The Lexicographer's Rules

In the latest episode of the radio program we talked about "Like a duck on a june bug," bird names, overuse of "like," "Good night, nurse!", Luddites, chicken bog, keeping your eyes peeled, getting someone's goat, an old children's rhyme, and more.

In the Malaysia Star you'll find my latest in a series of columns in which I try to bring to light interesting slang for a non-Western audience whose English skills range from nascent to fluent.

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From my desk—at which sits someone who has been on the Internet since 1992 and was a patron of dial-up computer bulletin board systems for years before that—language change on the Internet is a beautiful thing.

You probably know LOL (“laugh or laughing out loud”), which is now included in several mainstream dictionaries. It is used as a bit of interjected paralinguistic restitution, a way of saying “this strikes me as humorous” in text where, if you were speaking, you might chuckle, giggle, or laugh.

Not included in any mainstream dictionary, however, is the five-year-old word (a word that is five years old, not a word used by five-year-olds) lulz, which derives from LOL (also written in lowercase: lol).

LOL, when spoken aloud—and it is spoken aloud outside of cellular (mobile) telephone commercials, usually sarcastically or ironically—is usually rendered something like “lall” or “loll” or “lull”.

As a result, the online variant lulz (invariably plural) has appeared, undergoing not only an orthographic shift (the spelling has changed) but a semantic shift (the meaning has changed). It means, more or less, “cheap laughs” or, better, laffs.

Laffs (also usually plural) itself is a shift away from “laughs” in spelling and meaning. It is almost the same as yuks.

Both words, despite the dictionary definition of yuks as “loud, hearty laughs”, in show business usually mean “false or forced laughter” or “cheap laughter”. These are the kind of laughs you get when everyone has heard a joke before, when the humour is broad and obvious, and when the audience can see the punchlines coming from a mile a way (when they knew what the funny part of the joke would be).

“Laffs” also seems to be unaccounted for in mainstream dictionaries, even though it is at least 50 years old. Neither laffs nor yuks are from the online lexicon, but I thought the tangent worth making. Back to online language.

LOL has gone another way, too: lollerskates. It’s used in place of LOL, usually satirically or ironically. That is, the person will write something, and then where others might earnestly and unthinkingly put LOL to indicate that the preceding text is supposed to be funny, the writer will put lollerskates instead. It’s a mix of LOL plus the word rollerskates and it means, more or less, “laughing out loud a lot”.

In Singapore and other nearby English-speaking parts of Asia, one might write lolx to indicate lots of laughs. The ‘x’ serves as a multiplier: lolxxxx means more laughs than lolx.

Another part of the older Internet lexicon, OMG, too, has undergone a transformation. It originally meant “Oh, my God!” and was used as an exclamation of surprise or delight.

Now its ironic and sarcastic uses far outweigh the earnest and unironic ones. It’s also given rise to ZOMG.

ZOMG is probably spelled that way because users reaching for the shift key on the left side of the keyboard miss and type Z, though one wonders if it wouldn’t be more appropriately rendered as zomg – if you miss the shift key, then nothing would be capitalised, right?

In any case, ZOMG is now a word in its own right. It expresses emphasis and excitement, in a knowing, intentionally overboard fashion.

Another word that has been transformed is “the”. It’s been mistyped so often as “teh” that teh has taken on a life of its own. It’s used for emphasis and it’s used in an intentionally different way than “the”.

For example, if something is very cool (meaning great, good), you might write, “It’s teh cool!” Teh suck, as another example, is a way of saying, “That’s really bad.”

“Teh” serves as an emphatic, a word which, like very, increases the strength of whatever other words it modifies. Teh can be pronounced as “tay”, but among the few people I know who pronounce it, it’s always said as “tuh”.

Note my comments about “knowing”, “irony,” and “sarcasm” above. Those who use such language are aware of how it might look to others. Of course they are.

They know that their writing might seem childish, or that they might seem to be clueless (out of touch with common rules of good conduct or with what is really happening), or that they may appear pretentious or as if they are trying too hard to be cool.

As a result, they tend to be very careful with such language, and a lot of times, they’ll use it in such a way as to indicate to the reader that they know very well that such language is loaded (meaning, it has the potential to cause problems). They want to be understood. They also don’t want to be seen as trying to artificially force a new word to become popular, which is, contradictorily, almost surely a perfect way to make it unpopular.

At the same time, they know that these words have uses. Paralinguistic restitution is one part of it. They restore to the written language a flavour that is easier to indicate in the spoken language. They also allow for meta-commentary, in which you can not only literally mean “that is funny” but you can also kind of poke fun at yourself for it, all in a single word: lulz.

When you see such slang online, just assume that the writer knows everything you know about the word and assume they intended the funniest, kindest meanings possible. You’ll find it all the more enjoyable.

Feeling fankled? It’s a Scots English word that means “messed up” or “confused.” In this week’s episode of the radio show, my co-host Martha and I discuss a whole litter of synonyms for dust bunny, a slew of different terms for the piece of playground equipment you slide on, and the proper way to refer to a baby platypus.

Joining in the fun, here's my list of financial terms related to the economic crisis to go along with those made by Ben Zimmer and Mark Peters. You can also find a lot more in my word-of-the-year nominations for 2007 and 2008.

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What We're Talking About Is Money

bad bank: A government-run bank that intentionally takes on the bad debts and deals of another bank that is in financial jeopardy.

Chimerica: The symbiotic Chinese-American financial relationship, in which there is a great trade imbalance as Americans save little and buy lots, and there is a great investment in American Treasury bills and the dollar by the Chinese.

depressionary: Related to a depression or a recession that looks like it could become a depression.

diworsification: Diversifying one's investments too much.

dry powder: Capital readily available for investment.

econolypse: The current economic crisis.

financial incest: Telling one's children about family financial affairs in such a way or to such a degree that they learn too much and become overly concerned.

HENRY: A person who is a High Earner But Not Rich Yet.

kitchen sink-it: To report the worst financial performance possible, as in the case of AIG.

lifecycle fund: An investment arrangement in which money is invested in safer securities and investments as a person grows older.

malus: A penalty for poor performance, the opposite of a bonus.

narrow bank: A bank that handles only basic banking and does not get involved in complex investment programs.

nuclear winter: A period in which investment capital is very hard to come by.

Obamanomics: The economic policies of Barack Obama and his administration. Carries on the tradition of presidential -nomics, like Nixonomics and Clintonomics.

peanut butter approach: Spreading tax breaks or government stimulus money thinly across a lot of beneficiaries instead of targeting those areas in need of the most help.

silent second: Someone who loans money to someone else in order to buy a home, usually to make them look like a good risk, without notifying the mortgage lender.

spendulus: The Obama administration's economic stimulus package.

stimovation: Innovation plus economic stimulus, two ways that together could improve the economy.

whisper number: A rumor about a company's financial performance, plans, deals, etc.

This is my latest column in the Malaysia Star. Thanks to cousin Kirk Gadberry, whose query about "chinny chin chin" gave me the idea of talking about the lore of children. We'll be talking more about counting rhymes and such on an upcoming episode of the radio show, now carried in many more markets across the country and available by podcast, too.

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My son is two and we are well beyond the “peek-a-boo” stage (also called “peep-eye”, “peepo” or “beebo” in some places), so I spend a good deal of time telling him stories.

Books we have by the dozens, but every once in a while I like to tell him a story off the top of my head – from my own imagination – such as how the monkey family gave him to us because he didn’t have tail or fur (not true; the monkey part, I mean – he indeed does not have a tail or fur).

Harder to recall are the fairy tales, those stories passed from ear to mouth over the generations. I can recollect only bits and pieces of rhymes, songs, and stories I knew as a child.

I do recall most of ‘The Three Little Pigs’. There are three pigs, and a wolf who is trying to get inside their houses, and in response to his demands, the pigs say the memorable phrase, “Not by the hair of my chinny chin chin.”

This is partly a nonsense phrase, of course. That jutting feature of the face just below the mouth doesn’t need the “chinny chin”. So why do we add the extra words?

Well, in a version of the story that predates the version we usually tell today, the pigs were goats. Although pigs do have whiskers of a sort, goats have beards, which makes more sense.

The wolf would say something like “Let me in!” and the goats would reply, “Not by the hair of my chinny chin chin!”

The extra syllables were added to “chin” to make “chinny chin chin” in order to rhyme with the right rhythm and meter.

Other mysterious language of childhood includes what are called “counting rhymes”. When it comes time to play a game, somebody has to go first. Children try to keep each other fair, so you must “count off” (point at each person in turn until you reach the end).

One counting rhyme we used when I was a boy was:

One potato, two potato, three potato, four.
Five potato, six potato, seven potato, ore.

The potatoes are there to give it the proper counting rhythm. Every time you say a number and a potato, you point to a person.

The “ore” is probably from an old-fashioned pronunciation of “over”, which means that if the count lands on you when it’s said, then you are counted out. Then the rhyme is done again and the last person left is “it”.

Being “it” is a prime honour. It means you are the one who controls the game play and, probably, has the most fun. “It” is the person who chases everyone else when playing tag, “it” is the person who covers their eyes while everyone else hides in the game ‘hide and seek’, and “it” is the person who gives the orders in the game ‘Mother May I’ which is all about following instructions.

There are also a variety of counting rhymes that begin “eeny, meany, miney, moe” and are followed by any number of verses, some of them off-colour (meaning, racist or prejudiced), so I won’t repeat them here. Given that these are generally transmitted between children, the values and mores (the basic customs of a community; pronounced “MORE-ayze”) of parents don’t necessarily come into play.

There are also rhymes for teaching the numbers and their order. The one that most people know is “One, two, buckle my shoe; three, four, open the door” and so on. Then there’s this one – no longer in use, as far as I can tell – recorded in 1798 which is part of a set of rhymes meant to teach multiplication tables:

So 5 times 8 were 40 Scots,
Who came from Aberdeen,
And 5 times 9 were 45,
Which gave them all the spleen.

“To give someone the spleen” is an archaic expression which means “to make someone angry”.

There are also childhood superstitions that my son won’t learn from me. He’ll probably learn them from his friends.

One is “step on a crack, break your mother’s back”. This is something you say as you walk on the pavement and it causes a great deal of hopping and skipping as you try to avoid the cracks.

And when my son gets older, there will no doubt be punching games. These are, basically, excuses for young boys to hit each other. One common one was called “the eye” when we were growing up, but that’s just one of many names.

A boy will make the “okay” sign with his hand – the thumb and index finger forming a circle – and he’ll rest it on his leg. The first person to see it gets punched in the arm or leg. Juvenile and childish, but that’s boys for you.