Why is it some words and phrases out there are pleasant to hear, while others just grate on the nerve like fingernails scratching against chalk? Am I the only person who has such a passion for certain words and a disdain for others? I surely am not. Let’s look at some of these words, expressions — bon mots — shall we?
We celebrate writing on this WordPunk blog — and we do love our new iPhone 3G — even though the White Apple of Death drives us nuts daily. One of the invaluable assets for the iPhone 3G is the Apps Store. I spent $100.00USD to buy several dictionaries for use on my iPhone 3G. In this review, I will look up one of my favorite words — “semiotic” — and one of my favorite people — “Clinton” — to see what results are returned. You do not need an internet connection to use any of these dictionaries. All definitions are installed on your iPhone 3G.
Janna is fond of replying to the question — “Do you want the bad news first or the good news first?” — by saying “There is no bad or good, you have to deal with it all.”
That’s an incredibly mature way of dealing with life.
I am not quite so mature.
I always prefer the Bad News first because that is obviously the most conditional and powerful cudgel the teller of the news hopes use to influence your behavior: Get the chit out of the way so you can enjoy the cream.
Is a writer an author or just a fixer?
Is it possible words can go wrong?
Or is only the one who fixes words against each other to blame if context and meaning are skewed in understanding?
How can we possibly begin to comprehend each other in the language of a common tongue if words can have different meanings based on position in a sentence and the character of the fixer?
Do words ever have a proper ending? Or do they just eternally float in space waiting for new interpretations, inspirations and analysis by boring minds?
When, exactly, did “Hey!” replace “Hi!” as a standard greeting?
I think I’ve been using “Hey!” for “Hi!” for at least five years — but I’m not sure of the when or why.
Was there some sea change in a cultural colloquialism I missed?
I run another blog called Urban Semiotic and over there we look at issues rotting the urban core.
This WordPunk blog concerns writing about words in the wilds.
We are textual.
We are not the image.
Is it possible for text to be semiotic?
Or is the word always text — even as an image?
When I was growing up in Nebraska, my family was famous for always telling its young, “Never write something you don’t want read out loud to the rest of the world.”
That sort of advice, bundled in a warning, and wrapped in a grin and punctuated by a pointing finger, was daunting for a group of nine-year-old cousins to comprehend as we scrawled our names in crayon on a Big Chief pencil tablet.
When I was seven or eight I learned my first cuss word. I grew up in a home where alcohol and smoking and “potty-mouthing” were not allowed until my mother married a second time and her new husband brought two sons into our home.
by María L. Trigos-Gilbert
You are reading this article because you are hungry. You are hungry for words. Reading this isn’t mandatory. That’s what separates good readers from “bad” readers, more likely bad attitudes toward the activity. Thus with the right disposition one enjoys to read, but without it one dreads it. Let’s begin with a basic question: What are words? Technically speaking one could say that words are isolated characters which put together with some other characters give us a specific symbol. This compound symbol has a meaning, at times universal and some other times personal.
For instance, the letter “L” is just one of the characters from our known and common alphabet which unified with some other letters gives us a word. For example, think of the word “love.” Love has many meanings like when one likes something, adores something or someone, or when one finds something extremely appealing. For instance, in the USA people sometimes say “I love pizza,” or “I love my husband.” In Spanish if someone says, “yo AMO a la pizza,” or “yo AMO comer pizza,” would be rather too strong. In Spanish the word love has a strong implication, and to say that one loves an object or a special meal would be as if this person is misusing the word, twisting its meaning. Of course, we could find a considerable number of people in the Spanish world using “to love” rather than “to like”. It depends how strong one wants to go about something or someone.
by María L. Trigos-Gilbert
When we think about a verbal crime, we reject the thought because indeed it doesn’t seem a bit realistic. It is as when you look at a person with eyes like bullets. If looks could kill, the world’s amount of people would be near to the number zero. Yet the question is still pending: What’s a verbal crime? It’s when one uses the wrong word to describe or to define someone or something. Of course, I’m not talking about those times when we forget the exact word that our mind searches. I’m talking about when we intentionally ill-use adjectives, nouns, and even verbs to approach any given subject, person, or situation.
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