polyglot conspiracy

This is kind of an oldish story already, but I’m too lazy to wade through blog entries from Thanksgiving break to see who wrote about what, so here you go. Chile’s Mapuche Indians are suing Microsoft for translating its Windows software into Mapuzugan, the local language spoken by about 400,000 people (this language isn’t listed inEthnologue; I assume that what Ethnologue calls Mapudungun is the same or related - it is listed as spoken by Mapuches - but in that case, Ethnologue estimates its speaker base to be even smaller, FYI).

At the launch [of Windows] in the southern town of Los Sauces, Microsoft said it wanted to help Mapuches embrace the digital age and “open a window so that the rest of the world can access the cultural riches of this indigenous people.” But Mapuche tribal leaders have accused the U.S. company of violating their cultural and collective heritage by translating the software into Mapuzugun without their permission.

They even sent a letter to Microsoft founder Bill Gates accusing his company of “intellectual piracy.”

“We feel like Microsoft and the Chilean Education Ministry have overlooked us by deciding to set up a committee (to study the issue) without our consent, our participation and without the slightest consultation,” said Aucan Huilcaman, one of the Mapuche leaders behind the legal action. “This is not the right road to go down.”

The article (from CNN) frames the issue in terms of who “owns” a language, and such a debate is not new. There are lots of examples in the endangered languages literature of indigenous language groups who don’t want literacy introduced in their communities, who don’t want online language courses or external dissemination of written linguistic materials. But it’s hard to argue that anyone has “intellectual property” rights to a language, even if it is their community’s language - it’s not something anyone created, its use by those who use it is largely a matter of coincidence, it is neither an object nor idea, etc. Nonetheless, I sympathize with the local community’s surprise and/or outrage: did anyone (any non-missionaries or non-linguists or non-activists, I mean) care about Mapuzugun before they wanted to introduce its speakers to Windows? And is there really any reason that someone would want to introduce Windows to the Mapuche other than because they want the Mapuche to buy things from them and participate in a globalized economy that will probably further erode whatever community traditions they have that are already being eroded? (note: I know nothing in specific about the Mapuche, but this is an argument that often gets made regarding indigenous languages/communities.)

On the other hand, the claim below seems misguided:

“If they rule against us we will go to the Supreme Court and if they rule against us there we will take our case to a court of human rights,” said Lautaro Loncon, a Mapuche activist and coordinator of the Indigenous Network, an umbrella group for several ethnic groups in Chile.

Huilcaman said the Chilean government, which supported Microsoft’s project, should concentrate on making Mapuzugun an official state language, alongside Spanish.

“If not, we fear it runs the risk of following the same destiny as Latin, spoken only in universities,” he said.

At first this seems ridiculous: of course if the tribe has computer access in its own language, that’s going to help that language survive in daily use. However, when you consider that most information online (the article doesn’t mention internet access, but I assume it’s implicit somewhere) is still in English, or on the Chilean interwebs in Spanish, it’s more of a threat: the more access people have to these other resources that are offered in more dominant languages, actually the less motivation to keep the local language alive. Whether making it official or not would actually make a difference is pretty sketchy, but the point isn’t nonsense.

Also, the article doesn’t mention specifically WHAT the motivations are for the community’s upset, other than that the language is THEIRS, which is probably something of a mischaracterization of their feeling. I found another article that gives more quotes from the Mapuche leader:

“We sent a letter to Bill Gates expressing our concern about this situation since we believe it is an act of intellectual piracy. We are the natural heirs of the Mapuche language and it is up to us to decide what we do with it. The Chilean government and Microsoft did not ask for our opinion on how to implement the Windows version, they just went ahead and did it,” said Huilcaman.

The elders of the Mapuche Nation carried out a ceremony called “Kimkeche Nutramkan” (gathering of Wise Men and Custodians of the Mapuche Culture) after which they agreed on sending the letter to Bill Gates that included the following paragraphs:

“Mapundungun is a fundamental part of our culture and it is our right as an indigenous nation to preserve and develop our cultural heritage… Your decision to implement Windows in Mapundungun may be a good contribution to its technical-linguistic development, but the way it has been done has shown a total disrespect and lack of consultation with the Mapuche Nation.”

…”I am not against Internet, I am only defending our Nation’s rights and culture. It is the speakers of Mapundungun that should decide whether our language is used in the Web or not,” said Huilcaman.

These claims are easier to empathize with than just “We own our language and you stole it” or something like that. Microsoft likely knows nothing about what language or Mapuzugun means internally to the community and its culture, and this is what’s at stake - and that isn’t expressed by a simplistic, objectifying characterization of “ownership.”

Am hanging out in NYC for the holiday break; I hope your Thanksgiving was as great as mine (as great as one can be spent with a surrogate family! which is pretty great, actually!). I’ve noticed a couple of funny things while here.

One, I’ve been looking at too much phonetic transcription. On the subway I saw a flyer for some company (? blog? website?) that involved the words Sk8ter Boy* Antikz, and I totally thought it meant antiques, like it was a punk rock antique store, rather than antics. Um…also I’m realizing how prevalent it is to typographically use the plural -z for fashion, even when you’d never actually produce a voiced fricative there because it’s following a voiceless plosive.

Two, I saw Happy Feet last night, which is not really happy in the end (that’s a pseudo-spoiler), and also is heavily reliant on racial stereotypes as relayed through voice quality/dialect. The main character, Mumbles, voiced by Elijah Wood, sounds typically midwestern American (=white), as do most of his penguin colony. They are sort of milquetoast penguins, they are very straightlaced and rigid about their one penguin, one heartsong (um, see the movie and you’ll understand?) rule. This is made very clear by the vaguely Scottish-sounding, uppity-voiced old patriarch of the colony, one of his advisors who speaks in something like Shakespearean verse, and the Eastern European singing coach who is very stern and strict. On the other hand, the crazy, freewheelin’, “we like to party” penguin colony Mumbles encounters, represented by a Robin Williams-voiced Ramon, is made up of Hispanic and African-American voices, including the fortunetelling Lovelace, who speaks in sermonic tone. Because these penguins are penguins (duh), the dialects are really salient here and index precisely the stereotypical personalities that the different penguin characters are supposed to possess. I *could* go deeper into something about semiotic processes and iconicity here, but I’ll spare you - I’m on vacation, after all.

In sum, if anyone else has seen the movie, I’d be interested to hear thoughts on this matter. I mean, this is not new for cartoons to do (the uproar [!] over the hyenas in The Lion King comes to mind), but I was actually a little uncomfortable at times watching this film. Thank goodness the tap dancing was there to distract me (and great tap dancing it is!). Speaking of tapping, I’m off to do some! I heart NY.

*could’ve been boi

The following exchange took place the other night at a party, which I think you may find amusing.

Characters: Me, Peter, Tom (made-up name), Filler Guy

Scene: Party.

Prior relevant happenings: Establishment that Tom is from Canada and is here visiting Filler Guy; wine.

Peter: Haha, Tom’s from Canada. Ask him to say ‘eh’.
Tom: Eh, eh, eh. I know it’s so funny.
Filler Guy: Haha, eh.
Peter: You should ask him to say other funny things.
Me: Why?
Peter: Because he’s Canadian and they say things funny. Eh!
Me: Oh, well, I think that’s kind of mean.
Peter: No no, it’s funny. I’ll say funny things too, if you want.
Me: Well, the Canadian vowels ARE pretty interesting.
Peter: Yeah, go ask him to say something! Oot and aboot!
Tom: Yeah yeah, making fun of Canadians, eh?
Me: Where’s he from?
Peter: Toronto.
Me: Oh I love Toronto.
Peter: Yeah, I just met him in [can't remember where] and now we’re doing a crazy road trip.

…conversation turns to the road trip for a while…then back to Tom’s Canadian accent…

Peter: “Eh.” “Hooss, oot, aboot.” God it’s funny.
Me: I guess that is kind of funny.
Peter: Aboot! Oot and aboot! It’s hilarious!
Me: So where are YOU from?
Peter: Canada.
Me: WHAT?
Peter: Yeah, that’s why it’s so funny.
Me: What, you’re Canadian too?! But you’re just laughing at this guy?
Peter: Well of course, it’s so funny how people here think we always say “eh” all the time.
Me: I guess.
Peter: Come on, what would you like to hear me say. What can I say for you? I’ll be your monkey. You get three chances.
Me: Um…I had no idea you were actually Canadian.
Peter: Come on, you know you want to, what can I say for you?
Me: Well, nothing is coming to me right off the bat, I had some Canadian friends once who said interesting things, but what were they…um…let me try to elicit something…what is the name of the rangers you have up there?
Peter: Mounties!
Me: Oh. Your vowel isn’t really what I expected it to be there.
Peter: Ooh? What aboot “aboot”?
Me: Well, you know, I guess this could be interesting, I mean I am a linguist after all.
Peter: What?! You’re actually a linguist?
Me: I am in school to be a linguist, yes.
Peter: HAHAHAHA! I feel ilke this is some kind of crazy story unfolding before us.
Me: Why?
Peter: Because I am ACTUALLY Canadian, and you are ACTUALLY a linguist!
Me: Heehee!

OK, so I didn’t actually say “Heehee!”, but the guy did repeat a few times, “I am ACTUALLY Canadian and you are ACTUALLY a linguist.” This is aside from the fact that it was one of those parties where, for whatever reason, everyone you tell that you’re in linguistics thinks it’s an inexplicably “cool,” “sweet,” or “nice!” thing to be in. Apparently linguistics is a very sexy field right now?

Also I find it difficult to represent myself in reported speech, as above, with any hint of humor or affability, which is strange because I’m really quite boisterous in real life. I’m going to ponder that.

Today, McGurk was repeatedly used as a verb in my phonetics class. As in, “Do you McGurk? Who all is McGurking?” (equals, “Are you experiencing the McGurk Effect?”). [I was, for the record, McGurking, like, big time.] I have never heard this verbed before and I can’t for the life of me figure out how I might google to find its frequency of usage (insofar as google even allows rough estimations of such things); would-be 3sg. McGurks seems to pull up only McGurk’s. A verbal prize to anyone with a solution.

All Things Considered ran a piece today about Albert Kuvezin, a throat singer from Tuva who has a new album out of classic rock covers ([classic [rock covers]] not [[classic rock] covers]), Re-covers. ATC called him a rocker, but the website says “throat singing punk band,” which is by all accounts even cooler. The album includes covers of Kraftwerk (!), Joy Division (!!), Santana (?), and Hank Williams (?!). Overtones are so hot right now.

I thought it’d be nice to point readers in the direction of people who are doing interesting things, based on what I saw at NWAV. I saw something on the order of 30 papers, all of which were interesting in some way or another. Here is my top, um, 8? I just picked an arbitrary number. It seems not too high but still substantial. No particular order, with links to abstracts and an illustrative quote for each. (Note: If you’re one of my non-linguist readers and think that what follows below will be dreadfully boring, you would be only half right. Keywords to excite you: improv, coochie cunt, linguistics in primary educational settings, like it’s like like like, you can’t say “He’s a Chinese,” Jewish English, Richard Pryor. We are sociolinguists, and we are engaging.)

1. A Sociolinguistic Approach to Teaching Standard English, by Julie Sweetland. The results of implementation of a curriculum for teaching Standard English to predominantly AAVE (African-American Vernacular English) speakers in urban elementary schools, that combines composition instruction with sociolinguistic education. Very cool. “The results indicate that using dialect awareness and contrastive analysis to teach Standard English to AAVE speakers is more effective than traditional methods of grammar instruction that ignore or devalue the vernacular.” My favorite quotes from children in Sweetland’s data: “I use Everyday language more than I use Standard. Why because I have the African American background.” and “Actually I speak both, 25% everyday and 75% standard. I write in standard and when I’m in school I speak standard. At home and when I’m angry I speak e-day.” (a 5th grader!)

2. Evaluating and Improving High School Students’ Folk Perceptions of Dialects, by Jeffrey Reaser. The effects on high schoolers’ language attitudes after being exposed to Reaser and Walt Wolfram’s curriculum (teacher’s manual available here) intended to educate students about fundamental sociolinguistic issues, such as what is a dialect, who speaks one, does it have structure, etc. “Reaching primary school children, who have not yet developed entrenched sociolinguistic ideologies, is challenging due to the lack of linguistic tradition in mainstream education, the lack of linguistic training in teacher education, and the fact that linguists’ academic duties largely keep them from working in public schools.” I am glad some people are trying to change this! Linguistics should be in high schools all over the place.

3. The People in the Gayborhood: Language Crossing and Code Ownership, by Brook Hefright. Using a podcast from Gayborhood Radio, Hefright examines code crossing (ala Benjamin Rampton) by using an explanatory schema of relatively strong and weak metapragmatic strategies, as laid out by Keith Sawyer, who studies improvisational comedy. Great data (the phrase “yay yay yay I’m a fucking whore lick my coochie cunt” comes to mind), great analysis. I’s proud to be a Michigander!

4. Like, it Wasn’t Invented ex nihilo, by Alex D’Arcy. Though I didn’t fully understand this one because it was heavy on the syntax, I appreciate someone finally having done a thorough analysis of the like phenomenon which takes into account the multiple positions it occupies in sentences AND the multiple generations of speakers who use it! As in, it’s not just teens and valley girls! “The apparent time results are unequivocal, providing a remarkable display of grammatical development. ‘Like’ is shown to have generalized slowly across syntactic structure. Indeed, once it spreads to a given context, ‘like’ continues to appear in that position among successive generations and its frequency consistently rises. Such a result strongly suggests regular, step-wise development. Moreover, the youngest speakers in the community are not using ‘like’ in contexts in which older segments of the population do not; the
difference is that they use it at higher rates.”

5. A Chinese walks into a bar…: English Ethnonym Ideologies, by Lauren Hall-Lew & Elisabeth Norcliffe. This was one of those papers where I wished we could have had a 30-minute discussion afterwards rather than 5. Basically, the authors are arguing that there’s some connection between what ethnonymic (=name referring to some ethnic group) forms are grammatical and whether they’re considered polite or not. As in, things that are ungrammatical (e.g. A Chinese) are less polite than things that are grammatical (e.g. A German). “Interestingly, like the underived nominal forms, some speakers also judge the bare, sibilant-final deadjectival forms (a Chinese, a Portuguese) to be impolite. We posit that the basic unacceptability of the singular of this ethnonym subclass has a morphophonological source; the final sibilant, homophonous with the English plural marker, blocks a singular reading. We further suggest that this source of ungrammaticality is opaque speakers who reinterpret that unacceptability as a social constraint, associating the singular use with the impoliteness that is identified with underived nominal forms.”

6. Adult Style Acquisition: Learning Strategies Among Newly Orthodox Jews, by Sarah Bunin Benor. This was really interesting stuff on how adults go about acquiring a nonnative style of speaking, rather than a different code altogether. While there is a lot of stuff out there (obviously) on child language acquisition and adult L2 acquisition, there’s less about the language socialization process taking place in specific contexts and especially for adults, and about how style (meant in the way that most current sociolinguists means it) is acquired along with (as part of) a new identity or set of identity-related practices. “As BTs [=community n00bs] try out these new styles, they are aided by various interactions of socialization by FFBs [=lonstanding core community members] and fellow BTs, including language instruction, translation, and correction (overt and covert). In addition, they ask questions, engage in imitation (uptake), and make efforts to teach themselves from tapes and printed materials. I present data on how BTs save face by marking their newly acquired style as foreign through humor and other means.”

7. “Makin’ A Way Outta No Way”: African-American Comedic Character Construction, by Jacquelyn Rahman. Rahman talked about African-American comedians’ exaggerated use of AAVE features when portraying certain characters, showing that those features are taken to be highly salient components of AAVE. Conversely, she also talked about when non-AAVE features are used, to indicate “establishment”-representing characters (generally whites). “Most significant among the segmental features comedians deploy in constructing African-American characters is [a], a variant of the diphthong /ay/, that regression analysis predicts the comedians use almost categorically. VARBRUL shows that the comedians reserve the diphthong for portraying the establishment, which they racialize as white…The
layers of meaning that attach to language in the African-American community, highlighted here in the exaggerated projection of linguistic features that index attitudes and traits, contribute to the collective identity and self-esteem of African-Americans, largely by emphasizing their identity as survivors.”

8. Framing Performance: Style and the Construction of Identity in Improv, by Anna Marie Trester. Trester studied an improv group in DC, and in this talk focused on their metalinguistic commentary about the use of dialect in performance and rehearsal, namely asking: why do they use dialect so little in rehearsal and even less in performance, when dialect is usually really good for a laugh? “Improv players’ unique style including a heightened awareness of language seems to be particularly valuable in the exploration of how language is used locally by individuals in interactions to accomplish meaning.”

There are many more I could list, but 8 was the magic number, and so at 8 it stays. Great conference!

So here I am at NWAV, biding time until the late afternoon when I give my talk. These things are so tiring, and there’s so much to hear about, but you can’t digest it all - so I’m taking a break this morning to share a little of what I have learned so far.

Well, just one thing, really: Michigan hates the South. At Dennis Preston’s talk yesterday, he presented some findings I hadn’t before heard, but are available here. Much of Preston’s work is on metalinguistic awareness and language attitudes, so his stuff is really interesting both to normal people and linguists. And especially Michiganders. In a survey (which I think was done some time ago; I’m unclear as to the original reference) asking respondents to outline dialect areas, 94% of Michiganders outlined the South as a distinct dialect region - far higher than any other region.

OK, so they think of The South as a place where people speak a distinct kind of different; not necessarily surprising that this area would stand out. BUT, the more interesting thing is that when rating the 50 states in terms of “language correctness,” Michiganders also rated the Southern states as far less correct than Northern states - in fact, they pretty much gave Michigan the best rating (8-9 on a scale of 10), and rated states in decreasing order of correctness the further away from Michigan they go (with some exceptions, such as Hawaii being rated in the 5-6 range; how many Michiganders have any idea of Hawaii at all?!). This, Preston claims, is reflective of a North=good language, South=bad language association in people’s belief systems. He presented some other interesting things in terms of Michiganders’ beliefs that involve more linguisticky terminology, so I’ll spare you.

This isn’t necessarily surprising, especially as I read Preston’s larger argument to be that the South serves as a dialectal reference point for the rest of the US, something that guides peoples’ interpretation of what dialects obtain in what geographical areas, and how those are taken to index personality/identity traits of the people who live (and speak) there. But? I want to know what Hawaii and Alaska think about speech on the continent.

Off to practice that talk a few more times…

Another totally awesome cartoon from xkcd:

I like “webweb” the best, I think; “blago-” is new to me.

I feel sort of cheap every time I post a post that’s simply a cartoon that someone else drew, but then again, cheap thrills are fun.

Also: yay for yesterday (for the most part)!

Don’t forget tomorrow! Vote vote vote vote vote vote vote vote vote VOTE! Tell your friends and family! It’s the hip thing to do! And, FWIW to anyone who hasn’t quite made up their minds yet, I offer you Hendrik Hertzberg:

During the past week, the foul mood of the leaders of the Republican Party and its hard-right outriders touched what one must earnestly hope was bottom. In Tennessee, where a talented, relatively conservative young Democrat, Harold Ford, Jr., is campaigning to become the first African-American senator from a Southern or border state since Reconstruction, a television ad is making a nauseating kind of political history. The ad, which appeals to a poisonous stereotype of black sexuality, is destined for a long life as a reference point in discussions of political perfidy. Its only moment of honesty—an involuntary moment, compelled by the McCain-Feingold law of 2002—is provided by a hurried off-camera voice: “The Republican National Committee is responsible for the content of this advertising.” Meanwhile, Rush Limbaugh, the radio broadcaster who is the Republican Party’s most prominent unofficial spokesman, unleashed an unusually ugly attack on the integrity of the actor Michael J. Fox, who has been appearing in spots for Democratic candidates who support embryonic-stem-cell research. (In 2004, he did the same for a Republican, Senator Arlen Specter.) Fox has Parkinson’s, and it shows. Here is what Limbaugh said of one such spot: “In this commercial, he is exaggerating the effects of the disease. He is moving all around and shaking. And it’s purely an act. . . . This is really shameless of Michael J. Fox. Either he didn’t take his medication or he’s acting, one of the two.” (In reality, Fox’s body movements are a side effect of his medication, without which he is unable to speak.) And in one of the most important of next Tuesday’s contests—Virginia’s, which pits the incumbent senator, George Allen, against James Webb—Allen is employing a tactic that combines prurience with philistinism.

Allen, as the now-famous “Macaca” incident and its aftermath showed, is a bigot and a bully. Webb is a Democrat-turned-Republican—he was President Reagan’s Secretary of the Navy—whom the Iraq war turned back into a Democrat. He is a novelist by profession. At the end of last week, as a new poll showed Allen slipping behind, he put out a press release consisting of annotated snippets from Webb’s novels, which draw on his experiences and observations as a marine in Vietnam. The snippets record callous behavior, bleak sexuality, and rough talk. (To suggest that their author advocates such things is akin to saying that “Ben-Hur” is a brief for crucifixion.) Like the novels from which they are torn, the snippets are about men at war, so it is perhaps not so surprising that they are short on what Allen’s press release primly calls “positive female role models.”

There is much more along these lines, from many places, almost all of it of Republican provenance. But the most depraved pronouncement of the week came from the Vice-President of the United States, Dick Cheney. In an interview with one of three dozen right-wing radio hosts invited to spend a day broadcasting from the White House, Cheney was asked if he didn’t think it was “silly” even to debate about “dunking a terrorist in water.” “I do agree,” he replied. The interviewer pressed: “Would you agree a dunk in water is a no-brainer if it can save lives?” Cheney: “It’s a no-brainer for me.”

The “dunk in water” they were talking about is waterboarding. It has been used by the Gestapo, the North Koreans, and the Khmer Rouge. After the Second World War, a Japanese soldier was sentenced to twenty-five years’ hard labor for using it on American prisoners. It is torture, and torture is not a no-brainer. It is a no-souler. The no-brainer is the choice on Election Day.

= Vote Democratic.

***Slightly biased PSA now over.***

A cool (and longish!) article today in the NYT mag about the internet’s effect on the OED. Man, I could’ve used this when I was writing my paper in 2004 about lexicography and the internet!

The O.E.D. has met the Internet, and however much Simpson loves the O.E.D.’s roots and legacy, he is leading a revolution, willy-nilly — in what it is, what it knows, what it sees. The English language, spoken by as many as two billion people in every country on earth, has entered a period of ferment, and this place may be the best observation platform available. The perspective here is both intimate and sweeping. In its early days, the O.E.D. found words almost exclusively in books; it was a record of the formal written language. No longer. The language upon which the lexicographers eavesdrop is larger, wilder and more amorphous; it is a great, swirling, expanding cloud of messaging and speech: newspapers, magazines, pamphlets; menus and business memos; Internet news groups and chat-room conversations; and television and radio broadcasts.

One additional effect is that the massive set of revisions that comprise the third edition of the OED, currently only available online, might never actually see themselves printed. For people who long for the romance of a ginormous reference text, this is perhaps sad, but for the trees of the world, I think it’s a good thing (the 2nd edition weighed 138 pounds of 21,730 pages, according to the article) - not to mention all the fun and easy cross-referencing that’s possible in an online version. And here’s an interesting quote about one of the editors at the dictionary who works in the “new words” department:

The new-words department, where that history rolls forward, is not to everyone’s taste. “I love it, I really really love it,” McPherson says. “You’re at the cutting edge, you’re dealing with stuff that’s not there and you’re, I suppose, shaping the language…”

Except you’re not shaping the language; you’re shaping one documentation/representation of the language. Big difference. Still matters, but big difference. Ah, and here’s the obligatory section about technology’s introduction of a slew of new words:

The job of a new-words editor felt very different precyberspace, Paton says: “New words weren’t proliferating at quite the rate they have done in the last 10 years. Not just the Internet, but text messaging and so on has created lots and lots of new vocabulary.” Much of the new vocabulary appears online long before it will make it into books. Take geek. It was not till 2003 that O.E.D.3 caught up with the main modern sense: “a person who is extremely devoted to and knowledgeable about computers or related technology.” Internet chitchat provides the earliest known reference, a posting to a Usenet newsgroup, net.jokes, on Feb. 20, 1984.
….
“When you are listening to the language by collecting pieces of paper, that’s fine, but now it’s as if we can hear everything said anywhere. Members of some tiny English-speaking community anywhere in the world just happen to commit their communications to the Web: there it is. You thought some word was obsolete? Actually, no, it still survives in a very small community of people who happen to use the Web — we can hear about it.”

Ah, but the problem (if you think it’s a problem) is the level of attestation still required for a word to make it into the OED; last time I checked, internet sources were actually not admissible evidence for a word’s usage, because it’s “ephemeral” - it had to be in print, even if that meant the liner notes for a record or something similarly seemingly unauthoritative/esoteric. Finally, my friend Naomi Baron gets to pay some lipservice to linguists and the internet:

“An awful lot of neologisms are spur-of-the-moment creations, whether it’s literary effect or it’s conversational effect,” says Naomi S. Baron, a linguist at American University, who studies these issues. “I could probably count on the fingers of a hand and a half the serious linguists who know anything about the Internet. That hand and a half of us are fascinated to watch how the Internet makes it possible not just for new words to be coined but for neologisms to spread like wildfire.”

Well, that’s not really what I find most fascinating about the internet and language, but sure it’s interesting. But I’m shocked this article didn’t mention either UrbanDictionary or Wiktionary or even WordSpy. Collaborative sites like these are what really pose a challenge, I think, to the methods of the traditional dictionary (as we’ve seen with the encyclopedia model as well), and are what’s really interesting about the internet and words, and the communities who use them. Here, you see that while the OED may care about the internet, most of the internet doesn’t seem to give a damn about the OED.