Posts tagged "words"
From Grant Barrett of A Way With Words:
MIKE DROP OR DROP THE MIKE Literally, to drop a microphone on the floor in a showy way when finished with speaking or singing, especially after an outstanding performance. Figuratively, to quit a job or undertaking after an outstanding performance, especially when failure was predicted.
SWAG A stylish and confident demeanor or attitude. A shortening of “swagger.” This term has been used in recent years but became huge this summer following its repeated use in pop songs and by large numbers of (mainly) young men. Its popularity has since fallen.
YOLO An acronym for “You Only Live Once.” Used as an interjection when someone is considering doing something risky or ill-advised. The expression took off this year after the hip-hop star Drake’s song “The Motto” became a hit in 2011.
helpmeet
OED definition:
helpmate (also helpmeet)
noun
a helpful companion or partner, esp. one’s husband or wife.ORIGIN late 17th cent. (as helpmeet): from an erroneous reading of Gen. 2:18, 20, where Adam’s future wife is described as “an help meet for him” (i.e., a suitable helper for him). The variant helpmate came into use in the early 18th cent.
Found in this article on W.B. and George Yeats:
Always drawn to unconventional and highly intelligent women, Yeats had dreamt of a wife who would be an intellectual helpmeet.
A few panels from Scott McCloud’s essential classic, Understanding Comics
via comicallyvintage : via
The Words episode of Radiolab (iTunes link) features an interesting segment on how Shakespeare behaved like a language chemist, combining words like elements. The relevant story starts at 22:00 in of the episode.According to James Shapiro, a Shakespeare scholar at Columbia, the un- prefix is something Shakespeare created (at least he was the first to use it in print or on stage). That means he invented the words unaware, uncomfortable, undress, uneducated, unwillingness, unsolicited, and unreal. Also, words like madcap and eyeball. That’s right, the word eyeball didn’t actually exist until Shakespeare came up with it.
We forget sometimes that words are as integral to the cartooning arts as pictures…
It’s almost impossible to imagine a world without words. But in this hour of Radiolab, we try to do just that. We speak to a woman who taught a 27-year-old man the first words of his life, and we hear a firsthand account of what it feels like to have the language center of your brain wiped out by a stroke. Plus: a group of children invent an entirely new language in Nicaragua in the 1970s.
Image: Licorice Fill-In Expressions by Enokson
