I love the English language. Even when I’m not speaking it, I use it for thinking or for writing a blog. But I’m not sure I love it as much as Sir James Murray, who constructed the Oxford English Dictionary in his garden shed at
My favourite words tend to be the rude ones. Used judiciously, they can spice up polite conversation. What’s new for fall? Cock-blocker:
cock-blocker n. coarse slang (orig. and chiefly
2004 R. BYRNES Trust Fund Boys 272 You're compounding things by being a cock-blocker.
Back to the point: OED is also my preferred tool for keeping up with the latest pop trends. NME and Pitchfork are constantly inventing new musical genres, but how am I to know what it all means, especially when Barrington Ennui, the bassist out of Burning Wednesday’s Veil, keeps saying his band isn’t really math-emo at all?
In a new series, maybe starting tomorrow, GMS casts a critical eye over the cutting-edge types of pop that youngsters are playing these days with their key-tars. Will ringtone rap get the OED seal of approval? Can glitch-tronica be defined? Any takers for Morrissey-esque? Can words describe the sheer um-ness of In Rainbows? You’ll have to wait and see.
Magnetic Fields – ‘All My Little Words’ (from 69 Love Songs)
Black Star – ‘Definition’ (from Mos Def and Talib Kweli are … Black Star)
1 comment:
I think "um-ness" should be a candidate, actually.
Geeking out on the English languages rules. The Chicago Manual of Style is pretty much my bible.
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