Category Archives: LANGUAGE

‘Logo Teaser Trailer Parody’ (My first online video)

Posted on July 18, 2010 by Kevin

While I was working on my blog layout recently, my site logo asked if he could have a little time off. I said OK. Little did I know that he’d gotten a starring role in a movie. Link to video … Continue reading →

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Adding some style to your Internet words

Posted on July 15, 2010 by Kevin

I just got the new The Yahoo! Style Guide: The Ultimate Sourcebook for Writing, Editing, and Creating Content for the Digital World (about half of which is online for free). The first thing I wanted to check was the word … Continue reading →

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The Force is strong in these GPS voices

Posted on July 12, 2010 by Kevin

[Obligatory Yoda inverted word order here insert you may.] The folks at TomTom are selling Star Wars voices for their GPS devices and seemed to have enjoyed the making of behind-the-scenes videos of the recording sessions. The Yoda one has … Continue reading →

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Wordnik Smartwords: E-books just got schooled

Posted on June 15, 2010 by Kevin

If you’re reading books as E-books on E-readers or iPads, chances are you’d like to exploit the new platform by making reading more interactive. E-readers already have built-in dictionaries, but now the Smartwords open standard from the Wordnik online dictionary … Continue reading →

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Buffy (and SNL) ‘much’ much?: Slang research with Hulu.com, Part 2

Posted on June 8, 2008 by Kevin

[EDIT (6/7/10): I broke this long post up into two posts.] This is Part 2 (Part 1) on finding early uses of American slang and colloquialisms from the television clips and episodes on Hulu‘s (language corpus of) shows from NBC … Continue reading →

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SNL NOT!: Slang research with Hulu.com, Part 1

Posted on June 8, 2008 by Kevin

Having trouble finding early uses of slang and colloquialisms? If you’re looking for instances of American (and possibly Canadian) ones, the television clips and episodes on Hulu from NBC Universal (NBC, USA Network, Bravo, Sci Fi, Sundance Channel, Oxygen) and … Continue reading →

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2008 New Zealand Sign Language Week

Posted on May 9, 2008 by Kevin

As I wrote last year (2007 (First) NZ Sign Language Week), New Zealand has given official status to New Zealand Sign Language, the natural language of New Zealand’s Deaf community. New Zealand Sign Language Week is this week (May 5-11, … Continue reading →

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‘A Mother’s Dictionary’: List of new meanings for old words

Posted on May 9, 2008 by Kevin

Straight Goods [EDIT (6/7/10): archive access requires free subscription] has a “definition list for new mothers,” with new meanings for familiar words. My favorites are: Family planning: The art of spacing your children the proper distance apart to keep you … Continue reading →

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‘The Extensive Hip Hop Rhyming Dictionary’: Phrasal rhymes

Posted on February 18, 2008 by Kevin

If you’ve been here to Language and Humor Blog before, you may have noticed a certain lack of roadway license. Er, street cred. That’s all about to change with this post about The Extensive Hip Hop Rhyming Dictionary (On-line Records, … Continue reading →

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2008 ‘banished’ words

Posted on January 8, 2008 by Kevin

Once again, Lake Superior State University (Michigan, USA) has released its annual playful banishment list. 2008 list of banished words Observations: Perfect storm (a synergy of bad luck/bad decisions): I like it, but it has been overused. Webinar (World Wide … Continue reading →

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