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Not exactly language-related, but very important:
On the day the last newspaper is published, I expect no sympathy card from Kwame Kilpatrick. Were it not for a newspaper – the Detroit Free Press – his use of public funds to cover up his affair with one of his aides would be unrevealed and he still might be mayor of Detroit.
Nor will I expect flowers from Larry Craig. Were it not for a newspaper – the Idaho Statesman – we would not know of his propensity for taking a “wide stance” in airport men’s rooms and he still might be serving in the U.S. Senate. And I doubt there will be a toast of commiseration from Reynaldo Diaz and Oscar Rivero. Were it not for a newspaper – the Miami Herald – they still would be living large on money scammed from an agency that builds housing for the poor.
In short, the day the last newspaper is published – a day that seems to be rushing at us like a brick wall in an old Warner Bros. cartoon – I will not be surprised if the nation’s various crooks, crumbs and corruptors fail to shed a tear. But the unkindest cut of all, the “Et tu, Brute?” dagger in the back, is the fact that, according to a new survey from the Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism, most other Americans won’t, either. Pew found 63 percent of respondents saying that if their local paper went down, they would miss it very little or not at all.
Continue reading this post » » »
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — If you don’t know a stone toter from Adam’s off ox, or aren’t sure what a grinder shop sells, the Dictionary of American Regional English is for you.
The collection of regional words and phrases is beloved by linguists and authors and used as a reference in professions as diverse as acting and police work. And now, after five decades of wide-ranging research that sometimes got word-gatherers run out of suspicious small towns, the job is almost finished.
The dictionary team at the University of Wisconsin-Madison is nearing completion of the final volume, covering ”S” to ”Z.” A new federal grant will help the volume get published next year, joining the first four volumes already in print.
”It will be a huge milestone,” said editor Joan Houston Hall.
The dictionary chronicles words and phrases used in distinct regions. Maps show where a submarine sandwich might be called a hero or grinder, or where a potluck — as in a potluck dinner or supper — might be called a pitch-in (Indiana) or a scramble (northern Illinois).
It’s how Americans do talk, not how they should talk.
read the rest via On to Z! Quirky Regional Dictionary Nears Finish – NYTimes.com.
The rising unemployment rate and bearish stock market are reliable indicators that the economy is in dire straits.
But an economic downturn isn’t a full-blown recession until it spawns a new set of creative and descriptive buzzwords, catch phrases and acronyms.
In other words, the rising tide of underwater and upside-down homes, zombie banks, TARPs and toxic ARM mortgages are proof that we’re in a recession of historic proportions.
There hasn’t been an explosion of new entries into the business vernacular like this since the Great Depression, which spawned Black Tuesday, Dust Bowl, WPA, New Deal, migrant worker, Hooverville and bread line.
[more] via The Columbus Dispatch : Bursting of bubble begets buzzwords.
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