“Hyphens are dying!” declares hysterical BBC

In what must surely be a slow news day, the BBC solemnly reports that the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary has removed hyphens from 16,000 words. Hyphens are “enjoying [sic] a difficult time at the moment”, apparently.

As usual, the blame lies in the internet. We’re so busy busy busy writing emails that we don’t have time for hyphens. “When you are sending e-mails, and you have to type pretty fast, on the whole it’s easier to type without hyphens,” exaggerates Geoffrey Leech, former professor of linguistics and English language at Lancaster University.

But why, as a self-confessed linguistics geek, am I being so sneering about this news? Uh, because it isn’t news.

Generally speaking, new compound words use hyphens to make their meaning more obvious. Electronic mail might at first be abbreviated to e mail. But that lonely e might be confusing, so it hold hands with its other half in e-mail. As the word becomes more commonly used, the two halves are considered a whole, and email finally emerges, independent and triumphant.

The truth, of course, is that the hyphen will never die. Not when there are lonely affixes to stick before, in and after words. It’s got nothing to do with the internet. To-morrow and good-bye once had hyphens, and then they lost them too. Boo-flippin-hoo.

Do you click on blog ads?

I read a lot of blogs, especially blogs about writing, web geekery or feminism. At one end of the scale are ones like Kev Price’s SEO blog. It’s a one-man job with no ads, and the blog is clearly an interesting supplement to his day job, rather than being his actual job.

At the other end of the scale are blogs like Crafty Crafty or Shiny Shiny, two of about 40 blogs (not all of which have repetive names) owned by an umbrella publishing company. These are very obviously pretty successful pro blogs, as they employ a lot of full-time writers, and they’re jam-packed with adverts.

In the middle of the blog-ad spectrum are blogs like The Curvature. This is where I’m guessing most blogs are sat – owned and written by one person, and displaying a few ads and maybe a tips jar in the hope that they can earn enough revenue to blog all day and still pay the rent.

Click-to-thank

If I’ve read a good post, I click an ad. Is that wrong? I see it as a way to thank the writer. ‘You’ve worked to produce something I’ve enjoyed’ I think, ‘and while I’m too stingy to give you money for that pleasure, I will do something which costs me maybe 2 seconds of my time so that someone else give you money.’

I realise that in the long-term economic view of the web what I’m doing probably isn’t very helpful. When companies realise that yes they’re getting click-throughs, but no they’re not selling anything, they’ll probably stop advertising. Then my talented blog-writers will have to go back to growing potatoes or cleaning wheely bins, or whatever it is they used to do before they spent their days tapping cleverly at a keyboard.

But then again, if I don’t click at all I’m still not buying anything, and the big advertising company could still draw the same conclusion and pull out of the blog market. At least if I click I’m giving them a chance to drag me in to their shopping system with promises of pretty things.

I do realise that this is a vastly simplistic view of what is probably a hugely complicated issue, but in the absence of a more informed understanding of blog economics, I just want to know – do you ever click on blog ads? If so, why? If not, why not?

And in case you’re suspicious, no I’m not planning on installing ads on this blog. The pennies I’d make wouldn’t be worth having butt-ugly ads imposing everywhere.

Obligatory ‘weird things that you’re googling to get here’ post

What’s the best thing about blogging? Knowing that people other than your friends and family (Hi dad!) read your blog. And I know strangers read this because I have thousands of readers. (well, ok, tens usually… but thousands if you count that time I got 9,500 views in a day thanks to a weirdly popular reddit story.)

But the point is that thanks to the power of WordPress I know that there are people I don’t know personally who stumble upon this. So…

Hi there! Judging by what you’re searching for when you find this I’m not entirely sure I want you to stick around. Only kidding! I love you. I love all my readers. I’m desperate for attention. Never leave me, ok? I’ll give you everything you ever want. Which incidentally happens to be:

“wincy shek“. What is this? I have no idea. But a few people have found Hookjab by googling for it. Which is strange, as I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned it before now.

“how bad is the Tornado F3” Really? I think it’s kinda cool.

“Kylie” “KYLIE” “Kylie Minogue” Not really what you were looking for, huh.

“a word for ”Im right and your wrong‘” …and yet without an apostrophe you’ll always be wrong.

“hookjab” “hook jab” Writing that ‘hooks’ you in to ‘jab’ you with ‘punchy writing’! Geddit? This is a blog about writing that uses boxing terms as weak puns! how clever is that.

“some of my best friends are graphic” Is this a confession or a boast? I’m intrigued.

“Address for May & Kilner, Solicitors” Sorry, never heard of them.

“Press release” “How to write a press release” “tips for writing a great press release” Actually something relevant! Consider this my gift to you.

“Animated clipart of boy writing” Not here, not now, not ever. Go away.

“bbc 1997 website” Hilarious isn’t it.

“writing email on hotmail and lost it” Aw, bad luck. And you came here looking for help presumably, and I gave you nothing. So have some retrospective sympathy.

“catriona irving you are so beautiful” Yes she is, but she’s also a good friend of mine and it’s weird that you’re pouring your heart into google. She can’t hear you through the internet, y’know, and for that I am glad. Now back off, weirdo.

Content makes up half of all time spent on internet

Content really is king on the internet. Research issued by the Online Publishers Association (OPA) found that people spend more than half of their internet time browsing content, whether that be video, audio or humble ol’ written words.

Specifically, 50.9% of internet users’ time is spent on content (any sites or applications that provide news, information and entertainment); 30.4% is spent on communications (such as email and forums); 14.1% is on commerce (shopping websites) and 4.6% is on searching (getting to all of the above).

Not only are we all absorbing more content than anything else, we’re doing it waaaay more than we used to: in July 2006 just 39.6% of time was spent on content.

According to the OPA, there are several reasons for the increase in time spent consuming content:

• Improvement in searching, allowing consumers to find the exact content they want faster and more easily
• The increased popularity of video
• A more accessible and faster internet means more time spent online in general
• Simply far more content on the internet than there used to be
• More efficient communication methods like instant messaging, which mean that communicating via the internet just doesn’t take as long as it used to

Personally (and unscientifically, of course) I think the increase in high quality content also has a lot to do with the proliferation of huge news websites (eg BBC Online, Guardian Unlimited) and sites such as Wikipedia have helped ordinary, nervous people to trust what they read on the web. The internet is no longer second fiddle to the printed page when it comes to accessible trustworthy information; and as a result people use it more.

I’d also be interesting to see more detailed research – the media breakdown of different content types, for example, or exactly how social networking sites are messing up the neat content/communication distinction.

But in any case, there are still three massive problems with the research.

1. The first is that it discounts quite a huge proportion of websites: all .gov, and .edu were excluded from the study. It’s not exactly clear why, or why only governmental and educational sites from the US were excluded, when those of other countries were presumably still counted.
2. Secondly, pornographic domains were also excluded. Why so coy? This isn’t a matter of morals. If we’re talking hard facts (ahem) then it’s important to note that last year 13% of all websites visited in the US were pornographic. So why not tell us how this fits in to the wider picture?
3. And thirdly, the problem with the research is… well I’m kinda embarrassed to admit this, but I found it on the internet. So it’s probably not true.

The origin of ‘bum’

I was asked the other week to find out the origin of the word “bum”. ‘I write a serious blog about language!’ I spluttered in indignation. But, today, bored on a lunchbreak, I decided that there’s nothing undignified in pursuing the etymological explanation of a mildly provocative expletive.

So here we go: the meaning behind the behind.

(And for any non-British readers who don’t already know, a bum is what we call a posterior, ass, arse, butt, bottom. You get the idea.)

It seems that ‘bum’ was used by none other than a Mr William Shakespeare. The passage is in Measure to Measure, when Escalus asks Pompey his surname. “Bum, Sir” replies Pompey. To which Escalus says, “Troth, and your bum is the greatest thing about you; so that in the beastliest sense you are Pompey the Great.” Hilarious.

So that’s proof that bums existed in Sheakespeare’s day. Disappointingly, my Chambers’ Dictionary of Etymology is clearly and firmly American. Hence bum only appears in the sense of a vagrant or loafer, which can be traced to the German bummeln, ‘to loaf’.

However, the Oxford English Dictionary says that bum heralds from 1387, and is “probably onomatopoeic, to be compared with other words of similar sound and with the general sense of ‘protuberance, swelling.’

Looking up bums was fun, and I’d like to do more. So every now and then I will find another word and look up its origins. It’ll probably be when I have either found a particularly delightful etymology, or when I have nothing else to blog about. And I will also take requests…

Dilemma over

Huge thanks to everyone who offered their suggestions with my what do I do with the unexpected £100 problem.

I’m not overly keen on strippers, cocaine or chocolate digestives; Pixel* can pay her own way through college; and I would only raid a karmic money box. So this is what I’ve decided to do:

• £50 for the homeless charity in Glasgow
• posh chocolates for the man and his wife
• posh meal for me and my girlfriendo

Thanks again for your help!

*Pixel is a pet African Pygmy hedgehog for those who don’t know.

David Cameron and the ‘bare knuckle fight’

So David Cameron wants a “bare knuckle fight” with Gordon Brown over the issue of hospitals. Enough of the ridiculous macho verbal foreplay wordplay – why don’t we take politicians literally for once? Brown vs Cameron in a ring – wouldn’t that be hilarious. I think a lot of people would pay a lot of money for ringside seats for that one, and maybe the money could go towards Cameron’s hospital bills. How perfectly apt.

(Disclaimer: I am by no means a GordonBrownaphile, however I do dislike the tories more than I do labour. I don’t condone violence – except when it is consenting, done for money and involves politicians.)

I say I say I say…

Here’s a geeky linguistics joke for you:

A linguistics professor was giving a lecture one day. “In English,” she said, “a double negative forms a positive. In many languages, such as Russian, a double negative is still a negative. However, there is no language in which a double positive can form a negative.”

And a voice from the back of the room muttered “Yeah, right…”

8 random things

Inspired by minxlj.tumblr.com, who was in turn inspired by Baron VC, here are 8 random and rather indulgent facts about me.

1. A year ago I took the end of a finger off while chopping vegetables (carrots I believe). I threw the tip in the bin, although my mum later told me I should’ve tried to stick it back on. It’s not nearly as bad as Minxlj’s fingertips-severed-in-folding-chair incident, but I too only have a tiny measly scar now, which is quite out of proportion to the amount of pain and blood.

2. Carrots are still my favourite vegetable.

3. I’m left handed and find it odd when other southpaws operate the mouse with their left hand.

4. I was born in Nice, France, just like the biscuits.

5. I am bilingual, one language being English, the other not being French.

6. Unlike 98% of the world, I think the new Transformers film is great.

7. My family is proof of the existence of a gay gene. On my mother’s side I have 12 cousins, so that’s 13 in the generation if you include me. Four of us are gay – 31%. And of the remaining nine, four are under the age of 15. Personally I think the real gay total is likely to get boosted to 38% sooner or later, but only time will tell.

8. I am a big fan of backgammon.

The 14th century: not the most charming age

While researching the history of town/gown problems for a feature I’m writing, I came across the website of Richard Herring (comedian of ‘Lee and Herring’ fame).

Somewhat surprisingly, he had quite a lot to say about the issue of students vs locals. And since it’s both educational and amusing I thought I should share…

“It happened on St Scholastica’s Day (February 10th) in 1354. St Scholastica (literally “she who has the leisure to study”) incidentally is the patron saint of convulsive children, nuns and storms. Her patronage also extends to being “against rain,” which seems a bit short-sighted in the long run. Sure useful for days when you’re having a barbecue, but if she proves too effective we’re all going to get a bit thirsty.

“Anyway on her day in 1354 some posh students were drinking in the Swyndlestock Tavern in Oxford and accused the landlord of serving them “indifferent wine”. The regular non-University punters of the establishment took exception to their attitude and the argument escalated into a full-blown riot. The townsfolk beat and killed the Gownsfolk and ransacked their colleges for three glorious days before order was restored.

“Nowadays, thanks to political correctness gone mad, attacking students is against the law, but I believe in honour of this historical event we should make an exception for St Scholastica’s Day. On this occasion all decent, ordinary, hard-working normal people are allowed to absent themselves from their place of labour and search out University students. If they discover any they must playfully batter them round the head with twigs, branches or iron bars, but the beating MUST STOP once the student is dead.

The only place where students might seek sanctuary from this charming tradition is within the confines of their library and even then only if they are studying within its environs. So ironically whilst everyone else gets the day off to hunt down students, St Scholistica’s Day is the only day of the year when students actually have to do any work. But as long as all the students stay in the library, the rest of us can stay in the pub with our feet up, drinking indifferent wine to our heart’s content. Sweet!”