Podcast appearances and mentions of erin mckean

1074. Is AI good enough to replace lexicographers? Wordnik founder Erin McKean shares what works, what doesn't, and why the future of dictionaries is far from settled.Find Erin McKean at wordnik.com, dressaday.com, and wordnik@worknik.com.

1036. Erin McKean runs an entire online dictionary with the goal of having ALL the English words. But Wordnik is not only huge, it's also filled with delightful quirks. Hear how Erin manages this one-woman show and how you can get in on the fun — by adopting a word, making your own lists, using the API for word games or a word of the day, adding words or definitions, and trawling the internet for interesting sentences.Erin McKean is a lexicographer and the driving force behind the online dictionary Wordnik.

This podcast is a commentary and does not contain any copyrighted material of the reference source. We strongly recommend accessing/buying the reference source at the same time. ■Reference Source https://www.ted.com/talks/erin_mckean_the_joy_of_lexicography ■Post on this topic (You can get FREE learning materials!) https://englist.me/140-academic-words-reference-from-erin-mckean-the-joy-of-lexicography-ted-talk/ ■Youtube Video https://youtu.be/NaeWqpzEE64 (All Words) https://youtu.be/738OaOx7fyc (Advanced Words) https://youtu.be/ljoicvajFy0 (Quick Look) ■Top Page for Further Materials https://englist.me/ ■SNS (Please follow!)

This podcast is a commentary and does not contain any copyrighted material of the reference source. We strongly recommend accessing/buying the reference source at the same time. ■Reference Source https://www.ted.com/talks/erin_mckean_go_ahead_make_up_new_words ■Post on this topic (You can get FREE learning materials!) https://englist.me/51-academic-words-reference-from-erin-mckean-go-ahead-make-up-new-words-ted-talk/ ■Youtube Video https://youtu.be/mjGqktBN8Bg (All Words) https://youtu.be/-u_N20nTHps (Advanced Words) https://youtu.be/E2QetJALSeo (Quick Look) ■Top Page for Further Materials https://englist.me/ ■SNS (Please follow!)

Panelists Richard Littauer | Justin Dorfman | Ben Nickolls | Amanda Casari Show Notes Hello and welcome to Sustain! The podcast where we talk about sustaining open source for the long haul. Today's episode is all panelists, no guests, and our conversations are focusing on the question, “What does sustaining open source actually mean?” Each of the panelists share their opinions, give feedback, and tell stories around sustaining open source. We'll also learn the origins of SustainOSS, the definition of a “sustainer,” and we hear about the OSCA Sustain Community Report 2022 that recently came out and gave Justin chills just reading it. Go ahead and download this episode now, and if you have any thoughts you would like to share, please email us! [00:01:30] Justin gives us the backstory of how Sustain started. [00:06:14] Since Ben came up with the definition of a “Sustainer” he goes in depth what it means. [00:10:05] Amanda poses a question when we think about sustaining, how do we think about helping with graceful endings and exits? [00:17:42] Richard tells us sustaining is figuring out and having an ecosystem level approach of what open source is, and what's needed now. Justin shares a story about Chad Whitacre changing the game when it came to donating to open source. [00:20:53] Ben takes the conversation away from money and talks about Open Collective and finding a way to sustain the work without money. [00:22:47] Richard brings up the environmental sustainability of open source as an entire thing and how the environmental cost of training AI is massive. [00:26:04] Richard mentions he finds interesting what sort of conversations happened on an ecosystem level between all the participants and all the stakeholders, and Amanda expresses a concern she has. Richard and Amanda talk about giving honor to people who do honorable things. [00:29:45] We hear some open questions from Richard about what he thinks is what sustaining means now, and Amanda talks about the concept around open source sustainability that a lot of people are focusing on. Quotes [00:09:51] “Forking is not a threat, it's a promise.” [00:11:36] “The whole sustainability thing is about a combination of incentives and market failures.” [00:13:24] “Two researchers from South Africa have been looking at contributions to internet standards over the past twenty years from across the world, largely from within Africa, and they've seen a massive peak in 2005, and then it'll die off.” [00:16:24] “Open source is a jellyfish and jellyfish of course have many eyes.” [00:29:34] “Honoring people for their work and giving them visibility, making sure that they're seen is a great step forward that we can all be working on because that's definitely a gap that still exists.” [00:31:06] “The xkcd comic showing digital infrastructure as one small person in Kansas is great, but it ignores every other block in that comic. Who is funding the blocks in those comics, who has governance to it, who was maintaining it, what are their intentions, and what is their final destinations that they want to be going to?” Spotlight [00:36:48] Justin's spotlight is recognizing a Non-Code Contributor, Erin McKean and his newsletter that comes out a couple times a month. [00:37:11] Ben's spotlight is Play Monikers. [00:37:59] Amanda's spotlight is the Elevator Saga game. [00:38:40] Richard's spotlight is Nicole Kelner, who's a climate artist. Links SustainOSS (https://sustainoss.org/) SustainOSS Twitter (https://twitter.com/SustainOSS?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor) SustainOSS Discourse (https://discourse.sustainoss.org/) podcast@sustainoss.org (mailto:podcast@sustainoss.org) discourse@discourse.sustainoss.org (mailto:discourse@discourse.sustainoss.org) Richard Littauer Twitter (https://twitter.com/richlitt?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor) Justin Dorfman Twitter (https://twitter.com/jdorfman?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor) Ben Nickolls Twitter (https://twitter.com/BenJam?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor) Amanda Casari Twitter (https://twitter.com/amcasari?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor) Sustain 2021 Event Report (https://sustainoss.org/assets/pdf/Sustain-In-2021-Event-Report.pdf) SustainOSS Report 2017 (with definition of “sustainer”) (https://sustainoss.org/assets/pdf/SustainOSS-west-2017-report.pdf) OSCA-Sustain Africa 2022 Community Report (https://blog.oscafrica.org/sustain-africa-2022-community-report) Sustain Podcast-Episode 96: Chad Whitacre and how Sentry is giving $150k to their OSS Dependencies (https://podcast.sustainoss.org/guests/chad-whitacre) Sovereign Tech Fund (https://sovereigntechfund.de/en) Fuligo septica (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuligo_septica) The Non-Code Contributor Newsletter by Justin Dorfman (https://www.getrevue.co/profile/tncc) Play Monikers (https://www.playmonikers.com/) Elevator Saga (https://play.elevatorsaga.com/) Elevator Saga-GitHub (https://github.com/magwo/elevatorsaga) Nicole Kelner Twitter (https://twitter.com/NicoleKelner) Credits Produced by Richard Littauer (https://www.burntfen.com/) Edited by Paul M. Bahr at Peachtree Sound (https://www.peachtreesound.com/) Show notes by DeAnn Bahr Peachtree Sound (https://www.peachtreesound.com/)

“For me, conferences are like little mental vacations: a chance to go visit an interesting place for a couple of days, and come back rested and refreshed with new ideas and perspectives.” -Erin McKean   Con-fer-ence: a large official meeting, usually lasting for a few days, at which people with the same work or interests come together to discuss their views.           Check. From the Latin conferre or ‘bring together'.          Ok, check. How will the team at RESNET fulfill the goals of, and definition of a conference, actually 2 conferences, in 2022? Emma Bennett, RESNET's Standard & Events Manager, joins us to share details about the two, yes, two conferences conducted by RESNET in 2022. The first conference will be held February 21-23, 2022 in Austin, TX. This will be an in-person event with a limit of 400 attendees, so sign up now! There will be 7-8 tracks and 40-50 sessions taking place over the course of the three days. The second conference will be all virtual and held March 10-11, 2022. There is no limit to the number of attendees but sign up now for an early bird discount! The tracks will align with those of the in-person conference, however, there will be about 100 sessions including recordings of the in-person sessions. In-person attendees will have the automatic benefit of access to the all the virtual sessions which will be available all year on demand. Social events are planned for both the conferences built upon the experiences of previous conferences of both types. Emma shares with us the in-person safety requirements developed in conjunction with a consultant, including vaccine verification required for all attendees. Sponsorship opportunities are available and there will be exhibitors at both events. You can learn about the 2022 RESNET Building Performance Conferences at www.resnet.us/2022 or by emailing conference@RESNET.US   RESTalk: To the RESNET community, we hear you and want to engage. Learn more at www.RESNET.us Or for more info on this topic contact RESNET at INFO@RESNET.US

  with Host Dave Zobel  Musical Guest: Gypsy Jazz Trio  Stereo Left: Carolyn Faye Fox, Murray Horwitz, Deb Hiett  Stereo Right: Paul Magid, Erin Mckean, Barry Nolan Round 1: Frankenquotes Round 2: Lovat Round 3: Romantic Poetry  Round 4: Kissaten  Round 5: All You Need is Never Having to Say Sorry About Music  

Talking Points: Developer advocacy Write good documentation Confusing the solution with the problem Define clear goals Learning with joy Quotable Quotes: "Does this solve a problem that everybody agrees is an actual problem?" - EM "Whenever you've run into problems, it's probably a goal problem." - EM "When you don't know what you want a function to do it can be really hard to write that function." - EM "A lot of people just don't like to close off possibilities so they want to do everything all at once." - EM "You can't ever make yourself irreplaceable, you can only make yourself a single point of failure." - EM "You really have to practice being okay with feeling dumb." - EM "You should always be looking to figure out how you can bring other people into your circle instead of keeping people out." - EM Notes:Erin's Website:erinmckean.comErin's non-profit organization:wordnik.comErin's Twitter:twitter.com/emckeanErin's GitHub:github.com/emckean

  From Palo Alto, CA with host Dave Zobel Stereo Left: Carolyn Faye Fox, Murray Horwitz, Rachael Myrow Stereo Right: Tony Kahn, Erin McKean, Barry Nolan   Rounds Played: Round 1. Addenda Round 2. Bluff (frisket) Round 3. Marxisms Round 4. Bluff (gulph) Round 5. "Verse Comes Two-Verse"  

“You don't owe prettiness to anyone.” - Erin Mckean. In the 25th episode of Even the Little Things, Hannah and Dhwani discuss their personal self confidence journeys, insecurities, body confidence, and beauty standards. (TW: discussion of body and body confidence.) --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/eventhelittlethingspodcast/support

¿Qué es hablar bien? ¿Qué es hablar mal? ¿Por qué nos preocupa tanto? En el episodio 5 respondemos estas preguntas hablando de la norma lingüística, el poder, los diccionarios, la desigualdad social y las gónadas cervantinas. La comparación del diccionario con los mapas está tomada de la siguiente charla de Erin McKean: https://youtu.be/ov-Sh8UDnhU Nuestro email es: malyprontopodcast [arroba] gmail [punto] com Estamos en Twitter como @malyprontopod Estamos en Twitter también con nuestras cuentas personales. Santiago: @snkalinowski Juan: @JEBonnin Magui: @madammagui Hablando mal pronto es una creación de María López García, Juan Eduardo Bonnin y Santiago Kalinowski. Nuestros críticos estelares son Matías Fernández (@matiasfernandez) y Mercedes Paz, y nuestro tema musical es El cuarteto de los hermanos Lowenstein de La sincrónica parlante.

The Good Docs Project aims to create open source documentation templates, and most recently an information architecture template too. Erin McKean, one of the central orchestrators behind the Good Docs Project, is our guest for this episode. We talk with Erin about why it is so important to intentionally include jargon in your technical documentation and where to do that. She shares her practice on curating a project documentation wishlist to keep the future focus going, and why and how to get documentation treated as a key core feature of a product. The hosts are Laura Vass (Editor of Developer Portal Newsletter, Co-Founder, Pronovix) and Anett Pozsár (Senior Technical Writer, Pronovix). Music: Virgill - Its over now (CC)

From Palo Alto, CA with host Dave Zobel   Stereo Left: Carolyn Faye Fox, Murray Horwitz, and Rachel Myrow Stereo Right: Tony Kahn, Erin McKean, Barry Nolan   Rounds played: 1. The Last Picture Show 2. Bluff (zyxt) 3. Geology 4. Bluff (xyst) 5. Where's Waldo County?   Music from the Stanford Fleet Street Singers  

From Palo Alto, CA with host Dave Zobel Stereo Left: Carolyn Faye Fox, Murray Horwitz, Rachael Myrow Stereo Right: Tony Kahn, Erin McKean, Barry Nolan   Rounds Played: Round 1. Addenda Round 2. Bluff (frisket) Round 3. Marxisms Round 4. Bluff (gulph) Round 5. "Verse Comes Two-Verse"

with Host Dave Zobel  Musical Guest: Ronit Widmann Levy   Stereo Left: Carolyn Faye Fox, Murray Horwitz, Deb Hiett  Stereo Right: Paul Magid, Erin Mckean, Barry Nolan Round 1: Silly Statutes  Round 2:  Crants Round 3: I know Who You Are You're That Guy  Round 4: Soramimi Round 5: A Pleasure in Words 

with Host Dave Zobel  Musical Guest: Ronit Widmann Levy   Stereo Left: Carolyn Faye Fox, Murray Horwitz, Deb Hiett  Stereo Right: Paul Magid, Erin Mckean, Barry Nolan Round 1: The Old Country  Round 2: Scurf  Round 3: Definitions and Derivation Round 4: Scumfish  Round 5: Mixed Metaphor

with Host Dave Zobel  Musical Guest: CK McClathchy Jazz Ensemble Stereo Left: Carolyn Faye Fox, Murray Horwitz, Deb Hiett  Stereo Right: Paul Magid, Erin Mckean, Barry Nolan Round 1: What's the Difference in Science?  Round 2: Aposematism  Round 3: Laws Round 4: Cephalophore  Round 5: National Anthems

with Host Dave Zobel  Musical Guest: CK McClathchy Jazz Ensemble Stereo Left: Carolyn Faye Fox, Murray Horwitz, Deb Hiett  Stereo Right: Paul Magid, Erin Mckean, Barry Nolan Round 1: Elementary my Dear Panelists  Round 2: Fungo  Round 3: Train Lingo Round 4: Barfi  Round 5: Spotlight Round - Definitions and Derivations 

with Host Dave Zobel  Musical Guest: Gypsy Jazz Trio  Stereo Left: Carolyn Faye Fox, Murray Horwitz, Deb Hiett  Stereo Right: Paul Magid, Erin Mckean, Barry Nolan Round 1: Frankenquotes Round 2: Lovat Round 3: Romantic Poetry  Round 4: Kissaten  Round 5: All You Need is Never Having to Say Sorry About Music

with Host Dave Zobel  Musical Guest: Gypsy Jazz Trio  Stereo Left: Carolyn Faye Fox, Murray Horwitz, Deb Hiett  Stereo Right: Paul Magid, Erin Mckean, Barry Nolan Round 1: Apostrofeelingroovy  Round 2: Anoesois Round 3: Where's Waldo County Round 4: Swape Spotlight Round: Common Threads Round 5: Name that Puntry 

On Episode 101 of You, Me, Empathy, Erin McKean and I explore the opportunity for empathy in the language we use, and creating an inclusive, collaborative community around the abundance (not the scarcity) of language in Wordnik. Thanks for listening and thanks for empathizing with us! Full show notes and all links mentioned in the episode here. Follow You, Me, Empathy on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. Support You, Me, Empathy on Patreon. Subscribe and leave a review in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or Google. Get yourself a feely t-shirt, mug, or tote!

Improworsement: is an improvement that makes things worse, and Erin McKean knows all about that. She's wanted to create dictionaries since the age of eight and this year she is celebrating the 10th anniversary of Wordnik, an online dictionary she helped create that has grown to 10 times the size of the Oxford English Dictionary. This week Paul and Rich sit down with Erin to discuss the evolution of Wordnik, from its humble beginnings in PHP to developing a full scalable API. Erin shares the challenges she’s faced, both technical and financial, and gives us tips on how to deal with failure. She also helps us expand our vocabulary and answers the difficult question: what is the best word?   Links: Wordnik TED Talk - Erin McKean: Go ahead, make up new words! Wordnik on Twitter  

Host: Gregg Porter Stereo Left: Carolyn Faye Fox, Murray Horwitz, Deb Hiett Stereo Right: Guest Brian Reed, Erin McKean, Barry Nolan  Musical Guest: The Wyatt Gardner Quartet  Round One: Long Character Name  Round Two - Zax  Round Three: Writing Doctors Round Four - Diz Round Five: Rainy City Songs  SY-2312 

Host: Gregg Porter Stereo Left: Carolyn Faye Fox, Murray Horwitz, Deb Hiett Stereo Right: Guest Brian Reed, Erin McKean, Barry Nolan  Musical Guest: The Wyatt Gardner Quartet (UW students)  Round One: What's the diff?  Round Two - Bluff: Skig  Round Three: Hum a few bars Round Four - Bluff: Scabble  Round Five: Wha'd Ya, Get Bernadette?  SY-2311

Erin McKean is a lexicographer, writer, speaker, and maker that started Dress A Day about 13 years ago to chronicle her sewing projects. If you've ever seen Erin at a conference, chances are you've seen her in a really cool print fabric dress she made herself. We talk about her career, how she sews her dresses, as well as tips on how anyone can learn to sew their own clothes too. One of Erin's dresses, complete with bright red piping: erin-piping https://uploads.fireside.fm/images/8/8902c1c9-f2fa-4d62-89a4-5ff690afde35/Rv6ddF3c.jpg

"Donuts.  Is there anything they can't do?" ---Matt Groening    "If you're talking about how you promoted synergy in an organization, that could mean you just got everybody together for donuts twice a week." ---Erin McKean   Yes, that's right!  This episode of TRIO SIMPATICO is completely dedicated to DONUTS!  Those wondrous doughy rings that Americans have been stuffing their gobs with since 1847!   Joining us in this celebration of confectionery creations are TWO returning guests: LAUREN WITSAMAN and MARY CLAIRE WILLIAMS making this week's TRIO SIMPATICO a quartet!   Josh, David, Lauren, and Mary Claire each scoured Northeast Ohio for their favorite donut shops (or those shops which had the most convenient hours) and requested the top three best selling varieties from each establishment.  Then they got together, divided up their baked-good* bounty, and compared notes during a professionally executed DOUGHNUT TASTE TEST! Listen in as the panel also discusses their favorite doughnut franchise chains, other shops not represented in our sampling, the best types of donuts, and their misadventures during this particular donut hunt! All of this and MORE on this episode of TRIO SIMPATICO! *We are aware that doughnuts are technically fried but for the sake of alliteration we allowed this factual discrepancy   

Words you might not know existed for feelings you might not know you had…Sheran James of The Sharin' Hour on KX 93.5 explores unusual and arcane words.  With input from linguist John McWhorter, lexicographer Erin McKean and author Tiffany Smith of the “Book of Human Emotions”.   Plus, texting: a scourge on our language or something […]

Today we travel to a world with universal translation devices. Where the babelfish from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy comes true (although probably not in the form of an evolved organism, but let's not fret about the details).     We start this episode with Barry Slaughter Olsen, who's the co-president of Interpret America. Barry tells us all about what interpreting and translation actually is, and why it will be really hard to replace human translation with machines.    Then we talked to Julie Sedivy, a writer and language scientist based in Calgary. She helps us think about what these kinds of devices might do for language loss and cultural assimilation of immigrants. Do people still learn English when they move to America or Canada?    Last we talked to Erin McKean, the editor of Wordnik, the world's largest English Language dictionary. She walks us through a ton of fun future possibilities like branded Taylor Swift language plugins and online translation truthers.    Links and references mentioned in today's episode:    Interpret America  Is the language barrier really about to fall?   Long wait to come to America for Iraqis, Afghans who served U.S. troops  Julie Sedivy writes about losing and regaining Czech  Wordnik  A Spanish town's Google Translate fail  Cops use Google Translate to question woman     Flash Forward is produced by me, Rose Eveleth, and is part of the Boing Boing podcast family. The intro music is by Asura and the outtro music is by Broke for Free. Special thanks this week to Ciarán Doyle, David Faiz, Josh Newman and Noé Ramalleira. The episode art is by Matt Lubchansky. The episode art is by Matt Lubchansky.     If you want to suggest a future we should take on, send us a note on Reddit, Twitter, Facebook or by email at info@flashforwardpod.com. We love hearing your ideas! And if you think you’ve spotted one of the little references I’ve hidden in the episode, email us there too. If you’re right, I’ll send you something cool.     And if you want to support the show, there are a few ways you can do that too! We have a Patreon page, where you can donate to the show. But if that’s not in the cards for you, you can head to iTunes and leave us a nice review or just tell your friends about us. Those things really do help.    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Robin on Sanders' "honorary woman" claim, Pope vs. Zika virus, and SCOTUS deciding womb rights (again). Guests: Barbara Findlen, editor of WMC's Oscars-Gender Review; Judy Brooks' Healing Quest; Erin McKean's world's biggest dictionary, Wordnik.com. Erin McKean Judy Brooks: Barbara Findlen:

From Drake to Bernie Sanders, Amy Schumer to the presidential election—and, of course, Israeli cats—we’ve covered a lot this year on Unorthodox. We’re ringing in the new year with a special compilation of our favorite moments from 2015, including never-before aired segments, highlights from our live shows, and guests Simon Doonan, sex therapist Bat Sheva Marcus, comedian Dave Hill, lexicographer Erin McKean, and more.  Want more Unorthodox? Email us at Unorthodox@tabletmag.com, and sign up for our weekly newsletter at http://bit.ly/UnorthodoxPodcast.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week on Unorthodox, host Mark Oppenheimer and Tablet staffers Stephanie Butnick and Liel Leibovitz ring in the year 5776 with the latest news of the Jews. They sound off on a controversial New York Times feature that listed the Democrats in the House and Senate who voted against the Iran nuclear deal--and indicated which of those politicians were Jewish. (The 'Jewish?' column was quickly  ​ removed from the chart, and a correction was issued.)   Our Jewish guest is writer, model, and college student Julia Frakes, who describes getting her start as a writer in the fashion world when she was 16. She talks about ​ where to find smart fashion writing, and how she ended up on the runway.   Our non-Jewish guest is Erin McKean, lexicographer, word-lover, and founder of Wordnik.com, the "world's biggest online dictionary." She asks what Hebrew words we should be importing into English, and shares a ​ little-known​  Yiddish term she  ​feels is much deserving of a comeback.   You can follow Julia Frakes on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/bunnyBISOUS. Check out Wordnik's adopt-a-word fundraiser here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1574790974/lets-add-a-million-missing-words-to-the-dictionary.   For more Unorthodox, visit tabletmag.com/unorthodox. Email us at unorthodox@tabletmag.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This episode we talk with Erin McKean, founder of online dictionary Wordnik, about her history of processing and analyzing words with NeXT boxes, OS/2, and the Mac. We discuss self-identifying as a programmer, HyperCard qualifying as math, and hardcoded Danish comments.

This episode we talk with Erin McKean, founder of online dictionary Wordnik, about her history of processing and analyzing words with NeXT boxes, OS/2, and the Mac. We discuss self-identifying as a programmer, HyperCard qualifying as math, and hardcoded Danish comments.

Bob Garfield and Mike Vuolo are joined by Peter Sokolowski of Merriam-Webster, Katherine Martin of Oxford University Press, Jane Solomon of Dictionary.com, and Erin McKean of Wordnik.com to discuss their respective Words of the Year. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Moe and Erin McKean talk about building Reverb Technologies, Wordnik and the joy of lexicography.

Everyone knows that on the fourth day of ninth grade is when you get your results. I mean, that's the way it happens in our town; other towns do it differently. Amy, who moved here from Atlanta, said that in the big cities they do it when you're born, since they have to take blood from babies, anyhow, to test for HIV and that disease that means you can't drink Diet Coke. (She says she's going to be shot in a botched robbery, but I think she's lying. She also said her aunt is on Days of Our Lives, and I don't believe that either.)

[This episode originally aired February 28, 2009.]'Twittering,' 'tweeting,' 'twirting'--it's rare to see a whole new body of language appear right before your eyes. But that's what's happening with 'Twitter.' We discuss the snappy new shorthand of the 'twitterati.' Also, why do people feel compelled to say 'Polly wanna cracker'? whenever they see a parrot? And is it ever okay to 'end a sentence with a preposition'?For a closer look at the language of the 'twitterati,' check out Erin McKean's recent piece in the 'Boston Globe.'http://boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2009/02/08/all_a_twitter/Glossaries of Twitter-related terms can be found at Twittonary , Twittionary , and Twictionary . We didn't say all the coinages were clever!By the way, you can now follow 'A Way with Words' on Twitter:http://twitter.com/wayword/A man who owns a parrot says that when people see his bird, they invariably ask the question 'Polly wanna cracker?' He wonders about the origin of that psittacine phrase. 'Psittacine'? It means parrot-like.http://www.bartleby.com/61/21/P0632100.htmlOne of the earliest uses of the phrase so far found is this fake advertisement from the mock newspaper the 'Bunkum Flag-Staff and Independent Echo' published in 1849 in 'The Knickerbocker' magazine.http://tinyurl.com/btaj2rIt starts, 'For sale, a Poll Parrot, cheap. He says a remarkable variety of words and phrases, cries, 'Fire! fire!; and 'You rascal!' and 'Polly want a cracker,' and would not be parted with, but having been brought up with a sea-captain he is profane and swears too much.'Below, a cartoon from 'The John-Donkey,' July 29, 1848, p. 47, via Proquest American Periodical Series. 'The John-Donkey' was a short-lived humorous and satirical magazine edited by Thomas Dunn English.http://www.waywordradio.org/polly-want-a-cracker-1848.bg.gifIs it ever okay to 'end a sentence with a preposition'? Oh, is it ever! Martha and Grant do their best to bury this tired old proscription. It's a baseless rule concocted by 17-century grammarians, and it's errant nonsense up with which your hosts will not put.Quiz Guy Greg Pliska has a 'puzzle' in which participants try to guess a word that could logically go before or after each of a trio of words. For example, if the three words are 'nest,' 'calories,' and 'suit,' the answer is 'empty,' as in 'empty nest,' 'empty calories,' and 'empty suit.' So, can you guess why Greg calls this puzzle 'Crown Play Time'?'Toward vs. towards': is it more correct to say 'toward an object' or 'towards an object'? Well, which side of the Atlantic are you on?Martha tries out a couple of 'old-fashioned riddles' on Grant. Here's one: 'What goes around the world, but stays in a corner?'An F-18 fighter pilot worries that a term he and his colleagues often use isn't 'a legitimate word.' It's 'deconflict,' which means to ensure that aircraft aren't in the same airspace. Grant reassures him that deconflict is a perfectly respectable term.Is there a word for '@#$%!^*)!&!,' those typographical symbols standing in for profanity? There is indeed. It's 'grawlix'--not to be confused with 'jarns,' 'quimps,' 'nittles,' 'lucaflects,' or 'plewds.' For more on such terms, check out cartoonist 'Mort Walker's Private Scrapbook.'http://tinyurl.com/b8davpThere's also an amazing list of grawlixes used in cartoons and comics from 1911 to 2008:http://www.statoids.com/comicana/grawlist.htmlGrant answers a letter from a listener who wonders if it's ever correct to use the word 'fishes' instead of 'fish.'In this weekâs round of 'Slang This!', a member of the National Puzzlers League tries to separate the real slang terms from the fake ones. For example, which of following expressions is British rhyming slang for 'wife': 'boiler house' or 'the stitches'? And which of these is prison slang for 'cake' or 'candy': 'cho-cho' or 'grimpen mire'?What do you call 'the nasty black mixture of snow and ice that builds up in your car's wheel wells' in wintry weather? Is there a word for this frigid gunk? Various names have been floating around, including 'hunkers,' 'snard,' 'snowlactites,' 'knobacles,' 'slud,' 'snowtice,' 'grice,' 'carsicles,' and 'snirt.' A caller shares another her own family uses, 'braxis.'If people are on warmly congenial terms, they're said to 'get on 'like a house on fire.' Yet an Irishwoman says when she uses this expression in the U.S., she often gets puzzled looks. Is the expression that unusual?When something's crooked, some people describe it as 'catawampus,' or 'cattywampus,' or 'kittywampus.' A caller wonders about the historical roots of all these words. Anything to do with felines?--Get your language question answered on the air! Call or write with your questions at any time:Email: words@waywordradio.orgPhone: United States toll-free (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673London +44 20 7193 2113Mexico City +52 55 8421 9771Site: http://waywordradio.org.Podcast: http://waywordradio.org/podcast/Forums: http://waywordradio.org/discussion/Newsletter: http://waywordradio.org/newsletter/Twitter: http://twitter.com/wayword/Skype: skype://waywordradio

Grant dishes up the latest language headlines from around the world.Oh, what a difference a letter can make! The Moscow Times reports this week that Tatyana Tetyorkina was stripped of her Russian citizenship because a government clerk's typewriter was missing a single letter. Instead, a  different vowel was used, making her Teterkina rather than Tetyorkina--and making who she said she was and who her papers said she was disagree. Public outcry over the matter has since caused her citizenship to be reinstated, but Tatyana is still pursuing it in the Russian courts.In Slate magazine, Eugene Volokh takes a look at names that are so weird that they were brought before the courts. There's the nine-year-old New Zealand girl named Talula Does the Hula From Hawaii. Yes, that's the entire name. There's someone named They T-H-E-Y, there's Darren Lloyd Bean, spelled Darren Q-X Bean, and more Santa Clauses than a Santa Claus convention.Caroline Winter fills in for William Safire in the New York Times Magazine, where she discusses why we capitalize the pronoun 'I.' She says, in short, that a lowercase I is hard to see on the page, but an uppercase I is a cinch to read. She suggests, just for a little self-humbling, that we capitalize you, Y-O-U, instead.Also in the New York Times, Nicholson Baker gives a favorable review to Ammon Shea's book, Reading the OED, in which he spent an entire year reading the print version of the second edition of the Oxford English Dictionary. Baker calls the book 'oddly inspiring' and says, 'The effect of this book on me was to make me like Ammon Shea and, briefly, to hate English.'Finally, dictionary editor Erin McKean asks in the Boston Globe why people use a word and then sheepishly wonder if it is really a word. She writes, 'Whenever I see 'not a real word' used to stigmatize what is (usually) a perfectly cromulent word, I wonder why the writer felt the need to hang a big sign reading 'I am not confident about my writing' on it. What do they imagine the penalty is for using an 'unreal' word? A ticket from the Dictionary Police?' Cromulent, by the way, is a made-up word from The Simpsons. It means good or fine.Okay, fine. That's all for this week's language headlines. You can find links to all of these stories on the discussion forum of A Way with Words, public radio's weekly call-in show about language. Find it at waywordradio.org.--Get your language question answered on the air! Call or write 24 hours a day: (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673, words@waywordradio.org, or visit our web site and discussion forums at http://waywordradio.org. Copyright 2008, Wayword LLC.