Sunday language linkage.
Dec. 2nd, 2012 09:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sister_luckI can't believe that another week has gone! I was so very close to forgetting about a language link.
But a visit to Languagehat has provided me with a link to an NPR (that is America's public radio station) story about the word random - you can listen or read a written version here. What I took from it: It's not only okay to use random outside of its mathematical context, the mathematical meaning wasn't even first! Also, Jesse Sheidlower, the editor at large for the Oxford English Dictionary, is purple-haired. Not new to me, but worth repeating: "Life, like language, evolves."
Word of the week: Selfie to mean a self-portrait taken by a mobile phone camera. Found this in a story about Justin Bieber who made the mistake of taking a picture of himself with a mobile phone that some random girl threw on stage during a concert. Guess what? Cue more mobile phones being thrown at him. Video evidence here.
But a visit to Languagehat has provided me with a link to an NPR (that is America's public radio station) story about the word random - you can listen or read a written version here. What I took from it: It's not only okay to use random outside of its mathematical context, the mathematical meaning wasn't even first! Also, Jesse Sheidlower, the editor at large for the Oxford English Dictionary, is purple-haired. Not new to me, but worth repeating: "Life, like language, evolves."
Word of the week: Selfie to mean a self-portrait taken by a mobile phone camera. Found this in a story about Justin Bieber who made the mistake of taking a picture of himself with a mobile phone that some random girl threw on stage during a concert. Guess what? Cue more mobile phones being thrown at him. Video evidence here.
