@: The fulcrum of our digital identities June 6, 2013
Posted by Olivia McDowell in books, Punctuation, Typography, Words.Tags: @, Punctuation
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The Unlikely Evolution of @
(@ Fast Company)
Once a bookkeeper’s shorthand, @ has become the fulcrum of our digital identities. How did that happen?
“In Danish, the symbol is known as an “elephant’s trunk a”; the French call it an escargot. It’s a streudel in German, a monkey’s tail in Dutch, and a rose in Istanbul. In Italian, it’s named after a huge amphora of wine…
In 1971, a keyboard with a vestigial @ symbol inherited from its typewriter ancestors found itself hooked up to an ARPANET terminal manned by Ray Tomlinson…
“It’s difficult to imagine anyone in Tomlinson’s situation choosing anything other than the ‘@’ symbol, but his decision to do so at the time was inspired,” explains Houston on his blog. “Firstly, it was extremely unlikely to occur in any computer or user names; secondly, it had no other significant meaning for the operating system on which it would run, and lastly, it read intuitively–user ‘at’ host.”
READ THIS POST because it’s wonderful. I especially love the identification of @ as the fulcrum of an email address. Because it IS one!
And then if you can resist pre-ordering Keith Houston’s upcoming book you’re a stronger person than I. (Come on. It’s called Shady Characters: The Secret Life of Punctuation. How could I/you resist?)
In defence of proofreading May 23, 2013
Posted by Olivia McDowell in Blogging, Grammar Attack, Punctuation, Spellcheck, Technobabble, Wisdom, Words.Tags: Proofreading, Red pen, Sydney Writers' Festival 2013
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I am a proofreader.
I would be even if it wasn’t on my business card. (It is.)
I wake up a proofreader. I go to sleep a proofreader. It’s possible my dreams are pedantic.
I adore abstract art, and messy hair, and long-form improvised jazz, and unplanned weekends. But the methodical neural sequences are always running — as subtle, pervasive and persistent as those that maintain subconscious respiration and the miraculous auto-focus of my blessedly functional human eyes. I don’t switch this part of me on and off as I approach and depart the office each day.
As a proofreader, that’s the way things work, and it’s the way I work (even when I’m not at work). Just as an artist sees the world through creative eyes even in the non-painting, non-sculpting, non-drawing moments. Just as the curiosity that drives a scientist, deep-sea explorer or astronomer isn’t silenced the moment they step away from the microscope, periscope or telescope.
{image via PowerScore}
People are afraid of the red pen.
They fear seeing their writing covered in proofreading glyphs, and they resent the person who made it so.
Some editors use green or purple ink because red is ‘too aggressive’.
But red is also the colour of love, and of passion.
I do not proofread in anger. I proofread with passion. When I scrawl all over the page, I am sharing the writer’s devotion to the words they have coaxed forth. It is with love that I — as gently as possible — nurture and nudge those words just a little bit more, hoping to make them as perfect as we both desire them to be.
So writers? Don’t hate the red pen. Your proofreader actually loves your writing.
Proofreaders, don’t be ashamed to be called a persnickety, pedantic perfectionist. Wear that badge with pride (especially if you couldn’t take it off if you wanted to).
And everyone: go to as many Sydney Writers’ Festival events as you can between now and Sunday (26 May 2013). Let your brain be caressed and your thoughts provoked.
Unsavoury weather? April 14, 2013
Posted by Olivia McDowell in Grammar Attack, Words.Tags: Etymology, OED, Unseasonable weather
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When the weather contradicts what the season should dictate — for example, by delivering Summer-like warmth on an April day (unexpected in either hemisphere) — we say the weather is “unseasonably warm”.
When savoury food isn’t salt-and-peppery enough, we say it’s unseasoned (and probably unsavoury).
So why “unseasonably warm”?
Hint: it’s not because we can’t improve the weather with salt and pepper.
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The OED lists season (n.) as “any one of the periods, longer or shorter, into which the year is naturally divided by the earth’s changing position in regard to the sun” (and so on). That’s all based on an early version of the verb to sow (thus “sowing time” , from Latin and Vulgar Latin via Old French and Middle English, with variations in Modern French, Catalan, Portuguese, Italian). Humans have been talking about seasons since about 1340.
The concept of seasoning (v.) — “to render more palatable by the addition of some savoury ingredient” — turned up in around 1400, and is based on the same Old French concept: we leave fruit to ripen fully with the seasons, becoming as delicious as possible before we devour it or bake it into a pie.*
So unseasonal weather makes sense to me. But why unseasonable and unseasonably? Unable to be seasoned?
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The construction is literally just season + the able suffix.
Season+able (adj.) means “occuring at the right time or season”.*
Season+ably (adv.) means “in a fitting time; at the right moment; in due season”.
But if you ask me, the real answer comes back to a noun: seasonableness.
So if something is unseasonable it’s unsuitable or unreasonable.
When I comfortably wear a sundress in April — or am forced to wear a woollen scarf in December** — I do so because of weather that is unreasonably warm or cold (within the context of the season). I am unable to provide a reason for such inexplicable weather …Except to say that we should consume less, recycle more, and look for alternative sources of low-impact, renewable, sustainable energy.
And all this still has very little to do with salt and pepper, other than the fact that a cold day in Summer is generally thought to be unsavoury.
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* As opposed to seasonal (adj.), which means “depending on or happening with the seasons”. In Japan, cherry blossoms appear seasonally; if they flowered all through the year they would be unseasonal — unrelated to or unaffected by the prevailing season. Which means you could talk about an “unseasonally warm day” and still technically be correct, but you lose the element of unreasonableness and incongruity.
** That one is hemisphere-specific.
Exploded pie! …charts. January 25, 2013
Posted by Olivia McDowell in Etcetera, Laughing, Technobabble, Words.Tags: donut, donut chart, doughnut, exploded donut chart, exploded pie chart, pie, pie chart
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It brings me unspeakably irrational joy that “3D exploded pie” is actually a legitimate method of presenting data. No really. It’s a thing.
A chart with one or more sectors separated from the rest of the disk is known as an exploded pie chart. This effect is used to either highlight a sector, or to highlight smaller segments of the chart with small proportions.
– Wikipedia (of course)
For example, this is an exploded pie chart OF pies:
{via Peltier Tech}
The thing is that regular pie charts are (potentially) amusing enough…
{via cheezburger}
…even if doughnut charts are better.
{via The Functional Art}
But an EXPLODED pie chart! The New York Times knows what I’m talking about (no really, in response to an article about the death of pie charts, someone worked out how to make an actual pie actually explode, and then actually did it).
Of course this also means there’s such a thing as exploded doughnuts. Er, exploded doughnut charts. (I know, more boring. Sorry.)
SO.
If doughnut chart > pie chart… and exploded pie chart > regular pie chart… then by reason, exploded doughnut chart > regular doughnut chart… and the hierarchy of baked-good–based data presentations is:
1) exploded doughnut chart
2) exploded pie chart
3) doughnut chart (intact)
4) pie chart (intact).
Which is, oddly enough, the exact inverse of my personal preference for actual pies and doughnuts.
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PS. I don’t* have the time to delve into the differences between “doughnut” and “donut”, but it’s interesting to note that the latter, while deemed wholly** American by English-speakers outside the US, might only be used one-third of the time in US English. Anyway, the Macquarie Dictionary spells it “doughnut”, as do the all the best doughnut joints I’ve frequented, so that’s good enough for me.
PPS. The difference between the American concept of pie (Apple! Pecan! Pumpkin! Peanut butter! Cherry! Banana cream!) and the Australian concept of pie (meat) is even more perplexing and not worth discussing. Sweet pie (NOT exploded; see the conclusion to the list above) is better and that. Is. That.
*The apostrophe doesn’t mark a missing “u”.
**And “holey”, I suppose.
#$*&^! = Grawlix February 1, 2012
Posted by Olivia McDowell in Pretty!, Punctuation, Spellcheck, The Ether, Typography, Wisdom, Words.Tags: Expletives, Grawlix, Punctuation, Typography
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>> A word for that: Grawlix
Until its OED entry is solemnized, we’ll have to settle for this definition on Wiktionary: “grawlix, n. A string of typographical symbols used (especially in comic strips) to represent an obscenity or swear word.” I don’t think I’ll ever look at a character set quite the same way again.
%^&*@ing glorious!
Read the whole thing at Hoefler & Frere-Jones (via @GrammarMonkeys and @mental_floss)
Better than alphagetti*: edible gelatin typography January 19, 2012
Posted by Olivia McDowell in Art, Pretty!, Typography, Words.Tags: alphagetti, American English, Food, gelatin, Typography
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{ via Colossal }
Current distraction: wondering about the mouthfeel. Chewy? Sticky? Sans-serifs-y? Alphagetti?*
(Subsequent distraction: the curious difference between American “jelly”, which is Australian “jam”, and Australian “jelly”, which is American “jello”.)
*If it’s named after what it clearly IS named after, shouldn’t there be an H after that G?
A Kindleworm by any other name (and exciting news for OED lovers) September 6, 2011
Posted by Olivia McDowell in books, Spellcheck, The Ether, Words.Tags: bookworm, Dictionary, giant microbes, helluo librorum, Kindle, OED Word Of The Day, Scrabble, Words
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[EDIT: Sadly, http://www.oed.com no longer works, and even the link to it from Oxford Dictionaries Online is broken. Sincerest apologies on my behalf for getting us all excited, and for not realising sooner.]
The straw that finally broke my anti-Kindle camel’s back was the fact that Kindle comes loaded with the full Oxford English Dictionary [ALSO EDIT: I meant (and still mean) the Oxford Dictionary OF English. I unforgivably use OED as a generic term, though I know there are some who would drop a thesaurus on my head for such an offence.], thus overcoming the two main obstacles previously prohibiting my access to said lexicographical bible: price, and bulk. (My only other accessway was online, through the student login left over from my university days. Not coincidentally, that student login is my favourite souvenir as an alumnus).
Anyway, I bought a Kindle as soon as I realised this (while playing Scrabble in a Kindle-owning friend’s dictionary-less house). And thereafter, when asked whether Kindle “is good?”, my most likely answer has been “IT HAS THE *WHOLE* OXFORD ENGLISH DICTIONARY *IN* IT. YES is good.”
Now this doesn’t mean I no longer love “real” books. I do. Very much.
I have an inconveniently large number of books in my new home. (At least, relocating them from my old home – and chromatically arranging them again – was inconvenient.)
I also have one of these…
…on my desk at work.
Yes, it’s a giant fuzzy bookworm, otherwise known as helluo librorum.
…
WAIT A MINUTE.
…
The OED is online!
Free!
Searchable!
No subscription (or university alumnus login) required!
And @OxfordWords tweets the Word Of The Day!
Now this doesn’t mean I no longer love Kindle…
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40 literary terms you should know (and 4 reasons why) May 11, 2011
Posted by Olivia McDowell in Laughing, School, The Ether, Wisdom, Words.Tags: vocabulary, Words, writing
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40 literary terms you should know
Why should you read and/or bookmark this list?
1) It is interesting and informative. If you don’t know the meaning of bildungsroman or hamartia, you need to read this.
2) I found it via Elmo Keep. Once upon a time, Elmo taught me all about teh interwebz at university, and I probably didn’t do all the recommended readings for that course, so we can (collectively, retrospectively) make up for it now by reading something recommended by her.
3) The self-referential humour in entry #30 is quite self-referentially humorous.
4) Entry #40 is one of my favourite words: verisimilitude.
Go forth and learn!
Stochastic? SO Random. April 1, 2011
Posted by Olivia McDowell in Dialogue, Etcetera, Words.Tags: random, Stochastic, Words
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Members of Generation Y [for Youngling, surely] are often accused of overusing the word “random”, especially in response to matters that are not at all random. For example:
First youngling: “I thought I lost my keys, then I realised they were in my pocket the whole time!”
Second youngling: “Ooo, random!”
I’ll admit I’m a serial offender, out of sheer laziness rather than deep-seated vapidity (I hope).
Anyway, would we suffer less scorn by using the word “stochastic” instead?
First youngling: “I couldn’t find my favourite red pen, then I realised it was in my hair the whole time!”
Second youngling: “Ooo, stochastic!”
… Or would we just be scorned as pretentious AND dim?
The Hipster Little Mermaid: Helvetica, not Ariel February 10, 2011
Posted by Olivia McDowell in Helvetica, Laughing, The Ether, Typography, Words.Tags: Arial, Ariel, Buzzfeed, Helvetica, Hipster, Memes, The Little Mermaid, Typography
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I do love the interwebs. This meme is just one reason why:
{ via Buzzfeed }
This is also quite great:
I would love to see a rival ‘Pitchfork’, titled ‘Trident’.
