Category: words

Poetry is a national pastime, but not a particularly “specialist activity,” said Sveinn Yngvi Egilsson, a professor of Icelandic literature at the University of Iceland. “It’s part of being an Icelander,” he said. “Yes, it’s charming, isn’t it?”

They choose the word by number of searches, and, thanks to this year’s election, “fascism” is now the fourth-most-searched word in merriam-webster.com’s entire history. They sent out a tweet on Tuesday saying, “There’s still time to look something else up.” (One reply: “I’ve searched ‘puppies’ 523 times in the past 30 minutes. Anything change?”)

“[It] papyrus was rough, brittle, and prone to fraying. Its rise at papyrus’s expense, however, had little to do with the ergonomics of its use or the economics of its manufacture and everything to do with ambitious pharaohs who ignored the cardinal rule of military leadership: never get involved in a land war in Asia.”

“As people in a literate society, we think of language as what’s on the page. That’s the real thing; speaking is just an approximation. Language sits still. But then we hear new things coming in and unless it strikes us as catchy, we think, It’s not supposed to do that because that’s not what in the book. So when new things happen, they’re processed as vulgar and as broken. We don’t understand that no language could ever sit still.”

Education and Culture Minister Inigo Mendez de Vigo announced the prize Wednesday, saying that beginning with Mendoza’s 1975 novel, “La verdad sobre el caso Savolta” (The Truth about the Savolta Case), the author had reinvented Spanish fiction. He said Mendoza’s books are “full of subtlety and irony.”

Editors of the New York Times Book Review choose their favorites of the year.

That’s how Corriere della sera described Erri de Luca, winner of the 2013 European Prize for Literature, who beat this year’s other Bad Sex finalists with a passage from The Day Before Happiness that reads, in part, “Our sexes were ready, poised in expectation, barely touching each other: ballet dancers hovering en pointe.” (Still, this isn’t nearly as godawful as last year’s winner.)

“Unlike bad sex, which is often obviously recognizable, bad sex writing can be hard to define … When describing sex, [spokesperson Frank] Brinkley says, authors feel moved to put a strain on language they wouldn’t ordinarily.”

“If you were ever a nerd who thought of the dictionary as your best friend … well, this is sort of like that dictionary has finally come to life and loves you back and also tweets about words all the time.” A conversation with the folks behind @MerriamWebster.

“In recent years, scientists have begun to show that the advantages of bilingualism are even more fundamental than being able to converse with a wider range of people. Being bilingual, it turns out, makes you smarter. It can have a profound effect on your brain, improving cognitive skills not related to language and even shielding against dementia in old age.”