http://cache.jezebel.com/assets/base/img/thumbs140x140/jezebel.com.png http://jezebel.com/tag/language http://jezebel.com/tag/language

Here's some research that should make Olds feel vindicated: texting a lot apparently makes people less accepting of words they've never heard before. Which is weird because texting is basically a process of sending things that aren't words to people. More »
]]> http://jezebel.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5886091&view=rss&microfeed=true

Bad news for all you people who think your babies don't have a clue what you're saying: A new study has found that infants as young as six months can understand words being spoken to them. Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania conducted two picture tests with infants, using images of food and body parts. In each, they had the caregiver ask the infant where a given object was. They found, in both versions of the test, that the the six- to nine-month-old babies fixed their eyes more on the picture of whatever object was being named than on other objects, suggesting they understood the word being said to them. The babies held similar levels of comprehension up until about 14 months, when their understanding of language increased dramatically. No word on whether these tiny innocent babes can wrap their minds around more complicated concepts like "what the fucking fuck" — so you might still be safe on that kind of stuff until the one-year mark. More »
]]> http://jezebel.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5885266&view=rss&microfeed=true

Last month, a Wisconsin 7th grader was suspended from the basketball team for speaking in her family's native language. Her words: "I love you." More »
]]> http://jezebel.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5882953&view=rss&microfeed=true

Tonight's episode of Modern Family promises to make bowties twirl on the necks of their scandalized viewers when a pint-sized character drops the F bomb. One group is so offended by little Lily's linguistic lapse that they're spearheading a grassroots effort to prevent the episode from airing. Who are these bastions of righteousness? They're called The No Cussing Club, and they're here to show you poopheaded pottymouths what fun a bleep-free existence can be. Fuck that. More »
]]> http://jezebel.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5877235&view=rss&microfeed=true

The Supreme Court's about to hear a case that will determine whether or not network TV and broadcast radio can finally be freed from the shackles of decency requirements. Thanks in part to expletives uttered by the likes of Cher and Nicole Richie, networks may soon be held to the more lax standards of their cable brethren. Who knew that The Simple Life had such noble intentions for the First Amendment? More »
]]> http://jezebel.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5873737&view=rss&microfeed=true

Another year is drawing to a close, and that means it's time for Lake Superior State University's annual List of Words Banished from the Queen's English for Misuse, Overuse and General Uselessness. After tens of thousands of nominations were submitted, LSSU narrowed it down to the twelve words and phrases which most offended our ears in 2011, and now it's time to delete these terrible things from our vocabularies for good: More »
]]> http://jezebel.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5872046&view=rss&microfeed=true

Dis just published a story with some of the online art/fashion magazine's favorite new faces of the season. Many of them — including Wang Xiao, pictured, Flaviana Matata, Marihenny Rivera Pasible, and Cris Urena — happen to be some of my favorite new models, too. But what's even more striking than the photos is that Dis chose to highlight the fact that these girls come from so many different corners of the world. Modeling-meets-Model-UN. Casting director Preston Chaunsumlit asked each girl a couple questions: More »
]]> http://jezebel.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5848364&view=rss&microfeed=true

You can toss that mix tape you were hanging on to for sentimental purposes because the folks behind the Oxford English Dictionary have decided no one even needs to know what a "cassette tape" is anymore. The term is being removed to make way for new additions like "sexting," "retweet" and "mankini." That's a fabulous idea, because parents never confuse their teen by rambling on about cassettes, but references to a bathing suit introduced in Borat and never worn seriously by a single person come up all the time. More »
]]> http://jezebel.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5847061&view=rss&microfeed=true

A young cousin of mine was fairly sheltered as a small child. His parents didn't let him watch violent movies or play with gunlike toys, and aggressive behavior wasn't tolerated. To work around this, when he became very upset, he'd mimic a gesture he'd learned from Buzz Lightyear in Toy Story wherein he'd bend his wrist downward, point his forearm at whoever or whatever had offended him, and firmly press his opposite index finger to a patch of flesh about 6 inches past his hand, as though he were shooting a wrist laser. Once his mother realized what the gesture meant, she told him that trying to shoot people to death with imaginary lasers was not a nice thing to do. It was his little toddler Fuck You. More »
]]> http://jezebel.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5841519&view=rss&microfeed=true

Okay, so "January Jones Birthed Her Bastard" is not the most sensitive headline in the world. But the headline is, dare we say it, on to something — in a world where out-of-wedlock births are increasingly common, there's no term for a child born to unmarried parents that doesn't sound totally weird. More »
]]> http://jezebel.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5840790&view=rss&microfeed=true

Remember when "random" became a catchall term, meaning anything from "silly" to "upsetting?" Well, now it's being unseated — by "awkward." More »
]]> http://jezebel.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5838699&view=rss&microfeed=true

Now look what we've gone and done. This is why we can't have nice things: The Oxford Dictionary has just inducted a slew of new words into their holy pages, and out of the 400 hundred new additions, a handful of them were in sound smack-my-head territory. More »
]]> http://jezebel.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5832221&view=rss&microfeed=true

Watch out, kids: the conservative group Parents Television Council has found out that your favorite cartoons contain jokes about sex, and they're out to ruin your fun. More »
]]> http://jezebel.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5831710&view=rss&microfeed=true

Lately, the Internet has been buzzing about the American Sign Language for "abortion," which is apparently either a cradled baby being thrown away or a uterine scraping, depending on your source. But that's not the end of the ASL fun times. More »
]]> http://jezebel.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5829986&view=rss&microfeed=true British people are really mad about "Americanisms" entering the Queen's English. Some of the most hated make sense — nobody likes "It is what it is." But Brits apparently also hate "train station," "burglarize," and "gotten." And here's one Chris Fackrell's peeve: More »
]]> http://jezebel.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5823071&view=rss&microfeed=true Kate Swift, whose books Words and Women and The Handbook of Nonsexist Writing how using only masculine pronouns and other words excludes and devalues women, has died of stomach cancer at the age of 87. Thanks to her, many publications have stopped using gendered terminology like "fireman" and "stewardess." More »
]]> http://jezebel.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5800396&view=rss&microfeed=true

Next month Professor Alan Gribben and NewSouth Books will release an edition of Huckleberry Finn that replaces the "n" word with "slave." Gribben says "textual purists will be horrified," but the slur is preventing schools from teaching a classic. More »
]]> http://jezebel.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5724550&view=rss&microfeed=true

Fox News' Megyn Kelly is pretty peeved at the efforts to get journalists to stop using "illegal immigrants," saying, "What if there was a push...to re-brand the use of the word rapist to nonconsensual sex partner?" More »
]]> http://jezebel.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5721297&view=rss&microfeed=true

During a recent interview, MTV's Josh Horowitz taught the British actors Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint, and Tom Felton how to pronounce some traditional American phrases like "Olive Garden," "boo-yah," and "Can I get an order of mozarella sticks?" More »
]]> http://jezebel.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5692605&view=rss&microfeed=true

According to the annual Global Language Monitor survey, the top words of 2010 include "spillcam," "vuvuzela," "great recession," and "refudiate," which was coined by Sarah Palin. The silver lining: We've stopped panicking about last year's popular phrase, "flu virus H1N1." More »
]]> http://jezebel.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5690644&view=rss&microfeed=true

"BP Spillcam" was the most-used word of the 2009-2010 TV season, according to the Global Language Monitor. "Dysfunctional," came in second due to the success of Modern Family, followed by the Jersey Shore kids' favorite phrase: "Guido." More »
]]> http://jezebel.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5634022&view=rss&microfeed=true

While reading the comments on yesterday's Crap Craigslist From A Dude post, I noticed that one sentiment popped up over and over again: our readers really hate it when men refer to women as "females." More »
]]> http://jezebel.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5613279&view=rss&microfeed=true

Oh and Cis, Transgender and Transman — these are just some of the words that have cropped up to define the complexities of gender identification. But even with so many options, we still don't have a definitive vocabulary for transitioning. More »
]]> http://jezebel.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5576454&view=rss&microfeed=true

Four adults dressed in bee costumes appeared yesterday outside the Grand Hyatt where the Scripps National Spelling Bee is being held. They were, oddly enough, there to protest words. More »
]]> http://jezebel.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5555586&view=rss&microfeed=true

The book world's latest teen plagiarist is German author/playwright/screenwriter Helene Hegemann, whose lifting of work by other authors is apparently just what kids are doing these days. More »
]]> http://jezebel.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5470646&view=rss&microfeed=true

•  Lindsey Vonn appears on the cover of Sports Illustrated in a pose that some say represents all that is wrong with the media coverage of female athletes. Women Talk Sports says: More »
]]> http://jezebel.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5465244&view=rss&microfeed=true

A new study says couples who refer to themselves as "we" a lot, as opposed to "I" or "me," have stronger marriages. This is probably because no one else can fucking stand them. [EurekAlert] More »
]]> http://jezebel.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5458828&view=rss&microfeed=true

• Last Friday afternoon, a woman taking an adult education class at the Met lost her balance and fell onto a Picasso painting. "The Actor," a painting from Picasso's Roe Period, suffered a six-inch tear in its lower right-hand corner. More »
]]> http://jezebel.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5456397&view=rss&microfeed=true

"[In France], referring to myself as madame immediately commands more respect, especially at work and even more so when I introduce myself on the phone...People take me seriously, which isn't always the case when I use mademoiselle." [TheFWord] More »
]]> http://jezebel.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5456568&view=rss&microfeed=true

Wall Street Journal writer Mark Helprin says those "strange pinheads," Tarek and Michaele Salahi, deserve their own verb. He also lists some other famous people whose names have entered the common lexicon — but we can think of more. More »
]]> http://jezebel.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5429603&view=rss&microfeed=true

Yesterday, reports started circulating that New York Senator Chuck Schumer called a flight attendant a 'bitch' - now, Republicans are trying to make an issue out of it. One question: does anyone even care about the word "bitch" anymore? More »
]]> http://jezebel.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5428773&view=rss&microfeed=true

A few months ago, I came home to find my dog rolling around in a pile of garbage, celebrating his destruction with the dance moves of Templeton from Charlotte's Web. The first words out of my mouth were "For Cripessake!" More »
]]> http://jezebel.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5419784&view=rss&microfeed=true

Do different languages evoke different emotions? That's the question posed by Times blogger Olivia Judson, inspired by research that shows just making a certain vowel sound can affect your mood. More »
]]> http://jezebel.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5391897&view=rss&microfeed=true

Is dude the most versatile word in the English language? Esquire thinks so, and to prove it, Erik Price collected YouTube clips of situations that require a well-placed dude. We still like fuck better. [Esquire] More »
]]> http://jezebel.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5339732&view=rss&microfeed=true

"The main syntactic problem is to determine whether the fuck is being used as an pleonastic (semantically empty) direct object of shut or as a pre-head modifier of the preposition phrase (PP) headed by up." [Utne] More »
]]> http://jezebel.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5327326&view=rss&microfeed=true

"I'm VERY tired of reading the word VERY," my fourth grade teacher would say, "To the word graveyard!" And with that, she'd bury another word in the tiny graveyard at the back of our classroom. More »
]]> http://jezebel.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5318059&view=rss&microfeed=true

When I was a freshman in high school, I decided to break myself of cursing. My strategy: for every bad word I said during the day, I would have to write a sentence in my journal at night. More »
]]> http://jezebel.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5310982&view=rss&microfeed=true

"[W]hat is needed is a more comprehensive term which does homage to the sex without expressing any views as to their domestic situation" — a 1901 newspaper article, earliest known source of the word "Ms." [Visual Thesaurus] More »
]]> http://jezebel.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5302045&view=rss&microfeed=true

Although Edward Bulwer-Lytton coined "The pen is mightier than the sword" in 1839, the idea that language has more power to compel human action has been around at least as early as the Bible was written: the book Scott Roeder probably believes gave him the right to murder George Tiller. More »
]]> http://jezebel.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5273980&view=rss&microfeed=true

After watching NBC bleep out the words "tits" and "fuck" during a recent broadcast of their new drama, "Southland," the folks at AdAge wonder if bleeping out profanities on network television shows is really necessary. More »
]]> http://jezebel.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5218889&view=rss&microfeed=true