2007 Word of the Year

I love MLA time if for no other reason than that the American Dialect Society puts a halt to the high seriousness of linguistics in order to pronounce upon the state of the language and name the "Word of the Year." Last year's winner, "to pluto" (meaning "to demote or devalue someone or something"), while somewhat tame in comparison to an otherwise saucy field of candidates, captured an interesting and fundamentally contemporary lexicographical moment. This year's winner was, again, somewhat disappointing, though there can be no doubt that "subprime" had its comeuppance this year.

From the American Dialect Society press release:

“Subprime” Voted 2007 Word of the Year
by American Dialect Society

HILTON CHICAGO—JAN. 4—In its 18th annual words of the year vote, the American Dialect Society voted “subprime” as the word of the year. Subprime is an adjective used to describe a risky or less than ideal loan, mortgage, or investment. Subprime was also winner of a brand-new 2007 category for real estate words, a category which reflects the preoccupation of the press and public for the past year with a deepening mortgage crisis.

Here's a full recap of the nominees. Personally, I would have liked to have to seen "wide stance" take home the prize this year. But we surely have many Republican scandals to look forward to in 2008, and with them will naturally come the parsing of language that fuels this award. (I'd also like to give my personal thanks to whomever we have to thank for the nomination of "lolcats.")

—MOST USEFUL—
bacn: Impersonal email such as alerts, newsletters, and
automated reminders that are nearly as annoying as
spam but which one has chosen to receive.

celebu-: prefix Indicates celebrity, as in celebutard.
connectile dysfunction Inability to gain or maintain a
connection.

green-: prefix/compounding form Designates environmental
concern, as in greenwashing.

wrap rage: Anger brought on by the frustration of trying to
open a factory-sealed purchase.

—MOST CREATIVE—
boom: An instance of a military explosion in the phrases
left of boom, which describes the US military’s efforts
to root out insurgents before they do harm, and right of
boom, which describes efforts to minimize attacks with
better equipment, systems, and medical care.

Googleganger: Person with your name who shows up when
you google yourself.

lolcat: On the Internet, an odd or funny picture of a cat
given a humorous and intentionally ungrammatical
caption in large block letters.

tapafication: The tendency of restaurants to serve food in
many small portions.

—MOST UNNECESSARY—
Happy Kwanhanamas!: [Kwanza + Hanukka + Christmas]
Happy holidays!

truther: Someone who espouses a conspiracy theory about
the events of 9/11.

vegansexual: A person who eats no meat, uses no animal-
derived goods, and who prefers not to have sex with
non-vegans.

—MOST OUTRAGEOUS—
nappy-headed ho: An expression used on the Don Imus
radio show, and repeated by the host, about the
women’s basketball team at Rutgers University.
make it rain To drop paper money on a crowd of people,
especially in strip clubs, nightclubs, or casinos.

toe-tapper: A homosexual. Senator Larry Craig was
arrested in June for an encounter in a public restroom
in which toe-tapping was said to have been used as a
sexual come-on.

—MOST EUPHEMISTIC—
human terrain team: A group of social scientists employed
by the US military to serve as cultural advisers in Iraq
or Afghanistan.

shmashmortion/smushmortion: Abortion.

va-j-j Also va-jay-jay or vajayjay: The vagina.

—MOST LIKELY TO SUCCEED—
global weirding: An increase in severe or unusual
environmental activity often attributed to global
warming. This includes freakish weather and new
animal migration patterns.

green-: prefix/compounding form Designates environmental
concern, as in greenwashing.

Super-Duper Tuesday: Feb. 5th, the day 23 US states will
hold primary elections. Also known as Tsunami
Tuesday.

wide stance, to have a: To be hypocritical or to express two
conflicting points of view. When Senator Larry Craig
was arrested in a public restroom and accused of
making signals with his foot that police said meant he
was in search of a anonymous sex, Craig said it was a
misunderstanding and that he just had a wide stance
when using the toilet.

—LEAST LIKELY TO SUCCEED—
Billary/Hill-Bill: Bill and Hillary Clinton.

earmarxist: A congressman or senator who adds
earmarks—money designated for a particular person or
group—to legislation. Coined by the blog Redstate to
refer to Democrats.

quadriboobage: The appearance of having four breasts
caused by wearing a brassiere that is too small.

strand-in: Protest duplicating being stranded inside an
airplane on a delayed flight

strike beard: facial hair grown by talk show hosts during
the duration of the television writers’ strike.

—REAL ESTATE WORDS—
exploding ARM: An Adjustable Rate Mortgage whose rates
soon rise beyond a borrower’s ability to pay.

liar’s loan/liar loan: Money borrowed from a financial
institution under false pretenses, especially in the form
of a “stated income” or “no-doc” loan which can
permit a borrower to exaggerate income.

NINJA No Income, No Job or Assets: A poorly
documented loan made to a high-risk borrower.
scratch and dent loan A loan or mortgage that has become
a risky debt investment, especially one secured with
minimal documentation or made by a borrower who
has missed payments.

subprime: Used to describe a risky or poorly documented
loan or mortgage.

Thinking Outside the Box

A. Mitchel Fraas passes along a link from the Washington Post which suggests, once again, that Robots spoon-feeding the elderly is the solution to all our problems. (Either that, or the xenophobic fear of immigrants is fueling a boom in Japanese science fiction.)

Demographic Crisis, Robotic Cure?

TOKYO -- With a surfeit of the old and a shortage of the young, Japan is on course for a population collapse unlike any in human history.

What ails this prosperous nation could be treated with babies and immigrants. Yet many young women here do not want children, and the Japanese will not tolerate a lot of immigrants. So government and industry are marching into the depopulated future with the help of robots -- some with wheels, some with legs, some that you can wear like an overcoat with muscles.

Depictions of Chinese punishment

The NY Public Library has scans of an 1804 book from China that shows 22 engravings of common punishment methods of the day.

This one is called "Torturing the Fingers."

I was hoping for one called "simulated drowning" or even Chinese water torture, but no such luck. One wonders how many of these tactics are still used in China today.

Via BoingBoing.

Obama

Gerry Canavan brings us back to the moment that started it all.

"There's a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow"

BoingBoing has a post up today about a little gem at Disney World called the Carousel of Progress.

When I went to Disney World a few years ago with Kendra's family, the far-and-away best experience of the entire trip this odd blend of ride and show, which is the best-slash-worst-slash-best-again attraction at the Magic Kingdom. It's a little bit hard to describe (you really have to experience it), so allow me to quote wikipedia's page on it:

Steeped in nostalgia and futurism, the attraction's premise is an exploration the joys of living through the advent of electricity and other technological advances during the 20th century via a "typical" American family. [...]

The basic plot of the Carousel of Progress show has essentially remained unchanged since it debuted at the 1964 New York World's Fair. It is divided into six scenes, with the audience seats rotating between each scene around the stage mechanically within the outer part of the theater building. [...] The first and the last scenes are basically identical and involve the loading and unloading of guests. The other 4 scenes, or "acts", depict an Audio-Animatronic family, narrated by the father, interacting with the latest technology and innovations during a particular era. Not much is known about the family: we do not know their last name, where they live (aside from being somewhere in the United States), or if they ever change location. The family does not (nor are they meant to) age 100 years. They age 3-5 years as the show progresses, to demonstrate how slightly older individuals can better enjoy new technology. Also, each of the four scenes is set during a different season of the year, just for variety.

What makes the rise/show so wonderful, however, is that like a number of attractions at Disney World, it has scarcely been updated since it was unveiled. Where updates have been made, they betray a very temporally embedded flavor. So, the "future" is quite clearly the future as imagined by somebody in the 1980s--complete with Cosby sweaters and supposedly high tech video games. You can see, then, why BoingBoing, with its love of retro-futurism, would like such a ride. And as a fixture in "Tomorrowland," the absolutely ridiculous (and scary) animatronics, the dim vision of the creators, and lachrymose nostalgia of good ole America makes this an ironic anachronism in the Magic Kingdom.

I hope it never closes. The rumor is that Disney himself felt the same way.

Here are the pictures from BoingBoing, some Youtube videos, as well as Disney's official website for the ride (where you can order the DVD!).

Hucklebuck

Do not allow this man to be your next president.

December 30, 2007 on 'Meet the Press'

Via Atheist Media Blog.

Harper's Yearly

Too difficult to quote selectively, here's the Harper's Yearly Review.
Eight hundred ninety-nine U.S. troops and 18,610 Iraqi
civilians were killed in the Iraq War. Eighty percent of
Iraqis were reporting "attacks nearby" and it was
estimated that 90 percent of Iraq's artists had fled the
country or been killed. Halliburton announced that it
would add 13,000 jobs, and President George W. Bush
underwent a colonoscopy. In Venezuela, President Hugo
Chavez embraced President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of
Iran. "Welcome, fighter for just causes," said Chavez.
Senator Barack Obama was featured shirtless in People
Magazine's Beach Babes issue, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi
banned smoking in the Speaker's Parlor of the Capitol, and
Senator Hillary Clinton said that "we want to be able to
continue to export democracy, but we want to deliver it in
digestible packages." Viagra turned 15. Wildfires spread
from north of Los Angeles to south of San Diego, and
scientists at New York University were deleting
frightening experiences from the memories of rats. The
first Muslim member of Congress took his oath on a Koran
once owned by Thomas Jefferson. Annual sales at Taser
International were expected to reach $90 million.

Drought was driving tens of thousands of snakes into
Australian cities, female koalas in Australia were
ignoring males in favor of five-bear lesbian orgies, and
developers were planning to open a Hooters in
Dubai. Scientists in London were working on a gum that
suppresses appetite and fights obesity. "Obese people like
chewing," reasoned a researcher. The United States
projected that it would emit 19 percent more greenhouse
gases in 2020 than it did in 2000, and U.S. pollution was
cited as the reason that the Dutch are now taller than
Americans. The United Arab Emirates beat out the United
States to become the world's most wasteful country, Ford
posted a loss of $12.7 billion for 2006 (the largest in
its 103-year history and equivalent to the GDP of Jordan),
and General Motors announced it would open a new research
center in Shanghai to develop alternative fuels and
vehicles. Geneticist Craig Venter announced that he had
constructed a synthetic chromosome out of laboratory
chemicals, creating the first artificial life form on
Earth. Britney Spears shaved her head, and an appeals
court in Washington, D.C., ruled that the writ of habeas
corpus does not apply to prisoners at Guantanamo Bay,
Cuba. The market price for children in India slipped below
that of buffalo, and crystal meth was now available in
candy flavors.

Kurt Vonnegut, Norman Mailer, and Boris Yeltsin
died. Osama bin Laden turned 50 and the Senate doubled the
bounty on his head to $50 million. Ariel Sharon was still
alive. New stars were hatching near the head of
Orion. Paul Wolfowitz, Karl Rove, Alberto Gonzales, and
Tony Blair resigned. "[Blair] was the worst thing that
ever happened to Africa," said Bright Matonga, the deputy
information minister of Zimbabwe. "We hope that the
children of Iraq and Afghanistan he is killing everyday
will haunt him for the rest of his life." Reverend Ted
Haggard declared himself "completely heterosexual," and
Paris Hilton went to jail. An Irish soldier who won the
Military Cross for single-handedly defeating a Baghdad
suicide bomber was facing a court-martial for auctioning
his medal on eBay. Scientists trained dogs to track polar
bear feces, produced talking construction paper, made stem
cells out of adult mice, and linked the upsurge in cat sex
to global warming. Mr. Wizard died, as did
Mr. Whipple. Pope Benedict XVI decreed that, by
definition, Protestant churches are not churches, and it
was revealed that Mother Teresa, beginning in 1948 and
continuing until the end of her life in 1997, was unable
to sense the presence of God. "Repulsed--empty--no
faith--no love--no zeal," she wrote. "Heaven means
nothing." Detainees at Guantanamo Bay complained of
"infinite tedium and loneliness," and 20,000 people
marched against the junta in Burma; about 400 monks were
pushed away from the house where pro-democracy leader Aung
San Suu Kyi was imprisoned. "Love and kindness," read the
monks' yellow banner, "must win over everything."

Links from the sick bed

Two links from our man in the trenches, Mitch.

• A new study out of Duke University suggests that monkeys and college students--well, Duke undergrads, at any rate--are equals when it comes to mental math.
  
• An awesome, long term photo project called " Living My Life Faster - 8 years of JK's Daily Photo Project." Watch this one with the sound off.
  

Tuesday Links

Three nice links today from Harper's Weekly.

This week:

• President Bush pardoned 29 criminals, including carjackers, drug dealers, an election-laws violator, and a moonshiner.
• the American Bar Association named Attorney General Alberto Gonzales lawyer of the year.
• Vífill Atlason, a 16-year-old Icelandic high school student, was taken into custody by the police and questioned after he dialed President Bush's private number and, claiming to be the President of Iceland, asked to “chat” with Bush. “I don't see,” Atlason said, “how calling the White House is a crime.” [Bush, you just got punked!]
  
• And apparently Venezuela, constrained by temporal conformity, has permanently set its clock back half an hour, creating a country-specific time zone.

Art Class

Things are a bit slow in the blog-world today, and I'm not feeling especially ambitious today, so I will content myself with a simple art-related post.


Awhile back I did a couple of posts on modernist painters that I fully intended to make a routing, but I've fallen off the bandwagon, so to speak. Back then, I had intended to do a post on de Chirico, whose landscape paintings are eerie and somehow fascist in feeling. Rather than playing as the art critic today, I'll just post a link to his wiki page and bunch of images. Enjoy.

Giorgio de Chirico (July 10, 1888 – November 20, 1978) also known as Népo, was an influential pre-Surrealist Greek-Italian painter born in Volos, Greece, to a Genovese mother and a Sicilian father. He founded the scuola metafisica art movement.

Pleasures of Mass Destruction

You would think the pope would have better things to do than hyperbolize about the congruence between the mass death of Armageddon and two boys kissing. But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe that stodgy old bastard doesn't have anything to do but be alone with his thoughts.

Pope Says Abortion, Gay Marriage Are 'Obstacles' to World Peace

VATICAN CITY (RNS) Nuclear arms proliferation, environmental pollution and economic inequality are threats to world peace -- but so are abortion, birth control and same-sex marriage, Pope Benedict XVI said in a statement released by the Vatican Tuesday (Dec. 11).

Via Pandagon. Full link here.

Thursday morning tabla fun

Ravi Shankar, Alla Rakha - Tabla Solo in Jhaptal