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Toronto-based 1Password expands global distribution reach with new TD SYNNEX deal

This is 1Password’s first deal with a major distributor, and they plan to use it to expand their reseller base globally through TD SYNNEX’s broad reach.




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Why We Need to Discard the Word “Multistakeholder”

A CircleID post by Alexander Klimburg takes aim at my article, "The Power to Govern Ourselves," delivered at the Gig-Arts conference in June. That speech, available here on the blog, argued that: "Multistakeholder does not describe a governance model. It never has. It was always a compromised Public Relations concept," one that muddied the distinction between governance by state actors and non-state actors. What really made the Internet institutions unique was their break with sovereignty.




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Keywords Managed Service Providers Should Avoid

In this video, I share some search engine keywords that managed service providers should avoid.

Source: Keywords Managed Service Providers Should Avoid - Technibble.com



  • Manage Your Computer Business

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From Thoughts To Words: How AI Deciphers Neural Signals To Help A Man With ALS speak

"Brain-computer interfaces are a groundbreaking technology that can help paralyzed people regain functions they’ve lost."




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לפורטל מסעדות, דרוש /ה בונה אתרי אינטרנט בWordpress

הזדמנות להשתלבות בחברה מובילה בתחומה, עם תנאים מעולים ואווירה צעירה ודינאמית!אנו מחפשים מועמד /ת חד /ה ובעל /ת הבנה בעולם האינטרנט:  Wordpress ו- Elementor, html css, התעסקות עם דומיינים, קידום ממומן ואורגני.במסגרת התפקיד: * עבודה רחבה מול ממשקי לקוח, הקמת אתרים חדשים, תוך ליווי וטיפול בלקוח באופן מקצועי ומלא, עד המוצר המוגמר. * ניסיון קודם ב Wordpress ו- Elementor- חובה.* הכרות עם תוכנת Photoshop - יתרון.* בעל /ת ניסיון קודם בתחום - יתרון.* חריצות, יכולת קליטה מהירה ועמידה בלחץ.*




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Need Password but no login screen shown in Outlook

One of my accounts in Outlook went from “Trying to connect” to “Need Password” in the Status Bar.

However, pressing on the “Need Password” icon doesn’t bring up the dialog to enter my username and password. The dialog isn’t hidden behind Outlook either, although sometimes it looks like it opens and closes really fast again.

No dialog comes up either when clicking on the "Type Exchange Password & Connect" button nor when the Notification comes up that Outlook needs your password.

How do I get myself in a Connected state again?




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Year of the Sword: The Assyrian Christian Genocide

Year of the Sword: The Assyrian Christian Genocide



  • Government and Political Information

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Perspective: Letter: Speaking? Words? Where once I sang?

Perspective: Letter: Speaking? Words? Where once I sang?



  • Perspective: Editorials | Guest-Editorials | Letters

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Syriacs react to minister’s wording regarding Mor Gabriel Mo...

Syriacs react to minister’s wording regarding Mor Gabriel Monastery




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How to Identify Long Tail Keywords for SEO Success

Long tail keywords have taken on a greater importance in organic search, especially with the ever-increasing momentum of mobile users. Whether driving traffic to your website, or promoting a PPC ad campaign, the value of long tail keywords create better targeted action for your marketing and sales funnels. Google’s Hummingbird engine has a conversational search […]




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Should I stay away from highly competitive keywords?

If you’ve used Google’s Keyword Tool, you’ve probably seen the column called “Competitiveness,” with levels low, medium, and high. The low. medium, and high are based on the competitiveness of a keyword among paid search advertisers. The more advertisers are bidding on a keyword, the higher the competitiveness. By itself, paid search competitiveness tells you […]




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Language is being twisted, with words turned into weapons, creating confusion as we debate what America should be

The weaponizing of words is poisoning our body politic…



  • Columns & Letters

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FALL ARTS: Words Events

SEPT. 21 AN EVENING WITH JESS WALTER AND THE SPOKANE SYMPHONY…




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Morgan Wallen Excluded From Billboard Music Awards Despite 6 Nods After N-Word Scandal

According to Dick Clark Productions, the 'Whiskey Glasses' singer will not be 'performing, presenting or accepting' any possible trophies at the 2021 music awards show.




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Zanagrams: The iOS Word Game That Will Challenge Your Brain

Get ready to test your vocabulary and spelling skills with Zanagrams, the addictive iOS game that's perfect for word puzzle enthusiasts of all ages. In this episode Thomas Domville will demonstrate Zanagrams: Word Puzzles with a Twist. Zanagrams is a fast-paced word game that challenges players to identify and unscramble hidden words within a grid of letters. With its simple rules but increasing difficulty, Zanagrams is easy to pick up but hard to put down. Whether you're a seasoned word game player or just a casual puzzle fan, Zanagrams is sure to provide hours of fun and entertainment.

Download Zanagrams for free on the App Store:
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/zanagrams/id6444921132




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Share passwords and passkeys with people you trust on iOS

In this episode, Thomas Domville shows you how to share passwords and passkeys with people you trust on iOS.

With password sharing in iOS 17, iPadOS 17, and macOS Sonoma, you can create a shared group and add your family and friends to it. Then you can choose which passwords and passkeys you want to share with them. The shared credentials will sync across all the devices in the group.

Step-by-step:

To create a shared group, go to Settings > Passwords and double-tap the Add button in the top-right corner. Double-tap "New Shared Group," name the group, and double-tap Add People. Type in the contact information of the people you want to add, then double-tap Add. Double-tap Create to continue.

You will then be prompted to select passwords you want to share with the group; double-tap the ones you want to share, then double-tap the Move button in the top-right corner. If you are not ready to share any passwords yet, double-tap "Not Now."

To edit a group, go to Settings > Passwords and double-tap the name of the group. Double-tap "Manage" to add or remove members, change the group name, or delete the group.

To accept or decline an invitation to a group, make sure your device has iOS 17 or later, iPadOS 17 or later, or macOS Sonoma or later. Go to Settings > Passwords > Group Invitations and double-tap the invitation. Double-tap Accept to join the group, or Decline to reject it.




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Birmingham Hippodrome to host spoken word season

Verve Festival of Poetry and Spoken Word brings top events to the city.






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How can I fix the way Microsoft Zira pronouces certain words?

Is there a way to change the Microsoft voice Zira so she stops saying "Mississippi" when the word miss is used as a title or with a period at the end of it? I found two files (MSTTSLocEnUS.dat and MSTTSLocEnCA.dat) in the folder C:WindowsSpeech_OneCoreEnginesTTS that contain the text "mississippi" but they are both dat files and when I open them in Wordpad or Notepad, I cannot find the text. I looked in Windows Speech options and there is no place to fix pronunciations. I am using Windows 11 and it does not seem to happen when I use the David voice, only the Zira voice.




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179: Calendrical Is Totally A Word

In our triumphant return to posting podcasts at the turn of the month, Jess and I talk about time management and reminders, complicated conversational dynamics, the assassination of JFK (but only very briefly), and a bunch of somewhat more MetaFilter-centric things. We time-managed our way up to about 93 minutes. Also I play a euphonium.

Helpful Links

Podcast Feed
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Misc
- talkin' about fake cash which led to an old MeFi post
- Chicken in the Corn
- hey it's cranberry jelly
- twitter discussion about trauma dumping
- CALENDRICAL
- jessamyn did some filing

Jobs
- Greasemonkey (or other) script to enable downloads by jessamyn
- Shop at arch salvage store in Portland, OR for me by arnicae
- Full Stack Developer by jchan

Projects
- Skittish, a playful space for online events by waxpancake
- The Fucking Bible (warning: 7.5 MB) by ignignokt
- The Stick Princess by Peach
- I finally got my Murder Ballads book back into print! by Paul Slade
- Princess Unlimited by yankeefog
- "How to Sous Vide," a helpful cookbook by veggieboy
- Formula Non (2009 - 2019) An Alternative F1 Photo Project by lawrencium

MetaFilter
- "The real Pacific Princess had a crew of 373, rather than 6" by jessamyn
- a comment by cortex
- a fluegelhorn is probably not a fluegelhorn, and vice versa by cortex
- Film shows McD's trained new staff in proper use of Vulcan death pinch by not_on_display
- Islands in the Stream by dorothy hawk
- Divorced, beheaded, live! by Lorc
- at the world you've left / and the things you know by fight or flight
- Why so many people undercharge for their work by Bella Donna
- Those who exist, have existed, or will exist in the vicinity of Omelas by brainwane
- "the distance between reader and character or narrator" by brainwane

Ask MeFi
- a comment by brainwane
- Where did the "Rock and Roll Ending" come from? by bondcliff
- Why would I use a hot glue gun instead of just glue? by trevor_case
- Tennis Pro decoded opponent's body language and serve? by umber vowel
- How do you manage your time? by unicorn chaser
- Then we'll take it higher - pop songs that are actually protest songs by Frowner
- Waltham, MA ca. 1988 - 1990: Manufacturer of Geiger-Mueller Detectors? by ZenMasterThis
- Seeking reputable carbon offset programs by Osrinith
- Fun classic rock songs (Grateful Dead & more) to walk down the aisle to by Neely O'Hara
- logistics! by everybody had matching towels

MetaTalk
- How MeFi (and other providers) deal with trust & safety issues by brainwane
- Obit post: Speedlime by Pallas Athena
- Newsletter 3: The Handovering by Eyebrows McGee
- MetaFilter Gift Swap 2021 THANK YOU! by mochapickle
- Mefi Art & Makers Group, Update by Glinn




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The Amazing Power of Words

There is power in words. Words can bring life, and words can bring death. God wants us to speak words of encouragement.



  • Pastor Doug's Weekly Message

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Swords of the Serpentine TTRPG

Sundays, noon to three Pacific via Roll20 and Discord! Room for up to four players! Swords of the Serpentine is a fantasy role-playing game based on the GUMSHOE engine. It emphasizes investigative play, following leads, unraveling mysteries, and over-the-top swashbuckling action. To quote the blurb on the back of the rulebook: "a game of daring heroism, sly politics, and bloody savagery, set in a fantasy city rife with skullduggery and death". No experience necessary, we're all new to the game and learning together.

We are: two old guys and one of 'em's college-aged kid who have just wrapped up a Blades in the Dark campaign that ran 20-something sessions and are looking for a new game to play. You are: committed to playing weekly familiar with and able to access to both Discord and Roll20 reliably up for a role-playing game that emphasizes world-building through player participation interested in joining a friendly and welcoming table that likes sampling different systems (yeah, we gonna hafta play Eat The Reich pretty soon, I think...) If this sounds like a thing you'd be interested in doing, leave a comment below. I'll follow up with you via MeFi mail and we'll take it from there.




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The Amazing Power of Words

There is power in words. Words can bring life, and words can bring death. God wants us to speak words of encouragement.



  • Pastor Doug's Weekly Message

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The Last Words You May Ever Hear

When Jocelyn discovered that her dying hospital patient was watching Amazing Facts on TV, she knew that God had miraculously opened the door of salvation to a hurting, frightened soul. Millions are facing a hopeless future without Jesus. You can bring these lost people to the Lord through your compassionate gifts. The messages you help send out may be the last words they hear. Thank you for caring!




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WMM presents: Katie Gilchrist + Karalyne Winegarner + Destiny Atkinson & Kate Hall of Afterword Tavern & Shelves

Wednesday MidDay Medley Produced and Hosted by Mark Manning Wednesday, November 6, 2024 Katie Gilchrist + Karalyne Winegarner + Destiny Atkinson & Kate Hall of Afterword Tavern & Shelves Mark […]

The post WMM presents: Katie Gilchrist + Karalyne Winegarner + Destiny Atkinson & Kate Hall of Afterword Tavern & Shelves appeared first on KKFI.




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A Picture Is Worth 1000 Words

What a Weekend!

I hope you folks enjoyed the weekend. It was a great one... especially Sunday. Labrador City was the warmest spot in Province at 9.1 degrees!!! Happy Valley-Goose Bay hit 8.1, which was officially a new record. Here are some of the other Sunday temps...

Labrador City: 9.1
Badger: 8.4
Goose Bay: 8.1
Mary's Harbour: 7.9
Rocky Harbour: 7.9
Terra Nova: 7.8
Gander: 7.8
Deer Lake: 7.1

Another really nice one today AWAY from the Northeast Coast which has a Northerly flow setup again. Western Newfoundland could see 5 or 6 degrees again today as well as Happy Valley-Goose Bay. However the warmest spot in the Province will once again be Labrador City, where double digits are possible later this afternoon.

COLD FRONT APPROCHES

There is a cold front moving through Northern Quebec today and that will slice into Labrador tonight/tomorrow and then into Newfoundland on Wednesday. That front will drop temperatures back to Normal and bring some flurries in as well. More details on that, tonight on Here & Now.

A Picture Is Worth 1000 Words

It's the old saying... and really it proves true when you're looking at the Satellite Pictures below.
It's been awhile since we've had clear enough days to view our Province from space... but Saturday and Sunday we're perfect. These images are courtesy of NASA's MODIS Satellite.

SATURDAY

-Eastern Newfoundland was a bit cloudy on Saturday but what a view of the Western half of the Island and up the Northern Peninsula. You can clearly see the lack of Ice in Gulf and up through the Strait. There is a bit... but not much up along the Southeast Coast of Labrador up to Black Tickle. From there it does appear to thicken up a bit to the North... but the Cloud cover mixing in makes it tough to see.

SUNDAY

-A much better image of Southern Newfoundland. You can clearly see where the Snow cover had retreated along the Coast around the Southern half of the Avalon. Another great shot of the Bay of Exploits where again, I'm not seeing much ice at all. A bit of Snow retreat along the South Coast... but not much through Central yet.
The other spot where you can see the Snow has started to melt... is along the Humber River North of Deer Lake through the Humber Valley.

Gulf of St. Lawrence

This image was taken on Sunday as well. Again, you can clearly see no ice in the Gulf and even down into the St. Lawrence River.

See you tonight on Here & Now.

Ryan




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Four little words doubled this company's sales

Every company dreams of doubling its profit. It’s almost impossible to do. Yet, some companies do it by tweaking one tiny thing.



  • Radio/Under the Influence

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Seth MacFarlane - Music Is Better Than Words

An unexpected but endearing valentine to the 1940s and 50s.




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The 1000 word Save Wisdom Questions. – SaveWisdom.org

The 1000 word Save Wisdom Questions. – SaveWisdom.org https://ift.tt/xKEtq7W history, future





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Denver DA launches investigation into voter system passwords breach by secretary of state’s office

The Denver district attorney has launched an investigation into how a spreadsheet of voting system passwords ended up on the Colorado secretary of state's website earlier this year.




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Editorial: Colorado’s leaked password scandal needs outside investigation

"Hundreds of voting machine passwords were accidentally released but what exactly was Secretary of State Jena Griswold doing to address the security breach?" -- The Denver Post Editorial Board




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Ava Abramowitz on Making Words Matter

Many of us know Ava Abramowitz, a retired Professorial Lecturer in Law at George Washington. She recently gave a presentation at the Garibaldi Inn of Court, “Making Words Matter.”  The communication behaviors discussed in her presentation can give mediators, lawyers, disputants and litigants more tools to communicate. and in the process, help them develop additional … Continue reading Ava Abramowitz on Making Words Matter




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John W. Thompson’s Powerful Words [Unedited]



It’s all about education, it’s all about integrity.”





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Email Password Time Running Out Scam

What is "Email Password Time Running Out"?

We have analysed this email and found that it is a scam email designed to appear like a notification from an email service provider. This email contains a link to a phishing website designed to steal personal information. Recipients should ignore such emails and know how to recognize them.




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Sword Tips




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Way Of The Sword




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WordStar for DOS 7.0 Archive

As you all know, I continue to use WordStar for DOS 7.0 as my word-processing program. It was last updated in December 1992, and the company that made it has been defunct for decades; the program is abandonware. There was no proper archive of WordStar for DOS 7.0 available online, so I decided to create […]




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WordStar for DOS 7.0 archive updated

I’ve updated my WordStar for DOS 7.0 archive, based on feedback from the thousands of people who downloaded the initial public release (which was version 1.4, dated July 30, 2024).This new version is 1.5, dated August 12, 2024. The new version has the file size of the PDF manuals reduced (which cuts the archive size […]




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A bushel of buzzwords from Japan; the advent of phoneticization

Below are two lists of nominations for Japanese buzzword of the year.  Each has 30 entries, and from each list one will be chosen as the respective winner.  Since the two lists are already quite long and rich, I will keep my own comments (mostly at the bottom and focusing on phoneticization) to a minimum. […]





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UK-to-US Word of the Year 2022: fit

Having let the year run its course, I'm now am ready to declare the Separated by a Common Language Words of the Year for 2022. As ever, there are two categories: US-to-UK and UK-to-US.  To be a SbaCL WoTY, the word just needs to have been noticeable in some way that year in the other country. 

For past WotYs, see here. And now...

The 2022 UK-to-US Word of the Year is: fit

Now, of course the word fit is general English when we use it in contexts like The shoes fit or I'm going to get fit this year. But those fits are not my UK-to-US Word of the Year. The fit I'm talking about is the informal British usage that means 'attractive, sexy'. A close (orig.) AmE synonym is hot

Ben Yagoda, on his Not One-Off Britishisms blog, first noticed this sense of fit in an American context back in 2013, but it seems to have taken hold in the US in the past couple of years. I assume this is due to the international popularity of the British television (BrE) programme/(AmE) show Love Island

Here's a clear example of this sense of fit from another UK reality series, Made in Chelsea.*


I like that video just because it's clearly fit meaning 'hot' rather than 'healthy and/or muscular', but if you'd like to hear it said on Love Island, then you can hear it here at 1:38 (though the YouTube automatic subtitling mishears it as fair).

 

This use of the word is new enough to the US that it's included in glossaries for American Love Island fans, like this one and this one. The Oxford English Dictionary added it in 2001:

  British slang. Sexually attractive, good-looking.

1985   Observer 28 Apr. 45/1   ‘Better 'en that bird you blagged last night.’ ‘F—— off! She was fit.’
1993   V. Headley Excess iv. 21   ‘So wait; dat fit brown girl who live by de church ah nuh your t'ing?!’ he asked eyebrows raised.
1999   FHM June (Best of Bar Room Jokes & True Stories Suppl.) 21/1   My first night there, I got arseholed, hit the jackpot and retired with my fit flatmate to her room.
2000   Gloucester Citizen (Nexis) 14 Feb. 11   I would choose Gillian Anderson from the X-Files, because she's dead fit.

Green's Dictionary of Slang has one 19th-century example, but notes that "(later 20C+ use is chiefly UK black)." 

I can't give statistics on how often this fit is use in the US because (a) the word has many other common meanings, making it very difficult to search for in corpora, and (b) this particular meaning is not likely to make it into print all that often. (Slang is like that.) Ben Yagoda considers fit "still an outlier" in AmE. But Ben's probably not in the right demographic for hearing it. 

An anonymous blog reader nominated it, and it struck me as apt for 2022—the popularity of "Love Island UK" (as it's called in the US) was hard to miss on my visit to the US this summer. I got to hear my brother (whose [AmE] college-student daughter loves the show) imitating the contestants, throwing in words like fit. I can easily find young US people using and discussing 'sexy' fit on social media (though I won't share their examples here because those young people didn't ask for the attention). And it made it onto Saturday Night Live, in a sketch about Love Island. You can hear proper fit at 1:11:




So Happy New Year to you! I wrote this post after watching the fireworks (on tv) at midnight. Now I'm (BrE humorous) off to Bedfordshire, so I'll leave the other WotY for tomorrow. Stay tuned for the US-to-UK WotY! 


*Update: I'm told that the Made in Chelsea video does not play in the US. Here's a quick transcript of the relevant bit:

Scene: Two male cast members on a sofa, commenting on this video shot of a female cast member:

M1: God, she's fit. 

M2: She is so hot.

M1:  So fit.

 




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2022 US-to-UK Word of the Year: homer

Yesterday, I declared the UK-to-US SbaCL Word of the Year. You can read about it here

The US-to-UK one may be as controversial as it was the first time (a)round (in May). But here goes: 

2022's US-to-UK Word of the Year is: homer


Why? 
  • Because it is possibly the most talked-about Americanism in British social media this year.
  • Because if I chose the other finalist,* I'd get too many "that's not a word!" complaints.
  • Because it alludes a huge, wordy phenomenon of 2022.
That phenomenon is Wordle, the word game invented by a Welsh engineer in the US, an added transatlantic bonus. 

Homer was the Wordle solution on the 5th of May, setting off a lot of grumpiness on social media. The cartoonist Stephen Collins provides a good illustration of the depth of feeling on the matter on the part of many committed UK Wordlers:




So, this isn't a Word of the Year because British people have taken on the word to refer to baseball home runs. There is very little need to talk about baseball in Britain. It's US-to-UK Word of the Year because it was an Americanism talking point in Britain, demonstrating how separate our vocabularies can be.

But is it an Americanism? The thing is, British people do say homer for lots of other reasons. In various BrE dialects or jargons, it can be a homing pigeon, a (BrE) match played on the home (BrE) pitch in some sports, or "a job that a skilled worker, such as a house painter or a hairdresser[..], does for a private customer in the customer's home, especially when they do this in addition to their main job and without telling their employer or the tax authorities" (Cambridge Dictionary). It's also the name of an ancient Hebrew measurement. But none of these uses are as common in BrE as homer meaning 'home run' is in AmE, and so the word was definitely perceived as an Americanism by British Wordle players. 

Now, this choice isn't exactly original on my part. Cambridge Dictionary made homer their Word of the Year back in November. It's also been noted as one of the most Googled words of the year. But that's another reason why it feels right as the US-to-UK Word of the Year. It not only spiked high in their look-up statistics on the day, it continued to be looked up in their online dictionary for months after—perhaps because BrE speakers just can't stop talking/tweeting about it. Homer was again showing up in tweets about losing one's Wordle streak on 27 December, when the answer was the tricky HAVOC. (And I imagine it was showing up in the less searchable social media as well.)  It'll be interesting to see if it's still being put to these purposes next year, or if it'll have been forgotten. The chances that it'll be forgiven seem thin.

I do encourage you to have a look at Cambridge's Word of the Year site for more on this word, British–American linguistic relations and how Wordle's been affecting dictionary usage. 




*My other "finalist" was them's the breaks, as spoken by Boris Johnson in his resignation speech outside 10 Downing Street. I was sure in July that that would be my "Word" of the Year, but, two Prime Ministers later, this well and truly feels like ancient news now.




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NYT Spelling Bee: an archive of disallowed BrE words

Twitter has been my main internet stomping ground since 2009, but I've been withdrawing my labo(u)r from it since October, when it became much more volatile for some reason

The New York Times Spelling Bee has been my morning-coffee activity for some of those years, and since November 2020 I've been jokingly tweeting the BrE words that it hasn't accepted. These go in a thread of posts that always start: 

Perfectly Common BrE Words the @NYTimesGames Spelling Bee Has Denied Me: An Occasional Series

Twitter has really degraded this week, which is making me feel a bit sad that perhaps that thread will have to die. (I'm also sad that the thread has frayed along the way—it's very difficult to read it all the way to the beginning because it splits here and there.) So as a clearly procrastinatory measure, I'm putting the list of "perfectly common BrE words" here, with a little more explanation than they tended to get on Twitter.

For those who don't know the Bee: it's an anagram game where one must use the middle letter. The twist—and what makes it a superior anagram game—is that you can use any of the letters as many times as you like. Here's what it looked like on the 5th of April when I hadn't yet got to Genius level.  (My goal every day is 'make it to Genius before breakfast'. It's nice to be called 'Genius' before you've started work.) 


The game, of course, has its own word list, which is suitably American for its New York Times home. Still, some not-usually-AmE words are playable, like FLATMATELORRY and PRAM. But many words that are part of my everyday vocabulary in England are not playable. And non-AmE spellings are generally not playable. 

There's been a lot of attention to AmE words that (orig. AmE) stump non-American players in Wordle. (Here's Cambridge Dictionary's 2022 Word of the Year post, which covers some—and includes a video in which I talk about why HOMER was a great choice for Word of the Year.) Not as much attention has been paid to the Spelling Bee, which you need to subscribe to. I'm sure British players have their own (mental) lists of American words they've had to learn in order to get "Queen Bee" status (finding all the day's words) in the game. If you're one of them, do use the comments to tell us about those weird words.

So, after all that preamble, here are the "Perfectly Common BrE Words the @NYTimesGames Spelling Bee Has Denied Me" words in alphabetical order, with translations or links to other blog posts. But first, a bit more preamble. The disclaimers! 

  • Words in the puzzle must be at least four letters long, so some of these are suffixed forms for which the three-letter base word was unplayable. If there's an -ED form but not an -ING form (etc.), that'll be because the other one's letters weren't in the puzzle. 
  • Some of these would not have been allowable—regardless of their dialectal provenance—on the basis that they are "naughty" words. I include them anyway. 
  • I have checked questionable cases against the GloWbE corpus to ensure that the word really is more common in BrE than AmE.
  • Some are Irish or Australian by origin, but they are still more common in BrE than in AmE.
  • Sometimes my spelling is a bit liberal here. If I could find one British dictionary that allowed me the word with the given spelling, I included it.  
  • Also the phrase "perfectly common" is not meant to be taken too seriously!
  • These words were not playable at the time when I tried to play them. The word list may have changed and some of them may be playable now. 
  • Red ones are ones that have been unsuccessfully played/tweeted about since I first started this blog list. Green ones have been added to the blog since the original post, but were tweeted-about earlier than that—I just missed them in the tangled Twitter threads when I was writing the blog post. 

ABATTOIR
  AmE slaughterhouse

AGGRO aggression, aggressive behavio[u]r

AITCH  the letter. Less need to spell it as a word in AmE. See this old post.

ANAEMIA / ANAEMIC  AmE anemia/anemic

ANNEXE  minority spelling in BrE; usually, as in AmE, it's annex

APNOEA  AmE apnea

APPAL   AmE appall; old post on double Ls

ARDOUR   old post on -or/-our

ARGYBARGY this is a bit of a joke entry because it's usually spelled/spelt ARGY-BARGY (a loud argument), but the Squeeze album has no hyphen. 

ARMOUR    -or/-our

BALLACHE   something annoying or tedious (usually hyphenated, but some dictionaries include the closed-up version)

BIBBED  I don't know why this shows up more in BrE data, but it does, just meaning 'wearing a bib'

BINMAN / BINMEN  AmE garbage man (among other terms); old post on bin

BINT  derogatory term for a woman

BITTY having lots of unconnected parts, often leaving one feeling unsatisfied; for example, this blog post is a bit bitty

BLAG covered in this old post

BLUB / BLUBBING to sob (= general English blubbering)

BOAK retch, vomit, throw up a bit in the mouth. That was gross. Sorry.

BOBBLY having bobbles 

BOBBY  I think this one might be playable now. Informal term for police officer. In AmE, found in bobby pins

BODGE / BODGED make or fix something badly

BOFFIN  see this old post

BOLLOCK / BOLLOCKED  reprimand severely

BOLLOX  This one's more common in Irish English than BrE. To screw something up.

BOKE   see BOAK 

BONCE  the head (informal)

BOYO a boy/man (Welsh informal)

BRILL  short for brilliant, meaning 'excellent'; also a kind of European flatfish

BROLLY  umbrella (informal)

BUNG / BUNGING to put (something) (somewhere) quickly/carelessly. People cooking on television are always bunging things in the oven. 

BUTTY  see this old post

CAFF  a café, but typically used of the kind that is analogous to an AmE diner (that is to say a café is not as fancy in BrE as it would be in AmE)

CAWL  a soupy Welsh dish (recipe); also a kind of basket

CEILIDH  a Scottish social dance (event)

CHANNELLED   post on double Ls

CHAPPIE  a chap (man)

CHAV / CHAVVY  see this old post and/or this one

CHICANE  a road arrangement meant to slow drivers down; see this old post

CHILLI  see this old post

CHIMENEA / CHIMINEA the 'e' spelling is considered etymologically "correct" but the 'i' spelling seems to be more common in UK; I think these kinds of outdoor fireplaces are just more trendy in UK than in US?

CHIPPIE alternative spelling of chippy, informal for a (fish and) chip shop

"cholla" at a UK online supermarket
CHOC chocolate (informal, countable)

CHOLLA  a spelling of challah (the bread) 

CLAG  mud; more common is claggy for 'having a mud-like consistency'

COLOUR    -or/-our

CONNEXION this is a very outdated spelling of connection. Not actually used in UK these days, but wouldn't it be nice to be able to play it?

COOTCH  a hiding place, a shed or similar (from Welsh cwtch)

COUNCILLOR  post on double Ls

CRAIC it's really an Irish one (a 'good time'), but it qualifies here because it's used more in BrE than AmE (and understood pretty universally in UK)

CRIM  criminal

CUTTY  short (in some UK dialects)

DADO  as in dado rail, what's often called a chair rail in AmE (here's a picture)

DEFENCE  AmE defense

DEMOB /DEMOBBED  de-mobilize(d); that is, released from the (BrE) armed forces / (AmE) military

DENE  a valley (esp. a narrow, wooded one) or a low sand dune near the sea (regional)

DEVILLED  post on double Ls

DIALLING  post on double Ls

DIDDY    small (dialectal); see this old post

DOBBED / DOBBING  actually Australian, dob = to inform on someone; see this old post on the BrE equivalent grass (someone) up

DODDLE  it's a doddle  = (orig. AmE) it's a piece of cake (very easy)

DOOLALLY  out of one's mind

EQUALLED   post on double Ls

FAFF / FAFFING  one of the most useful BrE words. See this old post

FARL  a kind of (AmE) quick bread, usually cut into triangles; can be made of various things, but here's a recipe for a common kind, the potato farl

FAVOUR   -or/-our

FILMIC cinematic, relating to film

FITMENT = AmE fixture, i.e. a furnishing that is fit(ted) in place

FLANNELETTE = AmE flannel  old post on flannels

FLAVOUR   -or/-our

FLAVOURFUL   -or/-our

FOETAL AmE (and BrE medical) fetal

FOOTMAN a servant or (formerly soldier (of a particular rank)

FUELLED  post on double Ls

FULFIL   post on double Ls

GADGIE / GADGE guy, man, boy (regional)

GAMMON  this post covers the meat meaning, but lately it's also used as an insult for Brexiteers and their political similars

GAMMY  (of a body part) not working well; e.g., I have a gammy knee

GANNET a type of sea bird, but also BrE slang for a greedy person

GAOL  now less common spelling for jail

GIBBET  gallows; to hang (a person) [not really in current use]

GIGGED / GIGGING  to perform at a gig  [playable as of May 2023]

GILET   covered at this clothing post and also at this pronunciation post

GIPPING form of gip, a synonym of BOAK (see above)

GITE French, but used in English for a type of holiday/vacation cottage

GOBBED / GOBBING  form of gob, which as a noun means 'mouth', but as a verb means 'spit'

GOBBIN waste material from a mine

GOBBY mouthy

GOOLY (more often GOOLIE, GOOLEY) a testicle (informal, see GDoS)

getting gunged/slimed
GUNGE  any unpleasant soft or slimy substance; also used as a verb for having such stuff poured over one's head on a children's show (= AmE slime)

GURN / GURNING  see this old post

HAITCH  = AITCH, but pronounced differently See this old post.

HALLO old-fashioned hello 

HENCH strong, fit (like a weightlifter)

HOLDALL  a duffel bag or similar heavy-duty bag; often spelled with a hyphen (hold-all), but at least some places don't. 

HOOPOE a kind of bird (mostly African), which sometimes makes it to England

HOGMANAY it is a proper noun, but I wanted to include it anyway

HOICK / HOIK  to lift/pull abruptly

HOTCHPOTCH  AmE hodgepodge

INNIT invariant tag question: isn't it

INVIGILATING AmE proctoring; old post

JAMMY  lucky; old post 

KIRK  church (Scotland)

KIPPING  form of kip, to take a nap

LAIRY  (esp. of a person) unpleasantly loud, garish 

LAMBING  form of to lamb, give birth to lambs. Often heard in lambing time or lambing season

LAMPED  form of to lamp, to hit a person very hard

LARKING  form of to lark,  'to behave in a silly way for fun'

LAYBY  AmE turnout (and other synonyms/regional terms); a place where a car can move out of the flow of traffic (usually has a hyphen lay-by, but I found one dictionary that doesn't require it)

LIDO an outdoor public swimming pool; there's some debate about how to pronounce it 

LILO  a blow-up mattress for floating on in a pool

LINO  short for linoleum

LOLLY  lollipop or (AmE) popsicle (especially in ice lolly)

LOVAGE  a(n) herb that Americans don't see very often  [has been added! Played successfully on 3 May 2023]

LUPIN  AmE lupine, a flower

LURGI / LURGY  see this old post

MEDIAEVAL  the less common spelling of medieval

MILLIARD  (no longer really used) a thousand million, i.e. a billion 

MILORD address term for a nobleman

MINGE  a woman's pubic hair/area (not flattering) 

MINGING  foul, bad smelling, ugly (rhymes with singing!)

MODELLED  post on double Ls

MOGGY  a cat (informal)

MOOB  man boob

MOULT    AmE molt (related to  -or/-our)

MOZZIE  mosquito

MUPPET in its lower-case BrE sense: 'idiot; incompetent person'

NAFF  this has come up in posts about 'untranslatables' and about a study that identified common BrE words Americans don't know

NAPPY AmE diaper

NAVVY  a manual labo(u)rer (old-fashioned)

NEEP  Scottish English for what the English call a swede and what Americans call a rutabaga (old post on the latter two)

NELLY in the BrE phrase not on your nelly (= AmE not on your life)

NIFFY unpleasant-smelling

NOBBLE  to unfairly influence an outcome; steal 

NOBBLY  alternative spelling of knobbly (which is more common in both AmE & BrE)

NONCY  adjective related to nonce (sex offender, p[a]edophile) 

NOWT  nothing (dialectal)

ODOUR    -or/-our

OFFENCE  AmE offense

OFFIE  short for BrE off-licence; AmE liquor store  (discussed a little in this old post

ORACY  the speaking version of literacy; in US education, it's called orality

PACY  having a good or exciting pace (e.g. a pacy whodunnit)

PAEDO  short for pa(e)dophile

PANTO see this post

PAPPED / PAPPING  from pap, to take paparazzi pictures

PARLOUR    -or/-our

PARP  a honking noise

PEDALLED   post on double Ls

PELMET  another one from the study that identified common BrE words Americans don't know

PENG  slang for 'excellent' 

PIEMAN / PIEMEN this one is usually two words (pie man), but I was able to find a dictionary that allowed it as a single word, so I added it to the list

PIPPED / PIPPING  pip = to defeat by a small amount; often heard in to be pipped at the post 

PITTA another spelling for pita, more in line with the BrE pronunciation of the word

PLAICE another one from the study that identified common BrE words Americans don't know

PLUMMY  see this post

PODGY  chubby

POMMY another Australian one, but English people know it because it's an insult directed at them, often in the phrase pommy bastard

PONCE / PONCY  see this post

PONGING horrible-smelling

POOED / POOING  see this post for the poo versus poop story

POOTLE to travel along at a leisurely speed

POPPADOM / POPPADUM anything to do with Indian food is going to be found more in UK than US

PORRIDGY  like porridge, which in AmE is oatmeal

PUFFA full form: puffa jacket; a kind of quilted jacket; it is a trademark, but used broadly; I did find it in one dictionary with a lower-case p

PUNNET  see this old post

RAILCARD  you buy one and it gives you discounts on train tickets

RANCOUR    -or/-our

RUMOUR     -or/-our

TANNOY  AmE loudspeaker, public address system  (originally a trademark, but now used generically)

TARTY dressed (etc.) in a provocative manner

TELLY  (orig.) AmE tv

TENCH a Eurasian fish

THALI  another Indian menu word 

THICKO  stupid person

TIDDY  small (dialectal) 

TIFFIN  usually referring to chocolate tiffin (recipe)

TINNING  AmE canning

TITBIT see this post

TITCH  a small person 

TIZZ = tizzy (to be in a tizz[y])

TOFF  an upper-class person (not a compliment)

TOMBOLA  see this post

TOTTED / TOTTING  see this post 

TOTTY  an objectifying term for (usually) a woman

TRUG  a kind of basket; these days, often a handled rubber container  

TUPPENCE  two pence

TWIGGED, TWIGGING  form of twig 'to catch on, understand'

UNEQUALLED   post on double Ls

UNVETTED related to my 2008 Word of the Year 

VALOUR   -or/-our

VIVA  an oral exam (short for viva voce)

WANK / WANKING  my original Word of the Year (2006!)

WEEING  AmE peeing

WELLIE  / WELLY  a (BrE) wellington boot / (AmE) rubber boot

WHIN a plant (=furze, gorse)

WHINGE  AmE whine (complain)

WILLIE / WILLY  penis

WOAD a plant used to make blue dye

WOLD a clear, upland area (mostly in place names now)

WOOLLEN   post on double Ls

YOBBO / YOBBY  hooligan / hooliganish

YODELLED   post on double Ls





word

UK-to-US Word of the Year 2023: if I'm honest

Each year since 2006, this blog has designated Transatlantic Words of the Year (WotY). The twist is that I choose the most 'of the year' borrowings from US-to-UK and from UK-to-US.  The question this year raises is: does 2023 deserve SbaCL Words of the Year?

The eligibility criteria remain:

  • Good candidates for SbaCL WotY are expressions that have lived a good life on one side of the Atlantic but for some reason have made a splash on the other side of the Atlantic this year. 
  • Words coined this year are not really in the running. If they moved from one place to another that quickly, then it's hard to say that they're really "Americanisms" or "Britishisms". They're probably just "internetisms". The one situation in which I could see a newly minted word working as a transatlantic WotY would be if the word/expression referenced something very American/British but was nevertheless taken on in the other country.
  • When I say word of the year, I more technically mean lexical item of the year, which is to say, there can be spaces in nominations. Past space-ful WotYs have included gap year, Black Friday, and go missing. I've also been known to declare a pronunciation the Word of the Year.

The UK > US WotY was nominated by Nancy Friedman and endorsed by Ben Yagoda. It is most definitely a phrase:

if I'm honest

In Ben's post the phrase is associated with Great British Bake-Off (AmE: Great British Baking Show) judge Paul Hollywood. When I looked for it on YouGlish, there were a whole slew of examples from the British (BrE) motoring show Top Gear, on which they review cars. In both program(me)s, the phrase is useful in softening criticisms (which both shows have a lot of) by framing them as a truths expressed with some reservation. If I'm honest marks something as an admission of some sort. It's similar to to be honest, which has long been said in the US (and the UK) for much the same reason. (And then there's honestly, which I'll come back to.)

Here are some recent American uses of the phrase:
  • Ryan Gosling, on being cast as Ken in Barbie:  "I just decided I was going to Ken as hard as I can. I Kenned in the morning; I Kenned at night. If I’m honest, I’m Kenning a little right now.”
  • A Real Housewife of Potomac, on getting divorced: "I've just been a little bit complacent about it, if I'm honest, because there are benefits to being married."
  • A Manhattanite writing about an experiment in sustainable living: "If I’m honest, part of me hoped to find the challenge untenable so I could say the cure was worse than the disease and give up."
  • A Chicago police officer commenting on the city's mayoral race: “If I’m honest, I think Catanzara may have some blame here”

These kinds of phrases are discourse markers. They do not add factual meaning to the sentence they're in, but rather make a comment on the speaker's attitude, or stance, toward(s) what they're saying. 

Is it a British phrase? Yes. Here is if I *m honest (i.e., if I'm honest or if I am honest) in the 2012 data of the Corpus of Global Web-Based English, where it occurs 7.6 times more often in BrE than in AmE. (Click on the images to embiggen them.)


And here it is in British sources in the News on the Web Corpus: 


In the 2012 data, the phrase occurs at a much higher rate in GloWbE than in NOW—the NOW number only reaches GloWbE's rate (1.8 per million words) in 2023—because the types of texts in the two corpora are different—there's more variety and informal language on GloWbE. That's something worth keeping in mind when we look at the US numbers. Speaking of which, here they are:


A few things to notice here:
  • Yes, the phrase is going up in AmE news, from 0.08 per million words to 0.19 over the past 13 years. 
  • But it's still below the 2012 GloWbe number (0.24 pmw). One would imagine that if we had current data that was collected in the same way as GloWbE, we'd see a lot more there. 
  • And it's wayyyyyy below the British numbers.
  • A country music album had the title If I'm Honest in 2016, which helps (to) account for the higher number then.

Here's a view of the Google Books numbers, comparing If I'm honest with To be honest (though keep in mind that to be honest here is not necessarily the discourse marker. It could be in any number of sentences about honesty.)

And a comparison of it with the equivalent if I'm being honest, which is less common, but making a move in AmE.



The pictures (and numbers) tell the story of a British expression that's become more and more common in BrE, and that has raised American exposure to (and use of) it. But note that it's rising far faster in BrE than in AmE. So, does it meet the first of my eligibility criteria? Maybe not. But it's what I've got for this year!


P.S.  Honestly

Honestly, used as a discourse marker in a sentence seems to be more common in AmE. But as a stand-alone expression of exasperation, it seems more common in BrE (Honestly!). It's definitely more common from the BrE speakers in my house than from me, but maybe I'm just more exasperating to live with than they are. Here are searches with punctuation from GloWbE:







Will there be a US-to-UK WotY?  To be honest, it's unclear at this point! 




word

US-to-UK Word of the Year: OK

See here for the UK-to-US WotY post.

Time for the 2023 US-to-UK Word of the Year. Before people complain that this word has been in British English too long for it to count as a word of 2023, let me remind you of the criteria for SbaCL WotYs: 

  • Good candidates for SbaCL WotY are expressions that have lived a good life on one side of the Atlantic but for some reason have made a splash on the other side of the Atlantic this year. 
  • Words coined this year are not really in the running. If they moved from one place to another that quickly, then it's hard to say that they're really "Americanisms" or "Britishisms". They're probably just "internetisms". The one situation in which I could see a newly minted word working as a transatlantic WotY would be if the word/expression referenced something very American/British but was nevertheless taken on in the other country.
  • When I say word of the year, I more technically mean lexical item of the year, which is to say, there can be spaces in nominations. 
This word did make something of a splash in the British news this year. Here's a tweet from the Daily Mail:



And what was that American word?  *fanfare* The 2023 US-to-UK Word of the Year is 


OK!

(Also spelled okay, but we'll get to that!)

Though it has appeared in BrE since at least the late 19th century (originating in AmE earlier in that century), OK took a while to make its way into everyday speech in the UK. (Click on images to enlarge them.) Here's its trajectory in books (via Google Books Ngram Viewer). 


OK is underrepresented in earlier years in this graph because it was spelled/spelt O.K. with (BrE) full stops/(AmE) periods until and into the 20th century. As far as I know, there's no way to search for a word with that punctuation in it in Google Ngram Viewer, so I'm a bit stuck in showing more of the historical picture. 

One of American English's great observers/collectors/analysts, Allan Walker Read put significant effort into the study of OK, tracing its origins to a humorous spelling of all correct. Then people forgot about the joke and it went on to become "the English language's most successful export" according to this Merriam-Webster post, about a book by another late, great American English linguist, Allan Metcalf, relating Read's research. 

Getting back to the UK news in 2023, here's the headline of the Daily Mail's story:

Dailymail.co.uk headline.
Not linking to them because they don't need the traffic

That headline came from a particular interpretation of work by Galina B. Bolden, Alexa Hepburn, and Jenny Mandelbaum published in the Journal of Pragmatics on differences in US and UK usage of right, about which they conclude:

[I]n American English, right conveys the speaker's knowing stance and, in certain environments, the speaker's claim of primary knowledge. In contrast, in British English, right registers provided information as previously unknown, informative, and relevant to the current speaker's ongoing project. 

        [...] 

[S]ome UK usages of right—such as registering of potentially consequential information and projecting a transition—are quite similar to US okay in comparable positions [...]. This suggests a possibility that, in US English, okay took over some of the right usages and/or, in UK English, right took over some of the okay usages."

Their research was inspired by this interaction between BrE-speaking "AB" and AmE speaker "GA":


So, essentially, the British use of right in that context leads GA to think that AB is confirming (rather than acknowledging receipt of) the information. If AB had said OK, then GA would have understood it as acknowledgement rather than confirmation.

Even though the researchers note differences in usage between BrE and AmE okay (though keep in mind that their research is about right), it seems like a fitting US-to-UK WotY because (in whichever usages), it's used more than ever in the UK. Here it is in the British section of the News on the Web corpus, where it shows OK and okay climbing in the last couple of years.




Something to notice about the spelling is that in the news corpus, the OK spelling outnumbers the okay spelling, but in the books okay outnumbers OK. I think this tells us something about spelling style in different kinds of publications. I checked whether it also told us something about adjective (an okay/OK word) versus interjection use (OK! Okay!), but did not find a great difference between the spellings in the different uses.

Since this was a year of warning Britons against it, OK is the 2023 Separated by a Common Language US-to-UK Word of the Year!