Writer Unboxed

It’s been a while since I’ve done a proper Click Here, and since I have several links relating to words, that’s what you’re getting this time around. Here goes:

Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate® Dictionary, Eleventh Edition, includes 100 new words or expressions, including these favorites:

1. Bollywood
2. chaebol
3. crunk
4. flex-cuff
5. ginormous
6. gray literature
7. nocebo
8. perfect storm
9. smackdown
10. speed dating

Want to know more about how a word makes it into the dictionary? Read THIS.

Did you know there is an American Dialect Society? You may have heard about the 2006 word of the year, since it was announced in January. If so, sorry for the old news. But I hadn’t heard about it, and I like PLUTOED:

To pluto is to demote or devalue someone or something, as happened to the former planet Pluto when the General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union decided Pluto no longer met its definition of a planet.

Their word of the year for 2005 was Merriam-Webster’s for 2006, by the way: Truthiness.

Murder She Writes featured an interview/debate between a linguist and someone supporting the simplification of the English language. VERY interesting. Here’s an excerpt:

The Simplified Spelling Society has been campaigning for a century to make the spelling of the English language easier and recently picketed a spelling bee in the U.S. to make their point.

Masha Bell, a member of the society and author of Understanding English Spelling, believes that reform of the spelling of the English language could help children learn to read and make life easier for some adults too.

SIMPLIFIED GLOSSARY
Learn – lern
Slow – slo
Beautiful – butiful

Prof Vivian Cook, a linguist, expert in second language learning and author of Accomodating Brocolli in the Cemetary, believes changing spellings would be unnecessary, expensive and could harm children’s ability to read. We pitched the two, spelling reformer and spelling traditionalist, into a battle to persuade the other. Here they debate the merits of spelling systems, in the form of short e-mails.

Ouch, just the intro hurts. Read the debate HERE.

People are debating the use of simplified language in children’s stories too. Check out THIS ARTICLE weighing the merits of the Junie B. Jones series.

And last, this somewhat related piece of news: The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest 2007 results are in. Go and have yourself a laugh, HERE.

Write on, all!

Therese Walsh co-founded Writer Unboxed in 2006. Her debut novel, The Last Will of Moira Leahy, sold to Random House in a two-book deal in 2008, was named one of January Magazine’s Best Books of 2009, and was a Target Breakout Book in 2010. She's never been published with a lit magazine, but LOST's Carlton Cuse liked her haiku best on Twitter, and that made her pretty happy.

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