New, super-fast server; plus a request for comments
Over the weekend I moved the site to a new service provider, one offering incredible high-speed hosting for database-driven web sites (and for less than a third of what I was paying elsewhere for dismal speeds).
EngineHosting has smartly shown that they understand that static web sites will soon be, if they are not already, outnumbered by database-driven web sites. So they’ve paid a lot of attention to making sure that the MySQL servers are top-notch.
As a result, I’ve been able to restore the full-blown search functions which are so very necessary for a site like this one. It makes finding things less painful
Over the next few months, I’ll be making substantial changes to the look and operation of the site, and hope to offer features like:
—rating of entries
—automatic look-ups in dictionaries at other sites
—customized searches across a wide spectrum of freely available online glossaries, lexicons, and dictionaries
—new categories of words being recorded
—RSS feeds for categories and subjects
—integration of unresearched citations and fully-researched entries
—a focus on visitor comments and community
I welcome your comments and suggestions. I do track what visitors do on the site and how they do it, but I’d appreciate your specific, detailed comments about what you’d expect to see here. Leave your suggestions here in the comments or drop me a line at editor@doubletongued.org.
Esptein vs. Epstein
It could happen to anybody, but the
second summer replacement column for William Safire—which is about getting basic facts like names wrong—gets the writer’s name wrong. It’s right at the bottom—
Jaimie Epstein—but wrong at the top—
Jaimie Esptein. Maybe it was done purposely?
UPDATED: July 5/6: Scheduled as a guest on “Up All Night” on BBC Radio Five
My radio partner Martha Barnette and I are scheduled as guests on the BBC Radio Five show Up All Night. We’ll be taking language questions from listeners very much as we do on our own radio show, public radio’s A Way With Words.
If all goes as planned, we’ll be on Up All Night at:
2:30 a.m. Friday, July 6, in the United Kingdom, same as
1:30 a.m. UTC/GMT, Friday, July 6, same as
9:30 p.m. Thursday, July 5, in North America’s Eastern Time Zone, same as
6:30 p.m. Thursday, July 5, in North America’s Pacific Time Zone.
You can listen to the show directly on the Radio 5 web site. If you miss it, the show will be available for replay at the Up All Night web site and I’ll put an MP3 up here later.
UPDATE: I’ve now posted the audio of our segment as an MP3. It’s 49.6MB and 54 minutes.
America’s identity theft: what to call an American instead of “American”? And in French?
Martine Rousseau and Olivier Houdart, copy editors for the French newspaper Le Monde who also co-edit the blog Langue Sauce Piquante (which I’ve linked to from the cohort page for years), address a long-standing issue: if “American” should apply to all people from North, Central, and South America, then what should we call citizens of the United States of America?
When we published a note on our language blog defending the use of États-Uniens—the word is neither pretty nor musical, but it answers a certain need—we had an outpouring of responses. They ranged from absolute opposition to the word (because of its supposed anti-Americanism, its ugliness, its snobbishness, its sarcastic tone, its usefulness only for academics—and because it sounds like space aliens) to enthusiastic approval, notably as a counter to the “imperialist” appropriation of a whole continent by one country’s ethnonym.
I, too , find “États-Uniens” to be unwieldy, ugly, and unlikely to succeed, just like “Usians” and “Usans” and “USAns,” the latter three which also have the tendency to be over-used earnestly and insistently by blowhards and know-it-alls.
Perhaps we should consider any of these from David Letterman:
Top Ten British Nicknames for Americans:
10. Star-spangled ninnies
9. K-Mart cowboys
8. Ameridorks
7. Newts
6. Velveeta-eating hyenas
5. Regis-loving geeks
4. Mighty Morphin pinheads
3. Tea-dumping psychos
2. Jerks 90210
1. Gumps
Or Top Ten Canadian Nicknames for Americans
10. Skinny bacon lovers
9. Willard-watchers
8. Continent hogs
7. Unmounties
6. Surfboard-riding goofballs
5. Individually wrapped cheese slice junkies
4. Upper Mexicans
3. Pizza-gorged convertible jockeys
2. Star-spangled sissy boys
1. Sununus
Or Top Ten Norwegian Nicknames for Americans:
10. Star-Spangled Ninnies
9. Opraholics
8. Djorks
7. Knee-Clubbers
6. Gap-Toothed T.V. Boy (Actually, that’s just you, David)
5. Tommymoes
4. Nordic Track Sissies
3. Gilloolys
2. McButtheads
1. Bobbitteers
