0919: "Tween Bromance"

[jfriesne]

"utilize" -- There is NEVER a situation in which "use" wouldn't work just as well.

Clearly you're not a crossword puzzle player. "Honey, what's a 7 letter word meaning 'to make use of'?"

[jfriesne]

[We can imagine why many women might object to moist

The poor dears have probably never eaten a really good brownie.

[ManaUser]

Describing a vagina as a "taint" however does indeed strike me as pretty horrid.

It looks like quite a few people misunderstood this. Possibly because the sentence would make (slightly) more sense if taint did mean vagina, but it doesn't. It means the skin between the genitals and the anus. And supposedly the name comes from the fact that "it ain't" either one.

Sources: Urban Dictionary, Wikipedia

[Idhan]

I'm not one of those people who objects to every xkcd, but this struck me as pretty trite and dull. I mean, we all occasionally put together a string of annoying slang or jargon to mock it among friends (corporate jargon, 1337sp34k, txting, etc), don't we? There's nothing wrong with that, but seeing the same thing published with no apparent twists on xkcd is underwhelming.

[Eternal Density]

'Moist' is a perfectly cromulent word, especially when used to describe cake which is also delicious.

[Soral]

Language nerd sniping?

[AvatarIII]

i actually find irregardless to be the only word that annoys me in the comic, because all the other words are slang, (apart from moist and taint, which i have no problems with anyway,)

"Taint" is actually slang, BTW. It started as an abbreviation as "it ain't" and is slang for the perineum.
Taint meaning "a trace of a bad or undesirable quality or substance" is a different word entirely.

see, i thought he meant Taint since that's the only definition that i knew of that makes sense in context in the strip

[willpellmn]

I took this as a reference to popular neologisms - buzzwords that everyone uses despite them obviously being wrong. I just overlooked "moist", "taint", "panties" and "verbiage" as context.

I mentioned this comic to my friend Thorin and commented that I couldn't understand how words like "guesstimate" occur - Americans are lazy and we always shorten words, so why would we tack added syllables onto them? He answered that this was just a different form of laziness - stretching a word out by adding pointless syllables to it, so you can take more time before you have to think about the next word.

[gmalivuk]

Americans are lazy and we always shorten words, so why would we tack added syllables onto them? He answered that this was just a different form of laziness - stretching a word out by adding pointless syllables to it, so you can take more time before you have to think about the next word.

Wow, what a terrible explanation of neologisms...

[geurts]

Guesstimate is a good word. It's hard not to understand what that means, no? Very clear.

Irregardless is pretty retarded. I know that there are a lot of people who use and understand it. Language is constantly evolving, yes, but "irregardless" is a double-negative. It's confusing to anyone who understands and uses the word "regardless".

Incidentally, I looked up inflammable since that's one that has always irked me the same way, but unlike "irregardless", this is actually correct. "Inflammable" is older than "flammable" by about 200 years. Apparently the inclusion of the prefix "in" is an unfortunate coincidence. It's removal in recent times is an effort to avoid confusion.

[kmellis]

Wow, what a terrible explanation of neologisms...

Yeah, it's idiotic.

One thing I've often heard linguists bitching about is that because everyone uses language and is native in at least one, most everyone thinks that they are authoritative on language as an object of study. Which, of course, is not even remotely true. After all, we're all biological beings and that doesn't make us biologists. We all eat and that doesn't make us chefs (not a perfect analogy).

Many people seem to believe that they are competent enough at comprehending language qua language that they faux-authoritatively and comfortably make assertions about it at the drop of a hat. To me, it seems very weird.

An extension of this is that few such persons ever bother to make any effort at all to research these assertions and/or their strongly-held intuitions about the nature of language. Sure, many things are ambiguous or unknown; but a great many things are easily discovered.

For example, an oft-discussed topic at LL is this somewhat recent trend in diagnosing "narcissism" in a speaker/writer from supposedly excessive use of the first person singular pronoun. For one thing, there's a body of literature examining the different ways in which people use FPSPs and only some of them could plausibly be linked to excessive self-regard. (Indeed, one common usage functions in exactly the opposite role in emphasizing the speaker's subjectivity—people in authority speaking to subordinates tend to avoid "I think" and "seems to me" and the like and, instead, make universal assertions of fact; and the opposite is true in the inverted social situation.) But that's somewhat obscure and thus not hugely easy to research. What is truly egregious is that it is easy to find and do a textual analysis of speeches/writings by comparable persons and find a baseline for FPSP usage and test one's intuitions (person X is more narcissistic than person Y). Almost without fail this has obviously not been done by people making such claims because, it turns out, their intuitions and assertions are almost always false. A couple of op-ed writers recently went so far as to write such an editorial about one of the GOP candidates and a) they use the term "possessive pronouns" instead of "first person pronouns" because they apparently couldn't be bothered to know anything about simple grammar; b) they didn't even bother to do an actual count of FPPs and instead just made up an approximate number that was off by a factor of 3; and, c) a comparable textual analysis (of this candidate's words they explicitly mentioned) with the revered past GOP politician they admire would have revealed that the latter politician used FPPs more often in a comparable text than the politician they were criticizing. I mention this in detail as an example of how deeply intuition trumps actual research and evidence when it comes to most non-specialists making assertions about language and its usage.

willpellmn's friend constructed his argument out of whole cloth, independent of any evidence whatsoever. He didn't bother to research in any respect what is known about the production of neologisms in popular culture. And, as if that weren't egregious enough, he then went on to formulate a psychological theory about those who use this neologism and others like it, also completely without any research or evidence at all. It's sort of breathtaking, really.

[tetsujin]

Guesstimate is a good word. It's hard not to understand what that means, no? Very clear.

I think we must give credit where credit is due: this word traces its origin to the early days of Port Manteau, Louisiana. (Often the locals would write the city's name simply as "Portmanteau") The city has a rich tradition of cultural innovation: the development of Jazz in nearby New Orleans was soon followed by various combinations with other musical forms in Port Manteau.

My contribution to the mess of malformed words: "casted". I build models and cast parts in resin from time to time, so this one comes up pretty regularly in the modeling circles I am involved in.

[gmalivuk]

I think we must give credit where credit is due: this word traces its origin to the early days of Port Manteau, Louisiana.

A town which never existed? No, I think if we're giving credit where credit is due, we should look to the United States in the 1930s. The OED's first entry is from 1936, but that's a New York Times article saying the word was already in use by "the statisticians and population experts".

[grythyttan]

I think we must give credit where credit is due: this word traces its origin to the early days of Port Manteau, Louisiana.

A town which never existed? No, I think if we're giving credit where credit is due, we should look to the United States in the 1930s. The OED's first entry is from 1936, but that's a New York Times article saying the word was already in use by "the statisticians and population experts".

I think you might be missing the point.

[gmalivuk]

Oooooh...

Right then.

Well played.

[addams]

On an unrelated note: where is the forum link on the main site page?

I was worried, but I thought it was more of a deterrent, like the lack of comments on his blag posts.

But just want to give him and his misses a big hug and a cake shaped like the internet

*missus? Unless you think he has more than one

Reading that comic makes my brain hurt. Need bleach

You people are so funny. Poor baby. Need bleach?
Moist panties? So funny. Now, those are my new favorite words. Where can I use them? Where? Oh, Where?
With all of this type about the comic; Why is the word Bromance getting zero attention. Men that prefer the company of other hetero males. Right? This is not touching a nerve with anyone? Why not? We know you do it. Now; Type about it.

[Azkyroth]

Those arguing that neologisms offer nuances, shades of meaning, and connotation not otherwise found in the English language should learn Ancient Greek. I've heard rumors that it allowed a speaker to be very specific about connotation.

Aside from the fact that the Greeks would only have terms for concepts they were familiar with, this seems like it would shrink the pool of listeners quite a bit...

[Lunar Savage]

...I had absolutely no issue with this comic whatsoever.

[Bronsonrock]

For some reason, and I think it comes from old newspaper comic strips - especially Dennis the Menace - I can't stand the words "doll", "gross", or "carrots". The "o" bothers me.

Now that I read this back, I think I just provided my wife with all the evidence she needs to have me committed.

I also have to admit that I have no idea what "metrosexual" means and had never heard it until I read it here. Based on the amount of hatred it seems to have, I'm considering myself lucky.

From the business world, the term "going forward" as in "We should make this process a standard going forward" makes me crazy. Why not say "from now on" or just say "This process is now a standard".

Finally, my teenage daughter brought a new word to my attention (she hates it as much as I do, which is saying a lot) - "biffle". Apparently it is the pronunciation of "BFFL" or Best Friends For Life. I hate what we do to our own language...

[Jsty]

I apologize for being lazy and not reading the entire thread, but I had to comment on my most hated current slang: man cave, man purse, etc.

I can't fathom how throwing man at a noun somehow clarifies or makes the item more expressive. Truthfully, I generally consider it a derisive term that actually seems to emasculate men.

[dr pepper]

I don't like what's happened to "impact" as a verb. It used to mean "significantly or seriously affect", now it just means "affect", the distinction has been lost.

[bigjeff5]

I also have to admit that I have no idea what "metrosexual" means and had never heard it until I read it here. Based on the amount of hatred it seems to have, I'm considering myself lucky.

A metrosexual is a heterosexual man with the style and mannerisms commonly associated with an urban gay man (i.e. the "flaming" homosexual), most notably a keen interest in fashion. It is very difficult to tell a metrosexual apart from a flaming homosexual without the context of women.

Finally, my teenage daughter brought a new word to my attention (she hates it as much as I do, which is saying a lot) - "biffle". Apparently it is the pronunciation of "BFFL" or Best Friends For Life. I hate what we do to our own language...

I'm not sure how common this is, but a chat room I used to frequent ran through the gamut with "welcome back" after someone returns following a "bbs" or "bbl" (be back soon/later). First it was shortened to "wb", which is common enough. Then people started sounding out "wb", which was unwieldy at first but eventually became "wibble". "Wibble" soon became the common response to someone's return to the chat instead of "wb", and eventually the correct response to a "wibble" was "wobble", for no reason other than that it is cute. I actually use "wibble" in conversation with people who I know understand what it means, and usually get a grin and a "wobble" back. It's a fun little inside joke (which may or may not be all that "inside", I have no idea honestly).

[zemerick]

I'm not sure how common this is, but a chat room I used to frequent ran through the gamut with "welcome back" after someone returns following a "bbs" or "bbl" (be back soon/later). First it was shortened to "wb", which is common enough. Then people started sounding out "wb", which was unwieldy at first but eventually became "wibble". "Wibble" soon became the common response to someone's return to the chat instead of "wb", and eventually the correct response to a "wibble" was "wobble", for no reason other than that it is cute. I actually use "wibble" in conversation with people who I know understand what it means, and usually get a grin and a "wobble" back. It's a fun little inside joke (which may or may not be all that "inside", I have no idea honestly).

I was always fond of the "Back" -> "Front" -> "Left" -> "Right" chain, especially when the "Left" and "Right"s come in at the exact same time. No one is ever assigned which one they will say, and it often changes, but somehow it still works out far more often than not. It's likely an odd quirk of (small) crowd behavior.

[Azkyroth]

I was always fond of the "Back" -> "Front" -> "Left" -> "Right" chain, especially when the "Left" and "Right"s come in at the exact same time. No one is ever assigned which one they will say, and it often changes, but somehow it still works out far more often than not. It's likely an odd quirk of (small) crowd behavior.

Do you guys extend it with "Top," "Bottom," and "Pinch" too? ^.^

[RebeccaRGB]

I was always fond of the "Back" -> "Front" -> "Left" -> "Right" chain, especially when the "Left" and "Right"s come in at the exact same time. No one is ever assigned which one they will say, and it often changes, but somehow it still works out far more often than not. It's likely an odd quirk of (small) crowd behavior.

Do you guys extend it with "Top," "Bottom," and "Pinch" too? ^.^

Nah, after "Top" and "Bottom" you go "Strange", "Charm", "Up", "Down".

[jonadab]

I only have problems with words that are wrong, like irregardless.

Irregardless isn't a real word.

Unfortunately that isn't what it's taken to mean, being illogically considered synonymous with regardless.

I think you're all missing something: the etymology. Irregardless is a type of construction known in the linguistics community as a "crasis" or, less formally, a "portmanteau word", in the same general category as "guesstimate", "smog", "brunch", "spork", "ginormous", and "fantabulous". (Other languages have similar words. The Spanish word "del", for instance, is a crassis of "de" and "el".) "Irregardless" is a combination of "irrespective" and "regardless".

It is NOT an attempt to combine the prefix ir- with the word "regardless". If it were, it would have a rather different meaning. That's pretty much irrelevant, though, because a much more obvious way to form the opposite of "regardless" would be to alter the ending from -less to -ful. If such a word were needed, someone could easily coin it.

With that said, I don't really like the word "irregardless" very much either. The manner in which it was formed is linguistically valid, but it is nonetheless a rather ugly word. And yes, most of the time when it's used, the word "regardless" would carry the meaning at least as well. (Theoretically there's a difference -- irrespective and thus irregardless adds a nuance -- but in practice it almost always doesn't change the meaning of the sentence at all.) I can definitely see proscribing the word as "poor style", especially in formal contexts -- most portmanteau words, especially those formed from already-polysyllabic lexemes, tend to be inherently informal in nature, at least in English.

[ahammel]

I think you're all missing something: the etymology. Irregardless is a type of construction known in the linguistics community as a "crasis" or, less formally, a "portmanteau word", in the same general category as "guesstimate", "smog", "brunch", "spork", "ginormous", and "fantabulous". (Other languages have similar words. The Spanish word "del", for instance, is a crassis of "de" and "el".) "Irregardless" is a combination of "irrespective" and "regardless".

It is NOT an attempt to combine the prefix ir- with the word "regardless"[...]

I'm not sure I see the difference between (a) taking the 'ir-' prefix from 'irrespective' and tacking it onto 'regardless' to form a portmanteau and (b) using the 'ir-' prefix with 'regardless'. It sounds a little like saying "'uncork' doesn't have a prefix, it's a portmanteau of 'unstopper' and 'cork'".

_{Edited to fix the quotation marks.}

[gmalivuk]

If that was how it formed, then yes, it'd be another such word. I doubt that's how it formed, though, so it's a rather irrelevant example.

For one thing, "irregardless" doesn't just have the "ir" from "irrespective", it has the "irre" along with the same stress pattern for the remainder of the word. Just like how "guesstimate" and "smog" and several other portmanteaux have some overlap in shared letters/phonemes.