There’s a Word for That?

CamelCase” is a term for a name created when capitalized compound words are run together. Web domains in particular have accelerated their usage (MySpace, CompuServe, EarthLink, etc.), and they have become quite the trend with marketers these days. Even large companies (FedEx, GlaxoSmithKline) are sneaking it into the public consciousness.

Incidentally, the rabbit hole through which I found this word started at Heath’s post about corporate subversion, which led me to a link to Ward Cunningham, which led to a link to the Portland Pattern Repository, which led to a link to CamelCase. God bless you, Wikipedia.

Linguistic Inequities

Why is it that we still have no word for strings of initials (HTML, NAACP, BFE, FCC) yet we have a term for the reversal of logical phrases? Ladies and gentleman of the jury, I present to you hysteron proteron, an overly lengthy phrase describing the inversion of a logical statement or clause. For example, saying “bred and born” instead of “born and bred.” This particular term was brought to my attention by my drummer and fellow language nerd, Steve Chapman.

Ah, but you say “acronym” is the term for things like AFL-CIO, DEA, and AARP, but it’s not. An acronym only qualifies as such if the initials create a word like “radar” (RAdio Detection And Ranging) or maybe even “SCSI” (pronounced “scuzzy”). Given that the Internet has created an unprecendented glut of what I like to call “initializations” (ASP, IIS, AOL), we really should get ourselves a word for this phenomenon. I vote for “initialization” if only because it has only slightly fewer[1] letters than “hysteron proteron.”

1.) Let it be known, mom, that I said “fewer” and not “less.”

Overthrowing the AP Style Manual

A client pointed out recently that “Web site” is how the AP Style Manual dictates the proper terminology for what you’re viewing right now. Curiously capitalized, “Web site” is an unwieldy two-word phrase moving toward compound status in the much sleeker and more concise “website.” It just makes good sense. You wouldn’t capitalize “brochure” would you? So why capitalize “Web site”?

It is up to all of us to dictate usage. The AP Style Manual is not Usage God, it is merely Usage Archive, marking the boundaries and storing information for uniform reference. It is not flexible enough to keep pace with the rapidly changing world in which we live. If it were up to the AP Style Manual we’d all still be saying “To-day” and “To-morrow.” So get out there, kids, and make “website” your terminology of choice!

Your All Fool’s

The Apostrophe Protection Society has a neat selection of photos showing improper apostrophe usage. If they really wanted to become huge, I’m sure they could align themselves with all the photobloggers and Flickr enthusiasts to start a truly massive archive but they’re content to stay small. They also take the time to school people on the dinstinction between “less” and “fewer” which my mother pointed out to me just the other day.

Evil Comes in Many Forms

I found this on a search engine optimization forum recently:

“Winston Churchill was a drinking, smoking,
gambling womaniser and Hitler a one woman teetotaller.”

That really stopped me in my tracks when I considered the so-called morality of the ruling party in this country. I’m not sure if this is connected but yesterday I was pondering how many wars have been started by atheists. I don’t think very many. Just some random things to consider I suppose.

On the lighter side, here is Merriam-Webster Online’s Top 10 Words of 2004:

1. blog
2. incumbent
3. electoral
4. insurgent
5. hurricane
6. cicada
7. peloton : noun (1951) : the main body of riders
in a bicycle race
8. partisan
9. sovereignty
10. defenestration

Choice terms all. My particular favorite is #10. #7 is the only one I didn’t know.

Former English Major Screams, Sets Hair on Fire, Runs Into Traffic

I just read this in one of my semi-spammy SitePro News emails:

“People who have certain remote spyware programs installed on their machines are literally sitting ducks.”

So people spontaneously transmogrify into waterfowl if they have remote spyware on their machines? The duck population will skyrocket. Seriously, people, we have to do something about the gross misuse of the word “literally.” It should only be used in a situation where it deactivates figurative language. You can only say “literally” if your statement is logically true. Saying that people are “literally sitting ducks” means that people are ducks. This idiocy must be stopped; it’s literally an epidemic.

Oh yeah, and the article was titled “The Ten Truth’s About Spyware.” Shoot me now.

Many Minute Things

Fundrace is an interesting site that gives names, occupations and mailing addresses for anyone who contributes to a presidential race. It’s also ZIP-code searchable, meaning you can find out fun things like celebrity addresses and distribution of political affiliations – did you know for example that the 90210 ZIP code contains only donations to
Democrats? Neato.

On the spam front, I’ve started getting spam messages that are populated by random excerpts from 19th Century literature. I got this recently:

Her baby-conscience was rather tough and elastic, and I suppose she would have felt no more scruples about nibbling nice things, than an unprincipled little mouse. Not Prudy, for the poor little thing had grown so lame by this time, that she was unable to bear her weight on her feet, much less to walk into the nursery.

A quick search on Yahoo (but not Google because it sucks now) reveals that this text comes from Little Prudy’s Sister Susy by Sophie May. I also found a copy of the exact email I received.

On TV there is some movie called Brave New Girl. I’ve been trying not to pay attention to it, because it’s a product of Britney Spears’ burgeoning media empire. I just want to say right now that abusing the good name of Brave New World for cheeseball TV programming that bears no relation whatsoever to anything even remotely intelligent or thoughtful is a sin against the universe. May God smite ye all.

One last thing. I just realized that the word “howdy” is the resulting silt of years of linguistic erosion from the far longer, “how do you do?” I can only assume that phrase was whittled down to “howdy do” and then the latter term was lopped off. I’m probably the only person that cares about this sort of thing…