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The Definition of Nigger, Niggle, Niggly

I love words. I love writing words. I love reading words. I love hearing words. I have a new WordPunk blog that deals with “words in the wilds.” The power of words is in their definition. Words have meanings only because they are shared in context and understood between people. Dictionaries help bridge the fuzzy confusion between definition and meaning. Imagine, then, my delight and horror in receiving this email from a university professor friend of mine:

Word came down from above that we are no longer allowed to use “niggle” or “niggly” or any variety thereof in writing or speaking with students because “they sound and look too much like that other word” (the N-word) and we don’t “want to upset the student body.” I thought they were joking at first until I also saw a warning against using “spook” in class, too.

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Writing No Longer Matters

The Boston Globe reported last week many top American universities are ignoring the writing portion of the SAT exam when deciding whether or not to admit high school students into their programs of study.

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Beware the Proclaimed Genius

If genius is born in collective ciphers then we need to be wary of those who proclaim their solitary and self-important Genius.

The Self-Indulgent Genius is a warning sign that kowtowing and deference are expected in any exchange of memes or communicative dyads — and to not show deference is to be scorned and mocked and wanted smaller.

When Genius is dealt to you — respect it and honor it and keep it quiet unless and until it is discovered by others — and always run from those who foretell their own place in history by trumpeting a quiet gift.

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Genius Born in Collective Ciphers

Genius is born in collective ciphers — and the brilliance in the cooperative remains hidden until there is an expressed peril to group stakes — then an emergency encryption of memes and forms of protective thought are ignited, risking decoded secrets and nothingness.

 

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Haunted by Words

Sometimes we are unaware of what we have written.

Our words always become ghosts to us and they haunt us in the quiet moments if we are not cogent of their power to harm when we create meaning by solidifying thoughts into form and placing words against each other for context.

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I Married a WordPunk

Okay, so I have David W. Boles’ WordPunk ™ up and running and Going Great Guns over at TypePad. Now there’s the problem of identity and branding.

I came up with this simple logo. I love logos that look like text but are really images. Here’s the single-line logo:

WordPunk Logo Single Line

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Help Test WordPunk and WordPrescience

I need your help testing two new sites. The first site is a new blog called WordPunk.com — hosted on the for-pay TypePad blog service owned by Six Apart — you can click on the following image to be taken straight to the feedback article:

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Bad Baby Signs

After the wild success of our book, Hand Jive: American Sign Language for Real Life, for Barnes and Noble Publishing, Janna and I have been searching for just the right project to continue our perpetuation of, and love for, ASL. We are still building our Online ASL Classroom and we thought about doing a traditional Baby Signs book, but we felt the market was saturated and the money and contracts we were offered were never quite right with any mainstream publisher. We love the idea of going against the mainstream meme and providing an antidote — an antithesis, if you will — to the Baby Signs Movement by creating Bad Baby Signs: Words No Infant Should Know!

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Boles University Call for Faculty and Students

Boles University is now revamped into a more formal online teaching and learning portal. We need your help on both sides of the realm to expand its capacity for education. If you haven’t poked around Boles University in the last few days, you should go over there now and snoop around a bit — Boles College has also been added to the magical mix!

Boles University logo!

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Curse of the Common Name

Do you suffer from the “Curse of the Common Name” Common Nameor are you one of those blessed with a truly unique name that identifies you before anyone actually meets you?

I’ve always hated the name “David” because it was so common.

I much preferred “Keith” growing up but I never had the gumption to insist others actually refer to me by that name.

My father wanted to call me “Rocky” but my mother demanded the ordinary safe “David” harbor to the extraordinary rough shore. I’m not thrilled with the idea I was almost a Rocky, but anything is better than the “beloved” David.

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