Notices by Mignon Fogarty (grammargirl@zirk.us), page 3

We just got the death certificate for a close relative who recently died. We were told very different things about what was going on and didn't know what to believe, so we wanted to know the cause of death. Here's what it says:

Failure to thrive.

WTF? Yes, he failed to live. Could it be any less informative?

If you're looking for something to listen to this weekend while you garden, cook, or exercise, this week's Grammar Girl podcast looks at the debate about where language started.

Researchers get a bit spicy over a new technology one of them calls the equivalent of radiocarbon dating for language.

Audio: https://pod.link/173429229https://pod.link/173429229

Transcript: https://grammar-girl.simplecast.com/episodes/indo-european/transcript

@madrush @ntnsndr You'd use a hyphen there. (The Chicago Manual of Style has a very similar example in its explanation: "US-Canadian relations.")

National Grammar Day is one month from today. Time to start thinking about your posts!

I was organizing files on my desktop and came across a screenshot of this old post about an 1884 usage guide that still makes me laugh:

"Don't say ‘gents' for 'gentlemen, nor 'pants' for 'pantaloons.’ These are INEXCUSABLE VULGARISMS. (emphasis added)

A team at the University of Chicago just released a tool called Nightshade that makes invisible changes to digital images. The selling point is that these changes “poison” AI models that try to use the images as training data.

https://venturebeat.com/ai/nightshade-the-free-tool-that-poisons-ai-models-is-now-available-for-artists-to-use/

#AI

Off the top of my head, podcast transcripts are good because they:

— Are Important for accessibility.
— Are required for your podcast to be used in a classroom.
— Can help you get more exposure if people find them through search.
— Can make your content easier to share. (If you have a friend you know won't listen to a podcast, you can still send the info.)
— Provide an entry point for people who aren't ready to commit to listening.

What else?

#podcasting

In addition to making me think about why we have so many problems in our country, the low literacy rate also gave me a new perspective on why YouTube is so popular as a source of information.

The American Dialect Society always has great word-of-the-year nominees. The Acronym/Initialism of the Year category seems especially strong this year with FOFI, AITA, IYKYK, LFG, and MOOP.

Check out the whole list!
(Voting starts soon.)

https://americandialect.org/nominations-for-words-of-the-year-2023/

I could hardly believe that statistic I just reposted was true: more than half of U.S. adults 16 to 74 read at below a 6th grade level?

But I checked, and Snopes says it's true. https://www.snopes.com/news/2022/08/02/us-literacy-rate/

How discouraging and infuriating.

A follower asked me to share a piece on Substack, but I didn't think it was the best take.

Here's what I think is the clearest summary:

Substack says allowing self-proclaimed Nazis to use their service is a free speech issue, but they don't allow sexually explicit content published by sex workers.

Since they're willing to disallow some content but not Nazi content, it means they want to do business w/Nazis (and are full of shit about "free speech").

https://www.techdirt.com/2023/12/26/substack-turns-on-its-nazis-welcome-sign/

I'm going to get personal for a second here:

My husband had surgery this morning, and I am just so damn grateful he's alive.

It wasn't anything extreme, but it was under full anesthesia, and there are few feelings that hit me harder than seeing someone I love being wheeled away into surgery looking completely vulnerable.

I'm wiped out and signing off for the night, but I hope I passed some of my relief-joy on to all of you.

Adulthood is when you get excited about reusing a box.

"AI" continues to dominate word-of-the-year choices.

Dictionary.com just chose "hallucinate," and The Economist recently chose "ChatGPT."

https://content.dictionary.com/word-of-the-year-2023/

https://archive.is/KvFxc#selection-1159.22-1191.144

#AI #ChatGPT #WOTY2023 #hallucinations

In this week's Grammar Girl podcast, we learn that "mansion" comes from the French word for "house." It was originally just a regular house, but our tendency to think of French things as fancy led to "mansion" meaning a big, expensive house.

I also investigate a house-related familect: Why would a mother ask a daughter if a boy at school "gave her any house"?

PODLINK: https://pod.link/173429229
YOUTUBE: https://youtu.be/dw-InJtuoOY
TRANSCRIPT: https://grammar-girl.simplecast.com/episodes/house-mansion/transcript

#GrammarGirl #podcast

Jolabokaflod! I love this concept from Iceland: People give each other books as gifts on December 24 and spend the night reading. 📚

https://www.dictionary.com/browse/jolabokaflod

I just moved to a new instance, so here's a new #introduction

I'm the host of the Grammar Girl #podcast. You may have hit my website searching for something like "semicolons." I love #writing books, #teaching online courses, and I founded the Quick and Dirty Tips podcast network.

I post about #usage, #editing, #etymology, #books, and other #wordnerd stuff. I'm a fan of #linguistics, #librarians, #podcasting, #journalism, #scifi, #fiction in general, and I'm on the #nanowrimo writers board.

I've been thinking about the new Associated Press guidelines to avoid referring to #AI in ways that could imply humanness, sentience, or intent:

Don't say, "It WANTS you to enter more information," for example.

I've often used that kind of wording for computers in the past.

But more precise wording matters now because it's the first time we've widely had systems that could be mistaken for being human or having sentience, and it's important not to reinforce that idea.

#ChatGPT

I don't know anything about this program beyond its web page, but I think it's a clever idea, so I want to share it:

It lets you raise money for a charity through your #NaNoWriMo word count the way runners raise money for the number of miles they run.

This year's charity is We Need Diverse Books.

https://themightypens.org/about/how-it-works/

#Bookstadon #weneeddiversebooks

Quick rest on a bench after a pre-lunch run in the park.