The Sad Bear

February 25, 2012

The Economist Style Guide

NERD ALERT!

It would seem that The Economist has decided to post online the entirety of its style guide. This excites me. They even open with a substantial reference to Orwell's "Politics and the English Language."

See it here.

Labels: journalism, language, style guides, The Economist

May 19, 2010

stunted

A near-deadline exchange ... better-natured than normal:

4:08 PM
Chase: is it fair to say attorneys stunted a case again, in this Pleasants case....Stunted meaning, slowed down because the case is moving...but it's kind of put off again til briefs are filed

4:09
Tony: stunted to me refers to growth not progress/timing

Chase: um

Tony: (links Chase to Google, "define:stunted"). some refer to "developing"

Chase: "prevented from growing or developing"

Tony: but the case is almost bigger now. slower but bigger

4:10
Chase: ....whatever

Tony: more documents, etc

Chase: you know what I mean

Tony: um

Chase: this is for a lede, not a scientific journal

Tony: i think the term is not accurate. w/o any reference to science.

4:13
Chase: The case of a 2008 fatal wreck stalled again in Augusta County court Wednesday as attorneys filed evidence and received instruction to write their arguments on paper.

Tony: I like that
"on paper" is nice

Chase: ok, thanks. much better than stunted

Tony: huge difference. clearly. maybe "aborted"

Chase: because they were on a space ship

Labels: journalism, language, words

January 13, 2010

For those who aren't into the whole brevity thing

What if William Shakespeare wrote The Big Lebowski?

CHORUS
Ay, there’s a good one. How fares the Knave?

THE KNAVE
So foul and fair a day I have not seen.

CHORUS
Such a day, I mark thee, whereupon the winter of our discontent is ne’er made glorious summer. A gentleman wiser than myself did say that on some such days, thou exits, pursued by a bear, and on others, the bear exits, pursued by you.

THE KNAVE
By my troth, a good philosophy. Was’t of the Orient?

CHORUS
Nay, far from it. I mark well thy fashion, good Knave.

Enjoy the most excellent comedie and tragical romance of Two Gentlemen of Lebowski.

(Courtesy of Ryan.)

Labels: film, humor, language, philosophy, Shakespeare, the Big Lebowski

December 19, 2008

What's in a name?

A story.

My friend's roommate, Kim, volunteers at a school in downtown Hillsdale. Most of her work involves helping kids study in an after-school program. She's not the only volunteer, a couple of students and even some community members are there as well.

Now Kim is kind of shy, so if she's unsure of something she'll usually just let it go and learn the hard way, avoiding asking questions, etc. Such was the case with one of her co-workers, whose first name is spelled La-a.

How would you pronounce that?

Lah-Ah?
Laaaah?
La-Ah?

Well Kim finally worked up the courage to approach La-a the other day. The students were instructed to get up from their desks and sit in a circle for the day's final announcement. During the hustle and bustle of moving, Kim edged up to La-a:

"So do you pronounce your name "Lah-Ah?"

The girl turned to Kim. Kim said she had a slightly offended look across her face.

"No girl, it's "Ladasha!" The dash ain't silent!"

La-a = Ladasha

Shocking.

AND NOW SOME LINKS

An imposter (but we're still #1 on Google)
A comic and its review

Labels: comics, language

September 18, 2008

"Hey, hey, hey! I was watching a ballgame here!"

A short, maybe meaningless observation:

The beginning of this article somehow reminded me of some of our best ballgame impressions:

"HOT chicken!"

"Panchos! Panchos! Git yer panchos HEAH!"

"HE'S rattled!"

It reminds me that ballpark chatter might be my favorite form of nostalgic jargon (can we call it jargon? Or is it something else entirely?), juuust beating out another perennial favorite, "1930s newspaperman-speak."

I also realize that one can very easily replicate the sound of ballpark chatter simply by writing it down - if you've been to a ballgame, you know exactly how it's supposed to sound.

Labels: baseball, idiosyncrasies, language