NoPa? Really?: Who Owns Naming Rights in San Francisco?
This post originally appeared at Catch This. Believe it or not, some of us still read newspapers. And so I am able to tell you that on its front page, …
I Can Create Words – I’m a Linguist: Forbes Special Report on Neologisms
This post originally appeared at Catch This. This was published a few weeks ago, but I didn’t have a chance to blog it till now. Forbes, of all publications, put …
La la la la I Can’t Hear You: Banished Words of 2008
This post originally appeared at Catch This. Recently Lake Superior State University announced its 34th annual list of Banished Words for 2008. (The full title is much more snarky, in …
What Comes After Biggest?: The Naming of Sizes
Increases in storage technology are necessitating names for the ever-expanding amount of space available in computers. In the old days (pre-1990), a hard drive that could hold 40 MB (megabytes; …
Your Name Makes You Intelligent
This post originally appeared at Catch This. I’m a big fan of Richard Wiseman’s Quirkology site – it’s all about psychology and perception and why human beings are so weird. …
Names, gender, and the not-so-subtle message
This post originally appeared at Catch This. There is yet another article on baby naming called “What’s in a Name?“, by Sam Kean, at the NY Times this week (get …
Buzzword of the Day
spit: First there was spam. Then spim (spam by instant messenger). Now get ready for spit (Spam Over Internet Telephony). It may not be a problem yet, but two companies …
Book Review: Eats, Shoots & Leaves
Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation By Lynne Truss Published by Gotham Books 240 pages; $17.50 ISBN: 1592400876 I’ve been wanting a copy of this book …
Diot Coke: A Refreshingly Old Name
This post originally appeared at Catch This. Yorkshire Couple Named Baby Diot Coke – in 1379 “Naming your child after a popular soft drink could be seen as a little …
Street Names
This post originally appeared at Catch This. How to name streets: “The ground rules of the name game are deceptively simple: The home-buyer must be able to spell and pronounce …