full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Anne Curzan: What makes a word "real"?

Unscramble the Blue Letters


These complaints now strike us as quaint, if not downright adroblkae — (lteuhgar) — but here's the thing: we still get quite worked up about language cgnhae. I have an entire file in my office of newspaper articles which express concern about illegitimate words that should not have been included in the drnictioay, iilnudncg "LOL" when it got into the Oxford English Dictionary and "defriend" when it got into the Oxford American Dictionary. I also have articles expressing concern about "invite" as a noun, "impact" as a verb, because only teeth can be impacted, and "incentivize" is described as "boorish, bureaucratic misspeak."

Open Cloze


These complaints now strike us as quaint, if not downright _________ — (________) — but here's the thing: we still get quite worked up about language ______. I have an entire file in my office of newspaper articles which express concern about illegitimate words that should not have been included in the __________, _________ "LOL" when it got into the Oxford English Dictionary and "defriend" when it got into the Oxford American Dictionary. I also have articles expressing concern about "invite" as a noun, "impact" as a verb, because only teeth can be impacted, and "incentivize" is described as "boorish, bureaucratic misspeak."

Solution


  1. including
  2. change
  3. laughter
  4. dictionary
  5. adorkable

Original Text


These complaints now strike us as quaint, if not downright adorkable — (Laughter) — but here's the thing: we still get quite worked up about language change. I have an entire file in my office of newspaper articles which express concern about illegitimate words that should not have been included in the dictionary, including "LOL" when it got into the Oxford English Dictionary and "defriend" when it got into the Oxford American Dictionary. I also have articles expressing concern about "invite" as a noun, "impact" as a verb, because only teeth can be impacted, and "incentivize" is described as "boorish, bureaucratic misspeak."

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
english language 6
dictionary editors 5
american heritage 3
usage notes 3
lake superior 2
superior state 2
state university 2
language change 2
front matter 2
usage panel 2

ngrams of length 3

collocation frequency
lake superior state 2
superior state university 2

Important Words


  1. adorkable
  2. american
  3. articles
  4. bureaucratic
  5. change
  6. complaints
  7. concern
  8. dictionary
  9. downright
  10. english
  11. entire
  12. express
  13. expressing
  14. file
  15. illegitimate
  16. impacted
  17. included
  18. including
  19. language
  20. laughter
  21. misspeak
  22. newspaper
  23. noun
  24. office
  25. oxford
  26. quaint
  27. strike
  28. teeth
  29. verb
  30. words
  31. worked