Friday fun with keister
In this episode of Mysteries of the Vernacular on TED-Ed, Jessica Oreck and Rachael Teel try to trace the history of “keister.” Happy Friday!
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Pros lead with language
I teach my first class of the fall 2012 semester tonight: Leadership Communication. The focus includes writing but is not specific to it. Instead, we study how to lead with language (plus some non-verbal behaviors because we’re interested in communication). Because I will be thinking about the topics in this class quite often over the next 15 weeks, some…
Like to play with words?
Like to play with words? Need a diversion today? I suggest a visit to the Oxford English Fictionary. From their About page: Have you ever read a book and come across a word and said to yourself, “Hmmm, self, I wonder what that word means?”, and then gone to a dictionary to look up the…
Texting as fingered speech
Check out this TED talk by linguist John McWhorter about the language of texting. McWhorter makes the point that texting operates less like the language of writing than the language of speaking. So “fingered” speech. McWhorter also provides examples of people complaining about young people’s failure to follow the linguistic conventions established by older generations for hundreds — even…
Using TEDEd lessons to learn about plain language
TEDEd brings us short lessons on many subjects. There are currently eight lessons in the TEDEd Playing with Language series. That’s where I found one called How did English Evolve that explains why some words are less “plain” than others. So I flipped it to create my own lesson related to plain language. (It’s a very simple process.)…
A little fun related to the Oxford comma
I’m feeling a little punch-drunk after a 36-hour mock accreditation marathon so thought I’d share something that fits my mood. The Onion recently published a great little piece about gang violence and the Oxford comma. Enjoy! Related articles The Best Shots Fired in the Oxford Comma Wars (mentalfloss.com) A Light-Hearted Lesson on the Oxford Comma…
Beyond platitudes for leadership communication
Julia Williams, President of the Professional Communication Society (and one of my favorite colleagues) has negotiated a deal to offer a free eLearning course on leadership communication to IEEE members. Details are available in Julia’s Monthly eNotice. IEEE offers 3 CEUs (or professional development hours) for successful completion of the course. I created the content for…