January 2009
2 posts
Contraction: Neckwear accessories
English 1.x: Neckwear accessories
English 2.0: Neckcessories
Example: “I need to buy a tie clip; do you know of a store that sells neckcessories?”
There has been a lot of discussion about this one, so this should be considered an early beta. There’s been some heated debate between two factions who favor “Neckcessories” and “Accnecksories”, and...
Contraction: Compelling Melancholy
English 1.x: Compelling melancholy
English 2.0: Compellancholy
Example: “Upgraded to Acela fake first class. Compellancholy of NYC in the rain much easier to enjoy knowing you will make it out.” (Wonkette via Twitter)
Comment: A great example of synergy here. We were able to repurpose some of the technology developed for “compel-o-vision” and use it here. This saves...
May 2008
3 posts
Contraction: half an afternoon
English 1.x: half an afternoon
English 2.0: halfternoon
Example: “My boss is giving me a halfternoon per week off so I can go ride my bike.”
Contraction: drawing opportunities
English 1.x: drawing opportunities
English 2.0: drawpportunities Example: “I brought my pad and pencils to the meeting because I thought there might be some drawpportunities.”
Sponsored Message: The next time you have drawpportunities, consider a Wacom Penabled® device! For more information, go to www.wacom.com.
Waelcom!
Over the next several months we are going to be announcing a series of sponsorship and consulting partnerships with major national and international organizations. These partnerships provide an amazing opportunity for us to do real-world AES research while generating much-needed funding for the Institute.
We’re thrilled to announce our first of these partnerships, with pen computing...
April 2008
8 posts
Contraction: Compelling Television
English 1.0: Compelling Television
English 1.9 SP1: Compellivision
English 2.0: Compel-o-vision
Example: Man… Battlestar, The Wire, Rome, The Shield… this is the golden age of compel-o-vision.
Many or One, Continued: More Cars
We got a lot of letters about our Lexus entry the other day - there seem to be a lot of car buffs out there in the AES world!
Most people were curious about the plural of their particular make of car. I’m sorry to say that we don’t have an exhaustive list yet - we hope to publish one this fall as a joint effort with our friends at Consumer Reports for their fall auto issue. I can...
Many or One?
English 1.x is filled with words that fail to convey their form as either singular or plural: Milk, scissors, rice, and many others. This leads to confusion and suffering. Sure, you have milk, but how many? One? Four million? We just don’t know.
Fortunately, advances here at the institute will finally put an end to this problem.
English 1.x: milk
English 2.0 Plural: milkken
English 2.0...
Contraction: "Female Bee"
English 1.x: female bee
English 2.0: beemale
Example: “Beemales also collect the pollen to feed to their larvae.” (Wikipedia)
Note: The International Bee Research Association has filed Form 571G/A to put this entry under review, citing the fact that many scientists refer to male bees as “bee males”. When females are referred to as “beemales”, there could be...
Plural: "Lexus"
English 1.x: Lexuses
English 2.0: Lexesus
Example: I don’t know about you, but I like the look of the new Lexesus.
Plural: "Mashup"
English 1.x: mashups
English 2.0: mashes up
Example: Have you seen Bus Monster? That’s one of my favorite mashes up!” Example: I am down with the following mashes: up, monster, and 4077th.
Plural: "Sucker MC"
English 1.0: Sucker MCs English 1.9 SP1: Sucker MsC English 2.0: Suckers, MC
Example: “It takes a lot to entertain, and Suckers, MC can be a pain.” (Run-DMC) Example: “I am fed up with the following suckers: MC, punch, octopus.”
March 2008
4 posts
Behind The Plural: "abacus"
I was going to just post this word without comment, but I thought it provided a good example of the power of our newer English 2.0 techniques. Your standard English 1.x dictionary will tell you that the plural of “abacus” is either “abaci” or “abacuses”. It will probably also tell you that the word is of Middle English origin, derived from Latin, Greek, and...
Welcome to our Blog!
Hello! My name is Dr. Scott Dierdorf, one of the directors of the Institute for Applied Etymological Sciences. Now that we’ve got things up and running, I wanted to tell you what you can expect to see on this Internet site. About Us You probably already know a bit about us, but I’ll give some background to fill in those who are new to our corner of the world. We are the third...
Contraction: Drinking Zima
English 1.x: drinking Zima English 2.0: Zimbibing Example: “I went out with the biz dev guys last night, and we were Zimbibing ‘til the break of dawn!”
Plural: Barack Obama
English 1.x: Barack Obamas English 2.0: Barack Obamen Example: “This election has seen a new breed of candidate: your Johns McCain, your Hillaries Clinton, your Barack Obamen.”