Fun Idiom Websites

I have been reading journal posts by my Spring 2018 Introduction to Sociolinguistics students, and they have been not only encouraging, but inspiring. Thanks to them, I found some great websites -- both academic and humorous. I'll list a few here, and add more as I run across them:

The Cream of the Crop: Have you ever noticed how many English idioms are based on food?
http://examples.yourdictionary.com/examples-of-food-idioms.html

He Who Smelt It, Dealt It...and dozens of variations:
http://werbach.com/stuff/smelt.html

The prejudice is like totally unfair!

http://allthingslinguistic.com/post/158127068386/lets-stop-demonizing-filler-words

But isn't it, like, a good idea to, like, try to, like, avoid it in, like, academic or professional settings?

Discuss.

The cheese done slid off my cracker

One of my students recently brought a phrase to my attention having to do with cheese sliding off of a cracker. I had never heard it, so I googled it. I was surprised at how many things showed up on the images page...it looks like we've been missing out on a good one! I am posting this particular image because it also includes the past tense marker "done" that we'd been seeing in the Appalachian dialect we were studying in class. "I think this boy's cheese has done slid off his cracker."

Now I want cheese and crackers.

"Just Say it Like it's Spelled..."

In class I often talk about how stupid that statement is when it refers to English. English may have the single least phonetic language on the planet, with numerous examples of the lack of correspondence between symbol and sound. We know it's due to English taking words from other languages and keeping the spelling, but it's really quite remarkable when you think about it. I cannot imagine learning English spelling as a non-native speaker!

• Words that rhyme: ache, break, and stake are all spelled very differently, but their IPA representation shows how close they are in pronunciation [eik] [breik] [steik]
• Another unlikely rhyming pair from The Simpsons: "Sardine Queen" [sardin] [kwin]

I'll keep adding to this list...

John Oliver Describes Mt. Dew

In his Feb. 2018, 2018 show, Last Week Tonight, host John Oliver creatively describes America as being "a beautiful mess of contradictions." He explains further, offering:

"As an immigrant who has fallen in love with this country, for what it's worth, please allow me to speak to the rest of the world in America's defense, Donald Trump does not represent America — well, to be completely honest, he does reflect it a bit. But the point is America is not one thing; it's a beautiful mess of contradictions where good and bad are mixed together. For instance, it makes Mountain Dew, which tastes like a honeydew melon was fucked by a radioactive cloud.  On the other hand, it makes awesome beds shaped like the Batmobile." 

He continued, "America is the country that gave you Star Wars — you're welcome — and Scientology — we're sorry about that. And sometimes, what's great and terrible about us is just impossible to separate."

"Deconflicting" Military Euphemisms

A CNN commentator used the word deconflict. It was clear that the word had to do with lessening some sort of conflict, but I had never heard the word before. Here's a dictionary entry on the word, which was first used sometime between 1970-1975.

 

DECONFLICT

verb (used with object)

1.

Military.

1. to avoid a potential clash or accident involving (nonenemy military operations, weaponry, etc.) in a particular combat area:
   to deconflict coalition forces from three nations.
2. to avoid such conflict in (a combat area):
   to deconflict airspace.

2.

to adjust or coordinate so as to prevent or resolve conflict:

The witness never explained or deconflicted his earlier statements.

 

I wanted to do a little more digging on the word's usage. A 2015 article in the Guardian took a negative prescriptive view of the word, stating:  

 

"With the launching of Russian air strikes in Syria this week, the already brutal conflict has taken another ugly and awkward turn – and it has thrown up a new ugly and awkward word to match.The word “deconflict” – or worse “deconfliction” – is being used by US officials to describe attempts to ensure that US and Russian air forces don’t shoot at each other while they conduct overlapping air campaigns over Syria."

The author spoke to Gary Rawnsley, a professor of public diplomacy at Aberystwyth University: 

“It’s meaningless,” he said. 'It’s one of those phrases like ‘collateral damage’ that militaries use to soften the blow of their activities.'

More from the same article:

"It was first noted as Pentagon jargon by the Guardian in 1991 during reports on the Gulf war. The paper carried a Gulf-English dictionary which gave this definition of deconfliction as 'trying not to have so many planes in the air that they collide'.

It was also a favourite of Donald Rumsfeld, the master of Pentagon doublespeak. In 2006, he came out with this sentence to defend US strategy in Iraq: 'We’ve gone from ... service-centric warfighting to deconfliction warfighting to interoperability and now towards interdependence.'

The verb deconflict has been included in the Oxford English Dictionary since 2005. It provides this definition: To reduce the risk of collision in (a combat situation, airspace, etc) by separating the flight paths of one’s own aircraft or airborne weaponry. Also: to coordinate (one’s aircraft) in this manner."
 

 

Guardianhttps://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/oct/01/deconflict-buzzword-to-prevent-risk-of-a-us-russian-clash-over-syria

Common the Rapper on Family Feud?

Last week's Saturday Night Live featured actor Sterling K. Brown as the host. In one skit, he portrays the rapper Common as a contestant on the Family Feud Show. SNL cast member Keenan Thompson plays the host of the show, Steve Harvey.

Common's character answers pretty much every question in rap style. The best was, “Blessings, yo. It’s an honor to be a part of this family. Despite our feud we still put food on the table, provide for the children, make sure their futures are stable."

The response from Thompson's Steve Harvey was, “Yeah, okay. OK. Let’s just slow it down there, Dr. Martin Luther Seuss."

Drunk History and the Oxford Dictionary

My husband and I enjoy watching a TV show called "Drunk History." The show involves 10-15 minute segments of inebriated guests (who continue to imbibe as they talk) relating a story from various time periods and global locations. As amusing as it is to watch the guests and the hosts getting more and more intoxicated, we actually end up learning things.

The episode Dangerous Minds included a segment on Dr. William Minor, who (among many other interesting accomplishments) helped write a large chunk of the Oxford Dictionary. Dr. Minor was a deeply troubled individual, spending time in both asylums and prisons. After killing a man during a paranoid mental break around 1871, Minor was admitted to the Asylum for the Criminally Insane in Broadmoor in England. Surprisingly, one of his frequent visitors at the asylum was the wife of the man he had killed. They developed a bond, and she often brought or sent him piles books to read. in one of those piles, he found a notice from James Murray, who was seeking volunteers to help create the first Oxford English Dictionary. He spent more than 20 more years in the asylum, writing tens of thousands of entries for the dictionary.

If you'd like to read more about W.C. Minor and his role in the compilation of the Oxford English Dictionary, this is a good start: https://www.ozy.com/flashback/the-lunatic-behind-the-dictionary/64787