Here’s how it works: Download the app and take a picture of your bookshelf. Wait as Shelfie’s in-house recognition technology reads your wrinkled old covers and identifies which books you own. Then review the deals they have for your “eligible books,” which were two out of about every 15 on my shelf. If you want to claim a deal, write your name on the copyright page to prove you own it, and then upload your evidence. Finally, receive an email that contains digital files compatible with the Kindle and other e-readers. Or, if you’re opting for an audio book, just listen through the Shelfie app. – TIME
Bringing misused words to book – Irish author Terry Prone has written an interesting book on the way words are misused today, and how the use of words can often determine the generation of the person using them. Prone claims that now, more than ever, language is breaking down by generation:“If you give me a paragraph on any topic I can tell you the age of the person writing it. I’m not sure that was ever the case before.” And she’s got some pretty good examples of just how bad and widespread the issue is, although some would argue that it’s less a problem and more a function of how language evolves:
All kinds of words; new, sloppily-used, misunderstood, words crucial to the art of pompous selfelevation, words used to describe new trends, and words which once and for all highlight the ever-widening gap between the generations. A huge fan of American writer and soldier Ambrose Bierce, whose pithy definitions formed the basis of a satirical newspaper series, Prone cast her net far and wide, and came up with a huge selection of misused and abused words and phrases.
Sometimes it’s sloppiness, she says, on other occasions it’s simply a case of sheer ignorance. Take ‘surreal’ for example: “People use ‘surreal’ meaning unreal,” she complains. “This word is being used in the news the whole time — when, for example, people are talking about an explosion being surreal what they really mean is it felt unreal!” – Irish Examiner
‘The Rap Year Book’ Author Live Tweeted as he Gave Away $100 Bills – Shea Serrano has been doing some really innovative and creative marketing, and his holiday gifting spree is a great example. Serrano sold bookmarks based on his Rap Year Book, and he took the $533 profit from those bookmarks, made it an even thousand with $477 of his own money, and gave it away to 10 randomly chosen Houston fast food workers in increments of $100. His logic was that at minimum wage, $100 could be an extra couple of holiday gifts or a utilities bill, and that in particular he wanted to share the whole process with his readers, saying, “I wanted you all to know because you’re a part of this so if you end up not doing anything nice for anyone else, you can at least know that you did this.” In some ways I think this is the perfect coincidence of marketing, fan engagement, reader ROI, and just good old-fashioned generosity, and the fact that Serrano basically offered this to his readers as their contribution, as much as his, saved it from being just an ego boost for him. Complex and Twitter
One problem with the language ranting is that the dictionary defines surreal as “unbelievable, fantastic”.
So surreal has a meaning similar to unreal, or at least that is how I would use it.
My ENTIRE take-away from the tone of that Terry Prone language article is a ‘get off my lawn vibe’ (which based on the article, Prone would have a huge problem with that description).
It comes off an incredibly dismissive and even somewhat resistant to the evolution and fluidity of language and meaning.
@Tina: Agreed.
I was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Haiti when Duvalier was kicked out. There were a few wild days and on one of them, I saw a scene that was so implausibly normal it felt like a Magritte painting. So, who is to say surreal isn’t what they speaker meant?
In defense of the Prone article, I keep thinking of a quick promo spot that my local NPR station plays, in which the speaker uses “any more” when he clearly means something like “more and more.”
It is like a daily jab of a hot needle straight into my eardrums.
“Words have meaning”, as I constantly preach to my kids. It’s true that language evolves and changes, and that flexibility is healthy. It’s also true that we used to be able to rely on tone and gesture and expression to help convey our meaning; as our conversations become increasingly text-based and abbreviated, it is vital to retain the precision of our language, if we want to communicate at all.
tl;dr: if somebody tweets me a comment that can mean six different, unrelated, even completely opposite things, because our words have all devolved into free-floating mush, then what’s the point of reading it?
I find it amusing that article 3 could be used against the judge’s statement in article 1.
@hapax: Can you give me an example of a sentence where the person uses “anymore” that way? There is a particular use of “anymore” that is specific to a certain dialect of American English, and I’m wondering if that’s what you’ve noticed. To someone who is not a speaker of that dialect, it’s completely impossible.
…or it is until your roommate does a paper on it and uses you as his source of judgments for the standard dialect because he’s a non-native speaker, and he gives you so many examples that you somehow acquire it yourself.
I’m a historical linguist by training, and I’ve had various jobs involving reading texts from earlier varieties of English — currently eighteenth/nineteenth century, formerly sixteenth/seventeenth century. One of the perks of my job has been encountering words used in ways that we no longer use them. I can never think of examples off the top of my head, but there are more of them than you’d think.
There’s absolutely nothing new about Prone’s observations. There has always been generational slang; the meanings of words has always been fluid. New kinds of creativity have become available with the new electronic era, but it’s still all just variations on the same old themes. This is all known, and there are people who study this sort of thing. I’m kind of bothered that she was able to publish this when she’s clearly done little if any research.
@Anonymous: The promo goes something like “Any more you hear jazz as the backdrop to commercials and on elevators; but how often do you appreciate it as music?”
If this is a regional dialect (the station is in the Ozarks, if that helps) that would help alleviate my daily pain, thanks!
@Variel: Yes! I read the judgment last night and laughed when the judge described the Dallas Buyers’ Club’s actions at one point as “surreal”. LOL
@Kaetrin and @Variel: I had the opposite reaction, actually. I read his comment as an example of surreal from the dictionary definition: having the irrational quality of, say, a dream. Not as “unreal,” although that may, in part, be because I don’t read “unreal” and “unrealistic” as synonymous.
@Anonymous: The word “nice” is always one of my favorite examples of linguistic evolution, and it gives me a good chuckle when people start talking about the importance of being “nice” when we talk about books and authors.
As for Prone, the article claims her to be a “communications expert” however that is supposed to be defined.
@hapax: Perfect! That is the dialect feature, all right. There’s been a fair amount of research on this; it even has its very own technical term: “positive anymore.” The Ozarks are not only part of the dialect area where you find this, but one of the places within that region where it’s most common. I hope this helps your misery!