{"id":3546,"date":"2002-10-29T13:11:54","date_gmt":"2002-10-29T18:11:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/?p=3546"},"modified":"2002-10-29T13:11:54","modified_gmt":"2002-10-29T18:11:54","slug":"words_mean_thin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2002\/10\/29\/words_mean_thin.html","title":{"rendered":"Words mean things"},"content":{"rendered":"

Very cool ongoing US English Dialect Survey<\/a> going on. Register and let folks know how pronouciations and idioms vary around the country.<\/p>\n

I found two things fascinating:<\/p>\n

1. I realize that I pronounce some thing differently now than I did when I was growing up.<\/p>\n

2. There’s an amazing array of idioms for some common things. E.g.,<\/p>\n

74. What do you call the little gray creature (that looks like an insect but is actually a crustacean) that rolls up into a ball when you touch it?
\na) pill bug
\nb) doodle bug
\nc) potato bug
\nd) roly poly
\ne) sow bug
\nf) basketball bug
\ng) twiddle bug
\nh) roll-up bug
\ni) wood louse
\nj) millipede
\nk) centipede
\nl) I know what this creature is, but have no word for it
\nm) I have no idea what this creature is
\nn) other:<\/p>\n

I grew up using (e) (and having an odd mental conflation with soy sauce), but I hear (a) a lot, too, and some of the others — and it isn’t always clear with words of this sort when other folks do have different names for them. I mean, how often do you discuss sow bugs with your friends, fergoshsakes.<\/p>\n

(One place where you do run across these sorts of differences is, of all place, children’s books — which makes sense, I guess, since they often are describing the world around them to new eyes.)<\/p>\n

Cool stuff. And there’s maps for each question’s answers, too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Very cool ongoing US English Dialect Survey going on. Register and let folks know how pronouciations and idioms vary around the country. I found two things fascinating: 1. I realize…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3546","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-science"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":132004,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2016\/11\/11\/bug-hunt.html","url_meta":{"origin":3546,"position":0},"title":"Bug Hunt","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 11-Nov-16 3:36am","format":false,"excerpt":"Jim Wright gives one of the better post mortems \/ look forwards from the election this week. All to the tune of Aliens. It's simultaneous realistic and pessimistic and unforgiving, and well worth a read. Bug Hunt Private Hudson: Oh dear Lord Jesus, this ain't happening, man! This can't be\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":41463,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/03\/19\/people-singing-off-key-bug-me.html","url_meta":{"origin":3546,"position":1},"title":"People singing off-key bug me….","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 19-Mar-14 1:36pm","format":false,"excerpt":"People singing off-key bug me. People singing off-key to their headphone music *really* bug me.","rel":"","context":"In "~Tweets"","block_context":{"text":"~Tweets","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/tweets"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":41682,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/04\/11\/how-the-heartbleed-bug-works.html","url_meta":{"origin":3546,"position":2},"title":"How the Heartbleed Bug works","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 11-Apr-14 10:52am","format":false,"excerpt":"Which looks silly, but when you get into low-level instructions like this, specifying the length of the answer you want back can speed up processing. Or, when implement poorly, have unintended consequences.Reshared post from +Tony SidawayHeartbleed in pictures.This is the most accessible explanation yet, from xkcd.http:\/\/m.xkcd.com\/1354\/\ufeff#Heartbleed #xkcd #security\ufeff View this\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/2014%2B-%2B1.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":45699,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/10\/08\/the-gambling-bug.html","url_meta":{"origin":3546,"position":3},"title":"The Gambling Bug","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 8-Oct-14 10:02am","format":false,"excerpt":"Yeah, talk about a life-destroying addiction. The numbers the protagonists here were dropping in casinos are staggering.That said, I'm glad they beat the charges. Considering finding a bug in the software you can exploit from the interface provided to be fraud and theft is ludicrous. God knows I don't get\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":31450,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/11\/21\/ward-cleaver-eldridge-cleaver-whats-the-difference.html","url_meta":{"origin":3546,"position":4},"title":"Ward Cleaver … Eldridge Cleaver … what's the difference?","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 21-Nov-12 8:56am","format":false,"excerpt":"Tom the Dancing Bug, via BoingBoing (http:\/\/boingboing.net\/2012\/11\/21\/tom-the-dancing-bug-bill-o.html)Tom the Dancing Bug 1114 o'reilly's leave it to beaverGoogle+: Reshared 1 times Google+: View post on Google+","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":41651,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/04\/09\/so-its-time-to-reset-your-password-but-maybe-not-yet.html","url_meta":{"origin":3546,"position":5},"title":"So it's time to reset your password … but maybe not yet","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 9-Apr-14 3:46pm","format":false,"excerpt":"The Heartbeat bug seems be making a password reset on important websites pretty necessary ... but until the site you're going to actually updates its security, there's not much point in doing so.So stand by for email notifications from your Internet vendors if you need to do something. 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