I often come across interesting words penned by my fellow Twitterers and keep thinking that I’d like to use those words sometime… so rather than lose them to the cluttered filling cabinet in my mind; here they are and may they benefit your vocabulary also: (I will update as I find more and please feel free to add more!)
(explanations from my iMac’s dictionary)
scuppering [@susan_m]
verb [ trans. ] chiefly Brit.
sink (a ship or its crew) deliberately.
• informal prevent from working or succeeding; thwart : plans for a casino were scuppered by a public inquiry.
ORIGIN late 19th cent. (as military slang in the sense [kill, esp. in an ambush] ): of unknown origin. The sense [sink] dates from the 1970s.
Placebo [@neerav via @fridley]: noun ( pl. -bos)
a harmless pill, medicine, or procedure prescribed more for the psychological benefit to the patient than for any physiological effect : his Aunt Beatrice had been kept alive on sympathy and placebos for thirty years | [as adj. ] placebo drugs.
• a substance that has no therapeutic effect, used as a control in testing new drugs.
• figurative a measure designed merely to calm or please someone.
ORIGIN late 18th cent.: from Latin, literally ‘I shall please,’ from placere ‘to please.’ Interestingly I also found out the word “placebo” originates from 14th century tradition of hiring fake mourners to wail and cry at funerals…
Lambasting (@matthewgain): lambaste |lam?be?st| (also lambast |-?bast|)
verb [ trans. ]
criticize (someone or something) harshly : they lambasted the report as a gross distortion of the truth.
ORIGIN mid 17th cent. (in the sense [beat, thrash] ): from lam 1 + baste 3 . The current sense dates from the late 19th cent.
Avatar (@vipvirtualsols etc): ??I couldn’t resist this one as the movie was awesome and I love the feeling this one makes in your mouth when you say it… noun chiefly Hinduism
a manifestation of a deity or released soul in bodily form on earth; an incarnate divine teacher.
• an incarnation, embodiment, or manifestation of a person or idea : he set himself up as a new avatar of Arab radicalism.
• Computing a movable icon representing a person in cyberspace or virtual reality graphics.
ORIGIN from Sanskrit avat?ra ‘descent,’ from ava ‘down’ + tar- ‘to cross.’
Churlish (@matthewgain): adjective
rude in a mean-spirited and surly way : it seems churlish to complain.
DERIVATIVES
churlishly adverb
churlishness noun
ORIGIN Old English cierlisc, ceorlisc (see churl , -ish 1 ).
Delimiter (@trib): verb ( -limited , -limiting ) [ trans. ]
determine the limits or boundaries of : agreements delimiting fishing zones.
DERIVATIVES
delimitation |-?te??(?)n| noun
delimiter noun
ORIGIN mid 19th cent.: from French délimiter, from Latin delimitare, from de- ‘down, completely’ + limitare (from limes, limit- ‘boundary, limit’ ). ALSO the name of online news service, Delimiter, launched in Australia to compete with AAP, covering IT&T and consumer tech news.
I have been inspired to write again… feeling very slack for not having posted in such a long time… but inspired by a fellow writer who has quite an amazing blog about a year of self discovery, tasking herself with learning a new thing every day. Check it out – Giving Back Girl.
My biggest take from Lisa’s blog is her passion for writing, much like when you see a painting on a wall that is just bursting with life, even though it’s just a 2D image. So, how do you get that passion, where do you find that voice? I am not really sure I know how to answer that question. I find that if I am writing for work regarding business matters, there is still the need for passion or light and dark, and perhaps finding that is harder than if you were writing about personal experience. Partly, I think it’s about immersing yourself in the scene as it were. Putting yourself on your canvas and looking out at the readers, and seeing what their expression would show. Comprehension, disbelief, confusion, kinship… So by essentially turning yourself into the words you force yourself to understand far more intimately who you’re writing for. If it’s yourself or people who follow a similar life to you, a lot easier. If I am writing for a bunch of Chief Technology Officers or business leaders it’s quite a different kettle of fish. But the key is understanding their language before you start.
The passion I have for writing is that to me words are a living entity and it’s how you put them together that delivers a meaning… but also how the reader interprets those words. I’ve just read a wonderful book about painters called The Swan Thieves by Elizabeth Kostova (who also wrote The Historian and one of my all time favourite novels). Through her characters and exquisite writing she is able to help the reader understand what a painting with its own life is all about. Subsequently I had the pleasure of attending a ‘private’ viewing of the Archibold Prize at the NSW Art Gallery. When looking at the paintings I was able to feel the soul and the passion of some of the paintings. Whilst the feelings I experienced might not have been exactly what the painter felt, probably quite different, yet I was still moved by the experience. This is what I think a good piece of writing should always endeavour to do; evoke a feeling or passion for the reader… to give them a new life experience. Hopefully, when that inner novel inside me is able to pop out that I too evoke that level of passion and that I help others experience something new and amazing. I just have to figure out how to get it out… and then I will share.
I couldn’t resist sharing this one… It’s certainly not new to anyone who tweets or even for emailers for that matter. Apart from the very valid points it makes in reference to society, I love the basic reversal of words to re-engineer the point. It’s this sort of thing that makes me passionate about writing!
Just back from a weekend up the coast… an absolutely beautiful part of the world, Port Stephens… I will have to figure out how I relocate the family up there one day, but that’s for another post.
The point of this one is just to touch on how i have been virtually uncontactable, only via mobile, while away… so no twitter, no opportunity to blog, no facebook… to be honest I didn’t miss them at all, but it was also like coming home to an old friend switching on tweetdeck and checking my emails, comments etc.
Then today I read an article in Sunday Life (lift out mag in Sun Herald) “Let them eat tweets” by Virginia Heffernan (writer for the New York Times Magazine). For those who haven’t read it, the article looks at the purpose and outcomes of involvement in twitter, and other social media networks. Click here for the full article – Let them eat tweats.
Overall, I found it a very negative view of what we reap and hopefully share from online social networks. Of course everyone has a right to their opinion, so therefore i’d like to express mine.
Over the last year (I think) that I’ve been a Twitterer and Facebooker I have not only forged new contacts, friends and networks; I have learned an enormous amount of things. I cannot possibly quantify, but here is a quick snippet:
Earthquake in Italy before it made it to the papers from someone on the wobbly ground
Blackouts in Sydney… particularly relevant as it can affect what time Mr Verb makes it home
Learning writing skills – both fiction and corporate writing
A lot I didn’t need to know about Max Markson
Blogging & micro blogging skills
Insight into the impact social media is having on business and the general public
On the ground updates – words and pics – from Myanmar during mother nature’s devastation
I could go on, but I think you get the picture. It’s vast, relevant to me and has made me a better person. I am not only the person in my twitter profile, social media doesn’t define me, but it is a solid part of me and my network of business and social contacts. Without social media I wouldn’t be who I am today – I wouldn’t have connected with so many old school friends, I wouldn’t have gained certain work projects and I wouldn’t be writing this entry. Thank you for existing Social Media and thank you to all those who have made it possible!
So to that end, I say adieu until the next entry… I am off for a jog, another aspect of my world!
Quick update- to reinforce the above, I had dinner last night with two friends from high school who i haven’t been in touch with for around 18 years. The only reason we were there together having a YUMMY laksa was due to Facebook. I learned things from my friends last night, not only about their last 18 years, but also facts about the world they knew that i didn’t. Again, thank you social media!
I received two emails from eBay today (technically, one came last night and one this morning), the first had the subject line of “10% off voucher inside to say thank you”. It made me think ‘thank you eBay, you too are appreciating your customers and giving back in a small way in hard times.’
To be honest I was a tad surprised, but figured there’d be some catch to it as this particular brand just doesn’t seem to represent honesty or community-focus to me at the moment. Which is strange given the nature of its whole structure, without its community, it basically wouldn’t exist! When I try to pin point why I feel like this about the brand, the outcome is that it’s a combination of some ‘dodgy retailers’ as well as confusing and inconvenient changes to payment and feedback processes.
So… back to the emails – the second one, would you believe, says this:
Subject: IMPORTANT: CORRECTION TO EMAIL REGARDING 10% OFF VOUCHER
Dear xxxx,
A short while ago, you received an email from eBay which incorrectly contained
the following words in the subject line: “10% off voucher inside to say thank
you”.
The subject line of that email was wrong, and occurred as the result of a
technical error. Please note that there is no voucher or discount from
eBay.com.au associated with that email or otherwise applicable to you at this
time.
eBay sincerely regrets any inconvenience and thanks you for your understanding.
Regards,
The eBay Team
Technically, the email is right because the first didn’t actually have a voucher or anything in the email – it was just in the subject line. So obviously overnight there was MAJOR panic in the particular halls/desks responsible for this email as the first was sent without proofing… then the second sent in a panic without any thought for the recipients. Even the wording makes me feel insignificant and like perhaps someone else might be ‘applicable’ but certainly not me. Plus the fact that they blame it on a technical error… come one now, I think this one might have been human error yeah??
As a writer, I understand that proofing is such a critical element to any piece of writing. In spite of this, I too am guilty of not doing it enough and appreciate there is always a chance of human error. However, this incident goes far greater than just a proofing issue and could have been rectified in a far more effective way. I think the brand custodians need to have a long hard think about how they are portraying themselves as slowly but surely they are eroding their trust and community and one day they’ll wonder where their listings went.
Well as ‘a work of art’ might be taking it a bit far, but i did have fun playing with the colours, fonts and layout… go to http://www.wordle.net/ to create your own beautiful word cloud – thank you @KateKendall for sharing.
This morning as my #1 kid added a new word to his repertoire (to my shame it came straight from Ben10 via Cartoon Network)… and the word was ‘like’… but not used in the traditional sense of the word, but in the more youthful sense where you just like add it into like the sentence that you are like using because like it sounds like really good. Whilst I was the word grated on my nerves as I heard him say it, I was instantly transported back to my father giving me a hard time about it when I was in my teens.
So it has prompted me to write this post… not just in the exploration of the word ‘like’, but generally about how words change over time. It’s what excites me about language; the way it evolves and how a generation can have such an impact on how words are used.
According to the Oxford Dictionary ‘like’ has a few meanings… which depending on your interpretation actually includes the way my son used it… although I am sure it wasn’t in there when I was a teenager and I am sure it doesn’t mean to add it more than once to a sentence. The origins of the word date back to the 13th and 14th centuries, with the 1500s seemingly being the first use of the word in its form as it is today. So it’s been around for a very long time… no wonder the meaning is flexible and Generation X started playing with its usage.
So how does language evolve in this way? The abundance of International television, mainly from the USA has had an enormous impact on the Australian vernacular. However, it seems the influence on the use of words or expressions can come from varying influences. For example, according to Angus Stevenson (www.askoxford.com) the expression ‘go pear shaped’ (meaning to go wrong) supposedly comes from RAF slang, first written in the early 1980s but most probably in use a few decades before that in reference to the shape of a fighter plane after it has crashed into the ground or a novice’s attempt at a perfect circle in the air.
Considering the way communications has vastly changed from the early 80s, the impact online communication will be having on language would be significant. Just the impact of the TXT message has change the way I write emails and communicate with friends, family and colleagues. I’ve been told I am the queen of the succinct TXT msg and I am secretly proud of that.
Another avenue in the online world has been the advent of social media, more specifically the requirement to get our point across in 140 characters; delivered instantly to many. So perhaps my son or one of his generational peers will be studying the impact all this has had on language in 20 or 30 years time.
Whilst many have been scared or pessimistic about the impact technology is having, handled in the right way I see enormous benefits not just to you in your immediate community but for the world, in bringing us closer to share and communicate. Whilst there are segments of the technology world that have valid opponents, I am hoping the greater good will prevail and the impact my grandchildren (gosh I hope I get some one day) will experience will only enhance their communication and the way they use words and language. Perhaps they will more easily be multilingual… or perhaps even a new language will evolve, and I am not talking techno speak, but with common use words in one language being used by those of other nationalities. Of course, we have plenty of that already in existence… some words are just better said in their original language: hors d’oeuvres, hasta la vista (if you’re a Terminator fan), à la carte or annus horribilis.
I look forward to watching how my native tongue evolves and as I sit in my rocking chair trying to understand my grandkids in 30 or so years I hope I take as much pleasure in learning and using it as I do now.
I have been swaying back and forth between Plurk and Twitter over the last three months… After a rather strong addiciton to Plurk initially, i broke free and had a break. It was needed as i had become emotionally invested, not through sharing personal information, but i had started to lead a virtual world in some ways and that kind of scared me.
So i went back to twitter, but not in an involved way, more as a voyeur. Then just this week i returned to the plurking world… to anyone who knows it, you’d know that my kaarma was 0.00… a terribly uninspiring return… but i started conversations again… and my old mates commented and i felt a part of the community again.
To me something about plurk seems to embrace someone like me far more than Twitter, which seems to generally be a very individual and less engaging flow… I am not saying either is a failure, but acknowledging that as they are structured differently they will engage people differently. For my way of interacting i feel i learn more and have more time to browse with Plurk… but some very important failings stop me from being completely positive about the experience. The fact that you can’t track conversations you’re in makes it very hard work.
Either way, both have been pretty good at enabling me to be short n sharp with my point. A friend commented the other day that i was the most succinct txter she knows. I am pretty sure she wouldn’t have any tweople or plurkers as friends… so i wonder if this has had an influence. I think this is a new topic to be explored next post…
Welcome to my new design… hopefully this is a little bit more embracing the feel of this blog… and more pleasant to visit. The graphic encompasses the social, communications and cyclical aspects of communication. Let me know what you think.
