Worst Words of the Year 2020 ▬ Plain English Foundation

Worst Words of the Year 2020

Worst Words 2020

Plain English Foundation: 12.22.2020

It’s hardly surprising that COVID-19 featured in the 2020 list of worst words and phrases. While the crisis generated some essential and even amusing words, other Covidspeak was less welcome.

Plain English Foundation also identified more of the usual suspects in poor public language during 2020: from political spin and doublespeak to made-up Frankenwords. =And this year’s mixed metaphor and non-apology examples are particularly poor.

Winner

Vertical consumption

Covidspeak

Discretionary essentials

Zump

Frankenwords

‘She’-session

Hipsturbia

Doublespeak

Withdrawn as a matter of priority

Sensitive receivers

Political spin

Reverse porkbarrelling

Efforting outreach

READ MORE ➤➤

Automatic Readability Checker

Based on 7 readability formulas:

Grade Level: 15

Reading Level: difficult to read.

Reader's Age: College graduate

 

30-Day Language Challenge ▬ CASLS U Oregon

30-Day Language Challenge

30-Day Language
Challenge

CASLS U Oregon: 2020

Our 30-Day Language Challenge gives students the chance to build fluency and proficiency by using the target language in their daily lives. The activities are perfect for online or hybrid contexts, as students can complete the activities each day on their own.

Creating Innovative Approaches to Language Learning Since 1994

The Center for Applied Second Language Studies (CASLS) at the University of Oregon supports innovative world language teaching and learning. We develop research-based curricula, professional development resources, and assessments to support infrastructure and innovation.

We are one of sixteen National Foreign Language Resource Centers that work to increase the nation’s capacity for language education. Our resources incorporate best practices in pedagogy, the latest in second language acquisition research, and technology that’s actually usable in the classroom.  READ MORE ➤➤

Automatic Readability Checker

Based on 7 readability formulas:

Grade Level: 15

Reading Level: very difficult to read.

Reader's Age: College graduate

5 Unofficial Rules Native English Speakers Don't Realize They Know @ Mental Floss

5 Unofficial Rules Native English Speakers Don't Realize They Know

Mental Floss: 9.12.2016 (updated 9.04.2020) by Arika Okrent

Woodward English

It can be shocking to realize that we are able to follow grammar rules that no one ever taught us explicitly. But that’s what most of language is—not the little things that textbooks tell us we’re getting wrong, but the solid ones we always get right. Non-native speakers, however, might get them wrong, and that gives us a good opportunity to get a peek at the rules we don’t otherwise notice.

WHY IT’S “GREAT GREEN DRAGONS” AND NOT “GREEN GREAT DRAGONS”

In 2016, the BBC’s Matthew Anderson tweeted about a rule that “English speakers know, but don’t know we know.” It was a screen grab of a passage from Mark Forsyth’s The Elements of Eloquence explaining that the reason “great green dragons” sounds better than “green great dragons” is that we unconsciously follow a rule that stipulates that the order of adjectives in English goes opinion-size-age-shape-color-origin-material-purpose. Size comes before color, so no “green great dragons.”

2. WHY WE SAY “MY BROTHER’S CAR” AND NOT “THE CAR OF MY BROTHER”

ARROW

3. WHY IT’S “ABSO-FREAKIN’-LUTELY” AND NOT “ABSOLUTE-FREAKIN’-LY”

READ MORE ➤➤

Automatic Readability Checker

Based on 7 readability formulas:

Grade Level: 11

Reading Level: standard / average.

Reader's Age: 15-17 yrs. old

(Tenth to Eleventh graders)

Corporate Buzzwords Are How Workers Pretend to Be Adults via The Atlantic

Corporate Buzzwords Are How Workers Pretend to Be Adults

Circle back and kill me now.

The Atlantic:  2.19.2020 by Olga Khazan

If there’s anything corporate America has a knack for, it’s inventing new, positive words that polish up old, negative ones. Silicon Valley has recast the chaotic-sounding “break things” and “disruption” as good things. An anxious cash grab is now a “monetization strategy,” and if you mess up and need to start over, just call it a “pivot” and press on.

It’s the Uber for BS, you might say.

Cloying marketing-speak, of course, isn’t limited to the tech world. As a health reporter, much of my work involves wending my way through turgid academic studies, which are full of awkward turns of phrase such as salience and overweight (used as a noun, as in “the prevalence of overweight”). Even more tedious is reading some of the reports put out by nonprofit organizations, which always seem to want to arm “stakeholders” with tools for their “tool boxes.” I wish journalists were immune, given that we fancy ourselves to be plainspoken, but sadly common in our world is talk of “deep dives” and “impactful long form.” (Use of the word impactful is strongly discouraged by The Atlantic’s copy desk. As is the use of many other words.)

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When I recently asked on Twitter about everyone’s least favorite buzzwords, people really mind-shared some good ones. Capacity grates, as does at-risk when describing people, along with the delightfully redundant root cause. The “optics” of “growth hacking” do little to “value-add,” as well. But the strange thing is, these folks are from the fields in which those words are used. Like everyone’s loud tipsy uncle, the buzzwords people know best tend to be the ones that irritate them most. That so many people continue to use these words anyway speaks to one of the most powerful quirks of office life—and the power dynamics that make it so difficult to change.

According to Gretchen McCulloch, the author of Because Internet, buzzwords were born from the artifice of the office itself. At work, people are paid to do things they wouldn’t otherwise do in their leisure time. They don’t dress at the office the way they do at home; they don’t act at the office the way they do outside of it; and they don’t talk about drilling down and rightsizing around their friends. Buzzwords mark the boundary of work life, broadcasting “I’m working!” in much the same way an Ann Taylor getup does. They allow workers to relate to one another—the much-decried “synergy” is an important part of a lot of people’s jobs, after all.

Frankly, buzzwords also help save time. You can command a co-worker to “get their ducks in a row” and have them basically know what you mean. In this way, speaking in business jargon is a way of showing that you fit in with the office, the Copenhagen Business School professor Mary Yoko Brannen told me. One of the most important elements of culture is language.

From a more cynical perspective, buzzwords are useful when office workers need to dress up their otherwise pointless tasks with fancier phrases—you know, for the optics.  READ MORE ➤➤

Automatic Readability Checker

Based on (7) readability formulas:

Grade Level: 9

Reading Level: standard / average.

Reader's Age: 13-15 yrs. old

(Eighth and Ninth graders)

Stephen Krashen’s Seven Tips for Teaching Language During Covid-19 via Language Magazine

@langmag

Stephen Krashen’s Seven Tips for Teaching Language During Covid-19

Language Magazine: 5.08.2020

For Stephen Krashen, the disruption to traditional education during Covid-19 may reveal some unexpected benefits.

Krashen [ @skrashen ] is a leading world scholar, emeritus professor of Education at the University of Southern California, and author of several books on language acquisition.

In a recent conversation, Krashen discussed how teachers and parents can harness the opportunity to teach language—including heritage languages—during remote learning. Here are his expert insights:

1. Less Traditional Instruction May Be a Good Thing

Many parents and teachers are understandably anxious about remote learning, as instruction has become less traditional.

However, Krashen notes, “We do not acquire language by study, or by speaking or writing. We acquire in only one way: by understanding what we hear or read. What we call ‘comprehensible input.’ The ability to produce language is the result of getting the right kind of input.”

With less focus on traditional language education, i.e., practicing memorized rules and grammar through speaking until they become automatic, students are free to acquire language in a more effective way.

     What Is Comprehensible Input?

According to Stephen Krashen’s theory of language acquisition, comprehensible input is language that can be understood by listeners even if they don’t fully comprehend all of the vocabulary and grammar in use. Input is essential to acquisition, as it informs learners’ subconscious understanding of a language.

2. Remote Learning Can Easily Support Language Acquisition

While online education may isolate students at home, it shouldn’t negatively impact language learning. “We don’t need massive amounts of interaction to acquire language. We need massive amounts of input,” says Krashen.

Here’s how teachers and parents can continue to provide rich input during Covid-19.

     Practice More Storytelling

In early foreign language classes, studies show that students learn more effectively by listening to stories told to them by their teachers than from traditional study. Listening creates a path to reading, which is key for input for language acquisition.

     Allow Students to Read for Pleasure

“Self-selected pleasure reading is the source of most of our vocabulary, grammar, spelling, and the ability to write with an acceptable writing style,” notes Krashen.

3. Parents Should Share Heritage Language at Home

Heritage language is an indigenous language spoken by a student’s family.

4. Encourage Students to Read Fiction

When it comes to language acquisition, fiction is the most beneficial form of input. Fiction (especially science fiction) has a wide range of vocabulary and can educate students about history, science, geography and more—and is more enjoyable than academic texts.

5. Avoid Self-Instruction Language Learning Texts

If you want to continue a heritage language education at home, or supplement your child’s bilingual study, avoid self-instruction books.  READ MORE ➤➤

Automatic Readability Checker

Based on (7) readability formulas:

Grade Level: 11

Reading Level: difficult to read.

Reader's Age: 15-17 yrs. old

(Tenth to Eleventh graders)

Helping Parents Move Beyond the Word Gap via Zero To Three

Helping Parents Move Beyond the Word Gap

Zero To Three: 10.18.2014 by Claire Lerner and Rebecca Parlakian

The “Word Gap” has come to symbolize the gulf that can separate very young children who have rich, regular opportunities for positive early experiences with language from those who do not. Science tells us that early language and literacy skills are some of the most important predictors of later success in school, and that as a group, children in families with lower socioeconomic means know far fewer words than their more privileged peers.

So how do we close the word gap? By helping parents understand that the development of early language and literacy skills starts at birth, with babies’ innate drive to communicate—to let the trusted adults in their lives know what they need, think and feel. Babies communicate from day one through sounds (crying, cooing, squealing), facial expressions (eye contact, smiling, grimacing) and actions (moving legs in excitement or distress, and later, gestures like pointing.) When the trusted adults in their lives respond to these signals, they are letting babies know they are loved and understood, which motivates them to keep on communicating. That is the foundation of what leads to strong language and literacy skills.

Developing language and literacy skills is not an academic exercise that involves saying a certain number of words to children each day. A robust body of research shows that strong language and literacy skills develop when, starting in the first days and months of life, parents and other trusted caregivers engage babies in back-and-forth communication, both verbally and non-verbally, as they play together and go through their daily routines.  READ MORE ➤➤

Automatic Readability Checker

Based on (7) readability formulas:

Grade Level: 15

Reading Level: difficult to read.

Reader's Age: College graduate

The Internet Is Changing the English Language. Is That a Good Thing? via Time

Because Internet

The Internet Is Changing the English Language. Is That a Good Thing?

Time:  7.18.2019 by Katy Steinmetz

For more than 600 years, English speakers used because as a conjunction meaning “for the reason that,” dutifully following it with a full clause of explanation (or at least the word of). Then, a few years ago, this old standby suddenly began bursting with new life, as people started using it to form terse, cheeky rationales in a manner that defied all grammatical decorum: How do you know climate change is real? “Because science.” Why are you sleepy? “Because burrito.” Academics went aflutter, debating whether because had evolved into a preposition and which types of nouns fit this newfangled construction. But there was little disagreement on the driving force behind the change.

The title of Gretchen McCulloch’s new book, Because Internet: Understanding the New Rules of Language, is a homage to this kind of linguistic metamorphosis — evolution made possible by the ascendance of the web and the unprecedented explosion of informal writing that has come with it. Her aim is to explain how the Internet has shaped language, as billions of people have become authors and found ways to type out the flirtations ( 😘) and frustrations (aklefj;awkjfdsafjka!!!) and quotidian blurghs that for centuries existed only as informal speech.

McCulloch is an Internet linguist (yes, that is a real job), and her book about Internetlanguage is, fittingly, a mash-up drawn from academic and Internet cultures. She breaks down concepts like diglossia — an instance when two varieties of a language are spoken in the same community — as she casually deploys online speak like “meatspace” (the physical world, opposite to cyberspace). In some measure, Because Internet offers a history of the web, an introduction to linguistics and a survey of the most fascinating research from her field, including a study that took advantage of geotags on social media to show how new slang words spread from place to place. READ MORE >>

Language Museums Across the World

International Flag
of Language 

Language Museums Across the World

Linguisticator: 3.25.2019

Earlier this year in March it was announced that there would be a new language museum opening in Washington DC. As reported in Quartz, Planet Word is set to open in the U.S. capital in the winter of 2019 and was conceived by Anna Friedman, a literacy and education advocate. Conscious of falling literacy levels and the fact that fewer and fewer people are subscribing to newspapers, Friedman perceived a threat to democracy and set about creating this interactive museum to change this.

The introductory blurb on the museum's website highlights that the overarching ethos of the space is defined by the fact that the strength of democracy depends ‘upon having a literate population that can understand and address today’s complex issues’. The site of the museum will also host a working language research lab where visitors will be able to take part in a range of studies, details of which can be found in the Quartz article here.

In her conversation with Lila McLellan for Quartz Friedman reveals how she considers Planet Word to be long overdue and while its specific configuration may be unique, there have been several language museums scattered across the world in the past and there are also ongoing projects that disseminate and promote language in this way, some of which you can read about below.

National Museum of Language, Maryland

Established in 2008, this museum is currently in a developmental phase and not open to the public. On their website they state that their mission is ‘to inspire an appreciation for the magic and beauty of language’ and it was in 2008 that they launched a competition for the very first International Flag of Language which you can see in the header for this post – you can read more about the contest and the meaning behind this flag here.

Canadian Language Museum, Toronto

Six years old, the Canadian Language Museum was established ‘to promote an appreciation of all of the languages spoken in Canada and of their role in the development of this nation’.

Wortreich, Germany

Opened in 2011, Wortreich was Germany’s first interactive language and communications museum.

Museum of Languages, UK (see MEITS below)

An Arts and Humanities Research Council project, Multilingualism – Empowering Individuals, Transforming Societies, announced in September 2016 that they would be creating the UK’s first ever National Museum of Languages. Initially designed as a pop-up that will appear in Belfast, Edinburgh, Cambridge and Nottingham.

Yugambeh Language and Heritage, Australia

Located in Beenleigh, this museum aims to record and promote the knowledge of South East Queensland, particularly the Yugambeh language.  READ MORE >>

Language Museums Around the World

Arts & Culture Translated: 11.15.2018

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There’s also the Dutch Museum of Languages in Leiden, a city made famous by its preponderance of ‘wall poems’. The museum is intentionally small, espousing the model of the small-scale museum as a more sustainable way of developing and maintaining a public institution.

Brazil also represents well in this area with their Museu da Língua Portuguesa in Sao Paolo. Theirs is partly a global mission, to promote exchanges between Portuguese speakers spread across the world. There’s a bit of irony here since unless you read Portuguese, the museum’s website is sadly deficient. If it weren’t for Google Translate, the interior pages, including the blog, would not be accessible to anyone but a Portuguese speaker. I guess that’s one way to promote a language!

*Finally, here at home, the MEITS project will run a pop-up Museum of Languages. Designed to promote multilingualism, it will first be appearing in Cambridge, Nottingham, Edinburgh, and Belfast in 2019. READ MORE >>

Language museums of the world

Institutions, websites, memorials

Edited by Ottar Grepsta (pdf)

Centre for Norwegian Language and Literature

Ørsta 2018

This second edition includes 80 museums of language and written culture in 31countries. There might be more, and in some cases, updated information has been hard to find.

The museums have been divided into five groups:

• 6 museums of language and languages of the world

• 33 museums of a single language or group of languages

• 15 museums of writing and written culture

• 11 museums in memory of persons

• 15 digital museums

By 2017, there were ideas, plans and initiatives for at least 18 more language museums, some of them even under construction, but six museums had been closed.

The book presents 39 websites about language systems, language in use and language rights.

Documentation is also included about 35 monuments, 23 festivals and 69 days and weeks for memory or celebration of languages.  READ MORE >>

Five Steps to Plain Language via Center for Plain Language

@plain_language 

Five Steps to Plain Language

Center for Plain Language

A communication is in plain language if its wording, structure, and design are so clear that the intended readers can easily find what they need, understand what they find, and use that information.

Our five-step checklist will guide you through the plain language process and help you develop content that’s right for your organization.

Step 1. Identify and describe the target audience.

Define the target groups that will use the document or website

Step 2: Structure the content to guide the reader through it

Organize the content so that it flows logically

Step 3: Write the content in plain language

Keep it short and to the point

Step 4: Use information design to help readers see and understand

The design works when users notice and use the signposts to move through the information efficiently.   

Step 5: Work with the target user groups to test the design and content

Test the design at multiple points

The document or site works when target users can find what they need, understand what they find, and act on it confidently.  READ MORE >>

Top Trending Words and Phrases of 2016: Bigly, Brexit & Non-binary

Top Trending Words and Phrases of 2016: Bigly, Brexit & Non-binary

Global Language Monitor: 7.15-17.2016

Bigly, Brexit, and ‘Non-binary’ lead the Top Trending Words and Phrases of 2016 thus far, followed by the Prince Symbol, Zika, Gun Violence / Gun Culture, Safe Place, Heroin and fentanyl according to the current word trends in global English being tracked by the Global Language Monitor, the big data, trend tracking consultancy.

This is preliminary to GLM’s fourteenth annual Word of the Year (#WOTY) rankings that will be released on November 16, 2016.

“By the sixteenth year of the 20th century, the world was already awash in the trends that would influence the rest of the century, reaching all the way into the early 21st century.” said Paul JJ Payack, chief word analyst, the Global Language Monitor. “The twenty-first century trends that accompany these words might similarly portend far greater events than they represent today..”

Rank, Word, Commentary  READ MORE @