Language map of Toronto

Now that you've digested the Ratchester Dawg, enjoy Toronto's Language Quilt, a cartographic-language illustration of a lovely city.

I need one for New York, London and Greenville, SC.

via the Map Room.

Technorati : cartography, languages, linguistics, maps, toronto, urban languages

Posted by Allan Jenkins at 10:36pm in Cartography, Language & Linguistics | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (0) | TrackBack (0)

How lawng is the dawg? T'ain't no tellin ..It's a Ratchester dawg.

(If regional accents aren't your interest, turn back).

Long time readers of this blog know I am not really from Copenhagen, Denmark (a.k.a. the Paris of the North), but from Greenville, South Carolina (Textile Capital of the World). And let me say right away that I appreciate the efforts of some comms bloggers to prevent me from becoming homesick.

Despite many, many years abroad, I happily find myself still a Southerner. I still make cornbread and fried chicken and biscuits, and I would grow okra if the climate allowed it (thank God for Pakistani grocers!). I know exactly what Faulkner means when he writes:

"For every Southern boy fourteen years old, not once but whenever he wants it, there is the instant when it's still not yet two o'clock on that July afternoon in 1863, the brigades are in position behind the rail fence, the guns are laid and ready in the woods and the furled flags are already loosened to break out and Pickett himself with his long oiled ringlets and his hat in one hand probably and his sword in the other looking up the hill waiting..."

But I have almost entirely lost my Southern accent. With the exception of an unrootable habit of saying "y'all," I pretty much am never identified as a Southerner by other expatriates. This has always surprised me; I have not consciously shed the accent of my forebears. What also surprises me is how fast it comes back as soon as I hit Atlanta airport... even I hear it come back.

So it is with great understanding and not a little relief that I read Printculture's wonderful piece, "How long is the dog?". It's not about Southern accents, but the accent of "Ratland", an area that seems to include much of the hinterland between New York and Chicago. Not a bad piece, and the piece that inspired it is even better.

Technorati : accents, dialects, printculture, ratland

Posted by Allan Jenkins at 11:42pm in Language & Linguistics | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (2) | TrackBack (0)

"Wow, Dave, what happened to you?" "Hit some low-hanging fruit and fell on my cutting edge."

A couple of years back, I ranted a little about crappy, irritating business jargon. I secretly find it satisfying to sneer inwardly at people who bandy about "proactive," "low-hanging fruit" or "stretch target." I'm particularly down on people who talk about being "cutting edge" -- great, pal, you've learned not to use the back of the knife.

If you're nodding in agreement, head over to The Office Life Business Jargon Dictionary, where they have codified the most commonly encountered business cant. Dip into it sparingly; it's much too depressing to go from A-to-Z in one go. But a fine resource.

Hat tip to "Marcus."

Technorati : cant, counter words, jargon, language

Posted by Allan Jenkins at 06:19pm in Communication, Language & Linguistics, Logophilia | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (1)

Why isn't 'monosyllabic' a shorter word?

Scott Baradell asks Which Media, Marketing, or PR Blog is the Most Readable, and goes on to answer the question by applying the Gunning-Fog readability index, as calculated at the JuicyStudio site. Most of our colleagues score in the 8-11 range, which means you need 8 to 11 years of education to make out what we are nattering on about.

Desirable Roasted Coffee was not in Scott's survey, but the ever-helpful Stuart Bruce put DRC on his list. Desirable Roasted Coffee scores 10.24, with 1.65 syllables a word, and 7.73 words a sentence. Well, you can call me wordy. But I am less wordy than my erudite friends Kami Huyse (10.51: 1.53 syllables a word, 12.59 words per sentence) and Lee Hopkins (10.94, 1.53 syllables a word, 13.54 words per sentence).

Technorati Tags: Gunning Fog Index, Kami Huyse, Lee Hopkins, Scott Baradell, Stuart Bruce

Posted by Allan Jenkins at 11:00pm in Language & Linguistics | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (0)

Is Your Prose Gender-Confused?

Those of you know me (and some of you who don't) know I'm a guy. But would you know that from the way I write? Is your gender clear from the way you write?

If you're in doubt, crank some of your best words through the GenderGenie. After a brief cogitation, the GenderGenie will decide your text (ideally 500 words or more) signals that you are male or female.

To test the concept, I ran three of my blog posts through the program:

PR Bloggers Get Knickers in Twist Over FedEx Protecting Its Mark. This 544-word post came in with a Male/Female score of 1263/680. Definitely a guy that day.

Yeah, We Got Eggs in Denmark. And Ireland's Starting to Look Like America. 493 words. Male 729, Female 1129. A low-testosterone day, clearly.

IABC's 55% Loan Business. 522 words, 1742:768 M:F ratio.

For fun, I also ran some recent articles I've written for clients. Results? All over the map. Which either means I'm an adaptable writer or an execrable writer.

Or the Gender Genie algorithm is flawed. For example, in the IABC's 55% Loan Business article, the Gender Genie's analysis looked like this:

That would seem a fairly simplistic analysis. But an explanation of the algorithm shows some pretty convincing empirical evidence.
I'm guessing the Gender Genie "gets it mostly right, most of the time."

Now, what's it good for?

A powder of the paryk  to  Matt Galloway's Basement blog (which is worth a visit if only for its strapline: "...because someone has to BE the Long Tail." ) where Matt also provides his own analysis of Gender Genie.

Technorati tags: gendergenie moshekoppel shlomoargamon linguistics

Posted by Allan Jenkins at 10:00am in Language & Linguistics, Time-Sinks, Writing & Grammar | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (3) | TrackBack (0)