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What's your word of the year for 2013?

The WOTYfever is starting again. Are we ready for the new Word Of The Year competition? I'm afraid that the Word Of The Year 2013 will be "Twerk" but I definitely prefer "Selfie".

Update - 11 November 2013: Fail, deficit, deadlock, stalemate - 2013’s most used words on the web.

The Global Language Monitor claims ‘404’ - internet code for an online error - as the top word, ‘toxic politics’ the top phrase and Pope Francis the top name in its annual global survey of the English language.

The rankings are based on how many times words, phrases and names were used online throughout the 1.8bn people in the English-speaking world across the last 12 months.

To qualify, the words must have been used at least 25.000 times across all types of media.

19 November 2013 - And the Oxford Dictionaries Word of the Year for 2013 is ‘selfie'! So, when I wrote this post my gut feeling gave me the right response! I'm a good Word detective..

4 December 2013: Merriam-Webster jus…

The Laziest Language on Earth

That awkward moment... :)

Infographic on neologisms

The process in which a new word becomes part of the accepted vocabulary of a community is known as institutionalisation. The reason why neologisms have become embedded in every-day vocabulary so quickly is because they swiftly pass through all the stages of this process. First, they are used more and more frequently as they are spread via social media and various applications. Second, their meaning does not need a lot of definition since the pictures or applications are usually self-explanatory. Ultimately these words start appearing in various forms within common texts.

I edited this quick-and-dirty infographic (using “Paint”) to provide an easy to understand explanation of how neologisms are created. I hope you enjoy it! A better quality is available on Pinterest.


Infographic on neologims.TIF

Terminology loves U(X)

So you just realised that in the same website you found "Login"and "Log in".  Do you hesitate (like me) when choosing between Sign In and Sign Up?

The same button was labeled “Submit” in a page and “Save” in another?  Did you find “New” and  “Create” when uploading new content to your blog?
If “module”, “plugin” or “extension” are used to refer to one same concept, they might raise terminology inconsistencies in UX (User Experience).

Keep It Short and Sweet

The website has to speak the same language as its audience. Technical people tend to think terms like “stack overflow” and “fatal exception” make perfect sense. There should be more attention on how users think about what those buttons and words mean to them.
How to avoid terminology inconsistencies in websites? Dear developer, put yourself in the shoes of the person who is accessing the website. You have to be able to use a terminology that can be undestood by the users.Check always that your website adopts the techn…

Approximeeting

 Arranging a rough time or place to meet, then sorting out details on the fly via mobile phone.




Source: 
Viewpoint: Why do tech neologisms make people angry?

The Cupertino Effect

What happens when a computer automatically "corrects" your spelling into something wrong or incomprehensible.

It's a sort of older cousin of the "Damn You, Autocorrect" error that infects even professionally edited text. 

Everybody experiences that stomach-dropping moment when you realise what you sent
wasn’t what you intended to send, and there are no takebacks. It was named by workers for the European Union who noticed that the word "cooperation" often showed up in finished documents as "Cupertino," the name of the California city in which Apple has its headquarters. 

Sources: Viewpoint: Why do tech neologisms make people angry?The Cupertino Effect: 11 Spell Check Errors that Made it to Press

Microsoft Language Portal

Microsoft Language Portal: a bi-lingual search portal for finding translations of key Microsoft terms and general IT terminology. It is aimed at international users and partners that need to know our terminology for globalization, localization, authoring and general discovery. 
It contains approx. 25,000 defined terms, including English definitions, translated in up to 100 languages as well as the software translations for products like Windows, Office, SQL Server and many more.

Terminology Forum

Terminology Forum is a global non-profit information forum for freely available terminological information online. 

The Forum was established in 1994 and is maintained by Anita Nuopponen with the help of her students at the Dept. of Communication Studies, University of Vaasa, Finland.

You will find here information on terminological activities including terminology work, research and education, on online glossaries and termbanks from different fields as well as general language dictionaries in various languages.


Dante: Database of Analysed Texts of English

Dante is a lexical database which describes the core vocabulary of English. 

It was created for lexicographers and computational linguists who are developing dictionaries and computer lexicons, either manually, with computer assistance, or automatically. The database medium is British English, but the corpus is not, and particular attention has been paid to ensuring equal coverage of American English orthography and usage.

DANTE is not a dictionary. It is much more than this. 

Dante: Database of Analysed Texts of English




TermCoord Glossary Links: FAB tool for translators

Listed among the FAB Four tools for translators by @Jeromobot in the Tool Box Newsletter (March 24 25, 2013 - Edition 220), Glossary Links has been warmly welcomed by the community of translators.

Glossary Links contains 1400 different glossaries with a category, language, and keyword search (the keyword search looks only for words in the title of the glossary).

Glossary Links, provided by @Temcoordis available under the section Terminology Toolbox.









CategoryAny categoryAgriculture, Fisheries, Forestry, Reg. Devel.Arts, CultureConsumer Protection, Food SafetyEconomy, Finance, Monetary and Budg. AffairsEducation, TrainingEmployment, Social AffairsEnergyEnvironment EU terminologyForeign Affairs, Politics, DevelopmentGlossary collections, TermbanksHealth, MedicineHuman Rights, Justice, EqualityIndustryIT, Communication, Media, AdvertisingLegal Affairs, InsuranceLinguistics, TranslationOtherReligionResearch, Science, TechnologySecurity, DefenceSportsTradeTransport, TourismKeywordEnter sea…

Corpus of Web-Based Global English

The Corpus of Global Web-Based English (GloWbE) is composed of 1.9 billion words from 1.8 million web pages in 20 different English-speaking countries. The corpus was created by Mark Davies of Brigham Young University, and it was released in April 2013.

GloWbE (pronounced like "globe") is related to other large corpora that we have created, including the 450 million word Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA) and the 400 million word Corpus of Historical American English (COHA). Together, these three corpora allow researchers to examine variation in English -- by dialect, genre, and over time -- in ways that are not possible with any other large corpora of English.


Read more

Corpus of Web-Based Global English:

'via Blog this'


Example of usage:
“Our Land – phraseology used by violent jihadists” a corpus linguistic approach.

TERMDAT

TERMDAT is an extensive multilingual specialist dictionary, providing a versatile aid for communication, text composition and translation. 

The database is also a means for recording and making available Swiss legal and administrative terminology along with other terminology from the public sector. Terms are available in Switzerland’s four national languages – German, French, Italian and Romansh – and in English.




Source:

TERMDAT

'via Blog this'

ECHA-term: Multilingual Chemical Terminology

ECHA-term is a multilingual chemical terminology database providing the main chemicals terms in 22 EU languages, including pictograms, hazard and precautionary statements.

ECHA-term has been developed by the European Chemical Agency (ECHA) and the Translation Centre for the Bodies of the EU (CdT) (and Intrasoft, my company).

The European Chemical Agency launched a terminology project in 2009 to improve the quality of the translations of its documents and to provide companies with a multilingual terminology tool to facilitate communication in the supply chain.


Go to: ECHA-term

Orthorexia

Orthorexia is a relatively new term for a disorder where a person becomes obsessed with the “perfect diet” and the cleanliness of food, eating on a highly regulated regime.

Source: http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/03/24/orthorexia-taking-healthy-eating-to-whole-new-level/#ixzz2OpBL5a9w

My interview with Erin McKean

I had the pleasure to interview for TermCoord my favourite lexistar Erin McKean.

I have her quote on my blog, I’m enjoying Wordnik since its creation (when it had the colourful bricks falling down from the top of the home page), loved her TEDVideo and enjoying her articles and tweets! I Iike her enthusiasm and love for words and her disruptive approach to lexicography. I dare to say that her answers represent a break from traditional lexicography by destroying the two milestones of lexicography: the definition and the authority of the dictionary.
The end of definition: Erin says “I think a good definition is like a good poem: beautiful and worthwhile in itself.”  We don’t need definitions anymore, they can even limit our understanding of the word: “when you limit your knowledge of a word to just the definition, you limit your understanding as well”. They were suitable for paper dictionaries, where the available space was limited: “Definitions are still helpful when space is limited”. In…

QwickUp

QwickUp provides access to your favorite online lookup services (dictionary, etc.) in one place by one or two clicks of mouse.
Simply select some text in a web page and click on QwickUp icon to open results in a popup or new tab. You can visit QwickUp.com to customize your lookups and optionally sign in to save your customization in you account and load them elsewhere.

The Dictionary is fidgetal

Most people today get their reference information via their computer, tablet, or phone and the message is clear: the future of the dictionary is digital.

Macmillan Dictionaries announced last Monday (5th of November 2012) it will no longer appear as physical books and from next year it will be available only online.
According to its Editor-in-Chief Michael Rundell, this transition can only be a positive one: the internet is the ideal medium.  “The traditional book format is very limiting for any kind of reference work. Books are out of date as soon as they're printed, and the space constraints they impose often compromise our goals of clarity and completeness. There is so much more we can do for our users in digital media.”

Macmillan Dictionary Online provides an English dictionary and thesaurus, as well as a popular blog about topical issues, a weekly 'Buzzword' column on newly-emerging words, and the crowd-sourced 'Open Dictionary'. Macmillan Dictionary Online als…

Here's a quick way to understand business jargon

If you are a person who cares about language and who possesses an adequate sense of humor, this website is for you.
"Unsuck It" is a place to explore the ways in which “professional” communication in English goes wrong and replaces any jargon and buzzword with simple language.


This website tries to tackle, in a funny way, the process that makes the English language sometimes ugly and inaccurate, other than difficult to understand. 
A man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks. It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language. It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts. The point is that the process is reversible. Modern English, especially written English, is full of bad habits which spread by imitation and which can be avoided if one is willing to take the necessary troubl…

Stay ..simply!