Metaglossia: The Translation World

Twitter rape threats and Gamergate cast a long shadow over an otherwise encouraging year for the demise of misogynist words

Naomi McAuliffe
theguardian.com, Wednesday 31 December 2014 15.00 GMT

'Is misogyny just something that we feel uncomfortable displaying in public now?' Photograph: Simon Belcher/Alamy
You rarely notice the moment when you finally get over a cough; one day you just think, “Oh, I haven’t been coughing for a while.” Similarly, I don’t remember when I stopped getting comments about being blonde. Throughout my early life and teenage years, “Blondie!” would be shouted from passing cars, or there would be a lame apology right before a dreadful “dumb blonde” joke. I’ve even been asked in the past why I don’t dye my hair, the implication that I’d be taken more seriously as a brunette. But that doesn’t happen any more. There are still remarks shouted from passing cars and apologies before stupid jokes, but the significance of hair colour has faded just as my own has dulled and given way to grey.

My own experience seems to be backed up by research. The Spoken British National Corpus 2014 study has analysed 2.5 million words of conversation and has compared these to similar studies from the 1990s. A few preliminary findings have been released over the past few months, including that the use of the word “marvellous” has declined (sadly and infuriatingly replaced by “awesome”), and that we drank less sherry at Christmas but more champagne. Now the lead researchers claim that men are using fewer sexist terms to describe women than they did in the 90s.

Women are now rarely referred to as “blonde” or “sexy” in conversation and “are being described more in their own right and less in terms of their appearance”. Interestingly, there has been a rise in the term “girly girl” – seemingly because this archetype needs a special description as the cutesy-feminine behaviour of the late 20th century is no longer the norm.

But does this change in language mean a change in attitudes? Certainly there seems to be a marked difference between the “lad culture” of the 90s to what we are seeing now. Lad mags are on the decline and are radically shifting in response to changing tastes. The Inbetweeners may have popularised the word “clunge”, but at least they are acting their age and don’t seem to be aspirational (rather them than 40-year-old men going to work on a skateboard and ironically taking pictures of women eating on the Tube).

Yet 2014 seems to have been the year that “Twitter” and “rape threat” became synonymous. It’s also been the year that sexism in video game culture hit the mainstream with Gamergate, and there was the debate as to whether convicted rapist Ched Evans should be able to resume his life while his victim cannot. Even a UN expert thinks the UK is a “boys’ club”.

So is misogyny just something that we feel uncomfortable displaying in public now? And are the misogynistic conversations simply moving online? Do people talk about “lovely” women to each other, yet threaten to rape them online when they disagree?

Of course, language evolves, and just as interesting as the words that have disappeared are the ones that have emerged. Apparently new words for describing women include “international”, “gypsy” and “Italian”. Depending on the context, these could all be derogatory terms and based on appearance rather than actual nationality (although goodness knows what an “international woman” is, I just hope it’s suffixed with “of mystery”). “Italian” is obviously far from a negative term in itself, but given the size of that country’s population and recent immigration trends, it seems unlikely that there has been an influx of Italian women into Britain that we were unaware of.

Men seemed to have been increasingly pigeoned-holed by their occupation, as there is a rise in the terms “City”, “business”, “working” and “rich” in relation to them. These may hint at men’s continued power, wealth and influence but are also just monumentally boring. And just as social networks can veer towards the rapey, they can also be well used to address sexism with campaigns such as Lose the Lad Mags, No More Page 3, End Female Genital Mutilation, and the Everyday Sexism project.

As women have increasingly taken to dying their hair regularly, any claims to characteristics based on hair colour have gone from immature to nonsensical. Instead there appears to be an increased interest in ethnicity or perceived ethnicity. Perhaps another sign of the times. But there is clearly a divergence between what people say about women between themselves, and the emergent language of online interactions which are extreme, polarised, often violent and far from marvellous. Given the speed of change online, hopefully 2015 will be the year that we look back with embarrassment at old-fashioned flaming in the same way that we flinch at clips of Love Thy Neighbour and The Benny Hill Show. In the meantime, I’ll endeavour to write responsibly on Cif, yet swear like a Greenock docker in conversation.

The most annoying word or phrase of 2014 in casual conversation is “whatever,” according to the Marist College annual poll.

“Whatever” has now grabbed top honors (43 percent this time around) for the sixth consecutive year in the survey. The staying power of “whatever” could be because it seems like a very dismissive, if not rude, way to end a discussion. “Whatever” may have entered the popular culture after the 1995 comedy film Clueless, which starred Alicia Silverstone and Stacey Dash.

Finishing in second place as most annoying in the national landline and cell phone poll of about 1,000 American adults taken earlier this month was “like” (another perennial), followed by “literally,” “awesome,” and “with all due respect.” Last year, “you know,” “just saying,” and “obviously” rounded out the top five.

As far as which word was the most overused or worn out, a separate category in the survey, “selfie” won with 35 percent, followed by “hashtag,” “twerk,” “YOLO,” Twittersphere,” and “hipster.”

Summarizing the results, the Marist Institute for Public Opinion explained that “Americans under 30 years old, 36%, are less likely than older Americans, 46%, to consider ‘whatever’ to be the most annoying” and “While a plurality of Americans 30 and older, 38%, say ‘selfie’ is the most overused word of 2014, 32% of younger residents think ‘hashtag’ was used too much.”

Although not included in the Marist polling data, additional annoying/overused words that may come to mind include “absolutely” (instead of just saying “yes”), “amazing,” “basically,” and “honestly.”

Sometimes, certain familiar phrases do appropriately match the situation to be sure, but as the year ends, do any of these that have entered the everyday lexicon get on your nerves?

“to be honest with you” [immediate red flag, as with “honestly” noted above]
“no problem” [instead of “you’re welcome”]
“throwing [someone] under the bus”
“I mean” or “so” [dropped in at the beginning of a sentence]
“my bad”
“it’s all good”
“you know what I’m saying”
“it is what it is”
“at the end of the day”
“singing Kumbaya”
“step up your/my game”
“bring it”
While on the subject of annoying conversational techniques, you may very well have noticed the rampant practice of “uptalk”(officially known to linguists as “high rising terminal”). This is the very bothersome tendency for a speaker to end a declarative sentence as if it is a question. In other words, finishing a statement with an imaginary question mark. This way of conversing apparently started with the San Fernando “Valley Girls,” but has spread across the country, if not the world, and all genders and demographic groups like a virus.

Even as far back as 1994, news correspondent Connie Chung reported on uptalk.



Uptalk, Like and Creaky Voice (Vocal Fry)

BRANDO interview Connie Chung

New Significant Changes in Watchtower Doctrine (Watchtower magazine July 15, 2013)

MADtv Connie Chung Tonight

UP Talk - UP Smart Idol

What words or phrases do you find the most annoying and/or overused in casual, day-to-day conversation?

LEARNING English will make you rich, and learning Arabic will make you holy. No one ever says these things out loud in Pakistan, but their premises undergird many decisions. They dominate the thinking of parents braving long lines outside the compounds of English-medium schools during admissions season. They inspire other, newer educational institutions to advertise that they teach both Arabic and English to their students — a winning recipe for the next generation ie, holiness and wealth.
Unsurprisingly, then, many regional languages in Pakistan are dying a slow and silent death. According to one report, one-fifth of the 30 regional languages spoken in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa are in danger of extinction, with only a handful of some hundred people left to speak them. The languages gasping for life include Ushojo, Gawro, Gawarbati, Badeshi and several others.
According to Fakhruddin Akhundzada, a Pakistani linguist, Yidhga, a language of Chitral, is one of those recently placed on the endangered languages list by the United Nations Educational Social and Cultural Organisation. Also comatose and nearly dead is Ushojo, another language from the same area, which numbers only about 200 people among its speakers.
In Pakistan, the promotion of a language has often been equivocated with the political dominance of one or the other group.
Kalashi, the language of the once celebrated and now often persecuted Kalash tribe, is faring little better. Only a few thousand people speak it any more and of those the vast majority is in their seventies. It is quite likely that when they die, the language will die with them.
Research shows that language extinction usually comes along with economic prosperity. A study published in the British Journal of the Proceedings of the Royal Society B makes the claim that as nations develop, a single language comes to dominate the country’s political and educational spheres and people face the onerous choice of either adopting that language or being left out in the cold, economically and politically. The rise in GDP was also seen as directly correlated with the loss of language diversity in a region.
Neither of these claims makes much sense in Pakistan; the areas around Chitral and Kalash do not seem to have experienced any vast or sudden economic development or significant rise in income per capita. Their languages nevertheless are dying.
One of the reasons may be that Pakistan’s own identity crises have always been closely tied to issues of linguistic identity. In many cases, the supremacy of a language or its promotion has been equivocated with the political dominance of one or the other group. These ideas are being tested today by two developments. First, the emergence of transnational Islamism as an antidote to the confusions of post-coloniality (who were we before the British came and how can we return to that pristine place?) has equalled the ascendance of Arabic.
In learning that language, many believe, the misconstructions of a faith understood second-hand with the losses of translation can be avoided. The consequence will be Arabised Pakistanis whose Islam would be as authentic as that of the Arab forebears (fictitious or actual) whom they are so wont to connect themselves to. To learn Arabic, as per this argument, is to solve everything, a goal lovely enough to merit the sacrifice of many languages.
The imperialism of Arabic, of course, would not exist were it not for the pre-existing anointment of English. In the darkness of the colonial age, the subcontinent’s Muslims realised there was little hope of throwing off the yoke of Empire without mastering English. Perhaps the problem began then or perhaps it did not; with the continued ascendance of English as the global language, perhaps the ontology of the issue, its vexing origins, do not much matter.
Nor would the issue have been as knotty if, after the hackles of Partition had divided up the subcontinent, a single successor could have been agreed upon. Urdu was only perfunctorily crowned, and its crowning brought on ethnic war: with linguistic diversity attached to ethnic diversity, it was perhaps inevitable.
And so it happens that even as Pakistan is refused the prosperity that accompanies the loss of language diversity, it is nevertheless losing the variety of languages that it once enjoyed.
It need not, of course, be so. In a recent article, Ross Perlin, who studies language diversity, gives the example of the Basque language movement. In Spain, Basque speakers were persecuted under the fascist regime of Spanish dictator Francisco Franco. They did not allow it to defeat them or eradicate their language. By the time the 1960s came around, the language had become a groundswell, complete with secret schools, do it yourself language learning programmes, cultural festivals and ultimately recognition from the Spanish government itself.
The endurance of Basque is a lesson to all: its speakers face the same pro-English pressures that globalisation places on the rest of the world. Its speakers received little help from government institutions. It endured because the people who spoke it saw its utility beyond simply the pragmatics of better jobs in higher places or faraway cities.
At the heart of the language issue is the premise that the ascendance of one or another language means the sacrifice of another. There are good reasons to learn English and Arabic, venerable ones that make sense in terms of economics, a deeper understanding of faith, the accessibility of a global realm of research and knowledge. This should not demote the less spoken, the ancient, the foregone.
The preservation of language should not pivot on Darwinian scales that sentence the remote to obscurity and extinction. For the picture of the future is, after all, imprinted in the understanding of the past. A lost language hence represents the loss of what was before, an absence that inevitably taints all that comes after.

The faculty and staff at Lake Superior State University have been compiling a list of words to be banished since 1976. ( Facebook photo)

______________

Saving the Queen’s English from further bastardization, a Michigan university has once again offered its list of words and phrases we just shouldn’t say.

Ever.

One of the top submissions on Lake Superior State University’s 40th Annual List of Words Banished from the Queen’s English for Mis-Use, Over-Use and General Uselessness is the word “bae,” text shorthand for “before anyone else” that has wormed its way into spoken conversation – annoyingly so, it seems.

“How stupid! Stop calling your boyfriend ‘bae,’ ” Ervie Dunagan of Manheim, PA, said in her submission for the 2014 list, which will become part of an archive of more than 800 words that have been suggested for banishment since former LSSU public relations director started the list of words that annoyed him and his friends.

The tradition started by the late W.T. Rabe, who put together the first list of words people love to hate at a New Year’s Eve party in 1975, has been continued by LSSU faculty and staff. The list, first published on jan. 1, 1976, is based entirely upon nominations from around the world.

If “bae” is a too-cute way to refer to your boyfriend, don’t even think about using it to refer to ramen noodles, says S. Thoms of Sault Ste. Marie, MI. She wins the understatement-of-the-year award with her comment:

“It’s overused.”

Misuse of the word to describe the college dorm food staple aside, Thoms offered this: “If I was putting someone ‘before anything else,’ I would respect them enough to use their name.’ ”

Tell Us:

What words do you never want to hear again?
And if by bae, you really mean “babe,” take the extra time – which is no time at all – to add another consonant, k?

“I’d rather be called ‘babe’ than ‘bae’ any day,” said Alexsis Outwater of Bronson, MI.

Flush the Polar Vortex

Another phrase we should all forget we ever heard is “polar vortex.” The phrase got a blizzard of nominations criticizing its use as an overly sensationalized, fright-inducing and poorly chosen synonym for what used to be called winter.

“What happened to ‘cold snap’?” Trevor Fenton of Edinburgh, UK, panned. “Not descriptive enough?”

News Flash: Everybody’s a Foodie

Michiganders had a strong presence in a chorus of people wanting us to un-hear the word “foodie.”

“It’s ridiculous. Do we call people who like wine ‘winies’ or beer lovers ‘beeries’?” asked Randall Chamberlain of Traverse City.

” ‘Someone who enjoys food’ applies to everyone on Earth. What’s next? ‘Oh, I’m an airie; I just love to breathe.’ ‘Could we do it at 11, instead? I’m kind of a sleepie.’ “ said Andy Poe of Marquette.

And Steve Szilagyi of Mason added this:

“I’ve heard of cooks and chefs, and gourmets and gourmands, but what the heck is a ‘foodie’? A person who likes food? A person who eats food? A person who knows what food is? Sounds like ‘foodie’ is a synonym for ‘everybody.’ Foodies around the world agree; let’s banish this term.”

Here are some other words you just shouldn’t say in 2015:

Cra-Cra

Just stop it. It’s baby-talk for “crazy.” Use your adult voices and show some compassion for mentally ill people. Patch editorial comment aside, Steve Kaufman of Houston, TX, said this:

“I’ve only heard it twice and already know by the end of the year I’ll want to scream.”

Swag

No one even knows what this means anymore.

“The word ‘swag’ has become a shapeless, meaningless word used in various forms (such as ‘swaggy’) but with no real depth,” said Bailey Anderson of Washington, IA.

Curate/Curated

“A pretentious way of saying ‘selected.’ It’s enormously overused.” said Kristi Hoerauf of San Francisco, whose comment we curated for the sake of this story.

Hack

“Suddenly things that once would have been called ‘tips’ are now being called ‘hacks,’” Sharla Hulsey of Sac City, IA, said. “It can’t be because the one word is shorter or easier to say; and the actual accepted meanings of ‘hack’ have nothing to do with suggestions for doing tasks better or more efficiently – quite the opposite, really.”

Skill Set

“A skill is a skill – that is it. Phrases such as ‘I have the skill set to do that properly’ or anything resembling that phrase, shows the speaker is seriously lacking skills in the art of conversation,” Stephanie Hamm-Wieczkiewicz of Litfield Park, AZ, said. “Please try this, ‘I have the skill ... Do you have the skills ... This requires certain skills ... He is very skilled ... That was a skillful maneuve r... See? No need for a skill set.”

Enhanced Interrogation

“A shameful euphemism for torture,” said David Bristol of Byron Center, MI.

-Nation

“Although a devout Wisconsin sports fan, I do not belong to Packer-Nation, Badger-Nation, Phoenix-Nation, or Brewer-Nation. Further, I am not aware of any team or mascot that has the carrying capacity to be a nation,” said Kelly Frawley of Waunakee, WI.

Comme chaque année, certains mots ont fait leur apparition ou ont connu un essor tout particulier. Simple mode, histoire ou tendance, les raisons sont nombreuses. Pour Alain Rey, linguiste et conseiller éditorial aux éditions le Robert, "il y a des mots qui sont beaux mais dont le sens est pénible et des mots qui sont laids et dont le sens n'est pas désagréable".

Avant de passer le cap de la nouvelle année, revue de dictionnaire. "Selfie", "Daech", "Guerre Sainte" sont les mots de cette année pour Alain Rey. Avant d'ajouter "vapoter", "éco-responsable", "procrastiner" et même "bistronomie". 

Le mystère des mots

Mais alors, comment naît un mot ? Les médias, les communicants, la rue et même la banlieue sont les places fortes de la langue françaises. "Quand un mot de la banlieue passe dans les écoles, dans un premier temps les enfants le savent et non les parents", rappelle le spécialiste.

C'est extrêmement mystérieux car les mots sont parfois à la mode pendant 20 ans et ils disparaissent.
Alain Rey

Cependant, si certains deviennent rapidement à la mode, aucune certitude qu'ils deviennent pérennes. "C'est extrêmement mystérieux car les mots sont parfois à la mode pendant 20 ans et ils disparaissent. Il y a deux tendances dans la langue. Jouer avec elle et créer des nouveautés parfois cocasses et à l'inverse, ramener les choses dans une certaine régularité". 

by Andrew Beaujon
Published Dec. 31, 2014 8:07 am


In March, the editors of the AP Stylebook changed a rule that may seem obscure to non-journalists: No longer would it enforce a distinction between “over” and “more than.”

The news of this change was Poynter’s most popular post of 2014, and reactions from journalists, many of whom had treasured the rule, were sometimes sad and often hilarious.




But AP’s reign of terror wasn’t more than yet (OK, I’ll stop now). The next month it issued guidance that probably had a greater effect on journalists: “Effective May 1, the AP will spell out state names in the body of stories.” No more “Calif.”! No more looking up Wisconsin’s abbreviation! (“Wis.” just never looked right.) A lot more mnemonic devices (I use the chorus of this song to remember how to spell Tennessee).

Another change welcomed by every reporter who covers the Washington, D.C., area: They could use “District” on second reference to the District of Columbia.

Why do these changes engage our journalist meta-society so? As Jill Geisler wrote about the “over”/”more than” change, it signaled to some people that they had to let go “a part of their expert identity.” She continued:

Those who’ve made a commitment to studying language, memorizing its rules, and protecting its integrity have been correcting and coaching others for years — either as vocation or avocation. They’ve righteously talked or tussled with writers about “more than” and “over” — citing the AP Stylebook as the argument settler. Now the argument is over. Wrong is now right. On this one, everyone’s now the expert.
AP published its 2014 Stylebook in May. It included the term “selfie” (“a self-portrait photo taken with a phone or webcam and shared over a social network”). And, you know, the world somehow kept spinning — though brace yourself if “usie” ever gets enshrined.

AP plans to publish its next Stylebook in May 2015. Sally Jacobsen, a Stylebook editor, said the team “is currently reviewing and updating our entries based on suggestions from our staff, the public and changes in the use of news terms and phrases.” Want to make a suggestion? Head more than here. Sorry, couldn’t help myself.

Related: 5 AP style changes illustrated with GIFs

Une nouvelle édition pour le Dictionnaire des Yôkai
Mercredi, 31 December 2014 - Source :Pika Edition
Dans un peu moins de deux mois, les éditions Pika proposeront une nouvelle édition du Dictionnaire des Yôkai.

Rédigée et illustrée par le grand Shigeru Mizuki, cette véritable bible sur ces créatures folkloriques nippones était initialement sortie en 2008 sous la forme d'une première édition de deux volumes de 10€ pièce, puis ressortit en 2010 en un coffret regroupant les deux volets et vendu 19,80¨€. Cette fois-ci, l'édition proposée sera une intégrale grand format (17x24cm) coûtant 20€.

Sa sortie est prévue pour le 18 février 2015.




Synopsis :

Ouvrage de référence abondamment commenté et illustré, ce dictionnaire des monstres japonais ne propose pas moins de 500 yôkai sur plus de 500 pages ! Une véritable encyclopédie dans son genre. Les amoureux de contes et légendes nippons seront ainsi ravis de découvrir Akanamé, qui lèche la crasse dans les salles de bains désertes, Dorotabô, qui surgit de la boue des rizières, Iso Onna, créature marine qui recouvre les pêcheurs endormis de ses longs cheveux ou encore Kuroté, yôkai taquin qui caresse les fesses de ceux qui vont aux toilettes...

This year people in the UK, US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and plenty of other nations will mark the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta. The document will be lauded for establishing one vital principle.

A new book about Magna Carta is published today which claims to offer new insights into one of the most famous documents in British history.

This year marks the 800th anniversary of the charter's first signing on 15 June 1215 at Runnymede on the banks of the Thames between Windsor and Staines.

The book by David Carpenter, professor of medieval history at King's College, London, contains a new translation of Magna Carta and more than 500 pages of historical background and commentary.

The charter was agreed between King John and a group of leading barons, led by Robert fitzWalter, exasperated at the king's arbitrary rule and high taxes. It was in effect a peace treaty designed to head off armed conflict. It failed.

Much of Magna Carta is impenetrable to modern readers, couched in medieval jargon and concerned with the detail of relations between the king and his most powerful feudal tenants. And the charter's most significant innovation, a "security clause" in which the king was subjected to the oversight of a panel of 25 barons, proved impossible to implement.

But the document quickly gained a central place in English political life and remains a touchstone of English liberties. However, few of us have actually read it.

This year's anniversary will be widely celebrated. Melvyn Bragg will present a four-part series on Radio 4 this month, and David Starkey will front a BBC Two documentary. On BBC Three you can watch Magna Carta 2.0, "a new documentary packed full of stunts, fun and comedy" and CBBC is offering a Horrible Histories on King John and Magna Carta.

From the Ice Bucket Challenge to the Rosetta Space Mission

Prams and car seats have been blamed for the declining standards of handwriting among Scottish pupils.


Theresa Campbell
With the rise of computers and smart phones long held responsible for poor writing, the over-protective environment children grow up in is also a key factor, according to one expert.

Theresa Campbell, a senior lecturer from Glasgow University's School of Education, says modern babies are constantly supported from birth in cushioned prams, buggies and reinforced car seats.

She believes that, as a result, pupils grow up without the basic physical skills required to sit for an extended period.

The warning comes after The Herald revealed concerns from examiners that standards of handwriting among Scottish pupils were getting worse.

A report into this year's Higher English exam revealed ­markers had identified "near-illegible" sentences on the papers submitted by some students.

The warnings come as concerns mount that teenagers brought up using email, texting and web-based social media sites to communicate have lost the ability to work with a pen and paper.

Handwriting has not only been shown to support literacy skills such as reading, writing, and speaking, but research also shows it develops areas of the brain that improve wider learning skills.

The issue is considered so important by some private schools, such as Erskine and Stewart's Melville Junior School, in Edinburgh, that all pupils are expected to use fountain pens to develop handwriting skills.

Mrs Campbell said: "My concern is that in our current society we are engineering out a lot of experiences that young children need in order to prepare them for learning and give them the physical skills to write.

"What is required for writing is the skill of holding a particular posture for a long time, but young people are being denied a lot of the prerequisites that allow them to develop that postural control because prams, buggies and car seats now support the body rather than letting babies use their muscles."

Eileen Prior, executive director of the Scottish Parent Teacher Council, said good handwriting was a skill that had long been valued, but was now gradually being lost.

She said: "The neat, copperplate handwriting of our parents or grandparents is largely a thing of the past. Many parents do care about their children's ­writing and it would be helpful if school approaches and policies on ­handwriting were discussed with families and parents given guidance of needed."

Ken Cunningham, general secretary of School Leaders ­Scotland, which represents secondary headteachers, said good handwriting was vital.

He said: "We recognise the way young people communicate with each other these days does not involve using longhand, but it is still an important skill. There will always be circumstances when pupils have to use handwriting and it is crucial it is legible.

"Schools and teachers need to reinforce the importance of this to all pupils, and those sitting Higher English should be ensuring their handwriting can be read."

The concerns come as new research published by the National Literacy Trust revealed a significant difference in the amount of time boys and girls spend writing.

The study found almost a third of boys never or rarely write for fun outside class while almost a third of girls write every day. Six out of ten boys say they don't enjoy writing at all.

The trust said the trend could be having a negative impact on boys' attainment at school with young people who write for fun outside school every day four times more likely to be writing above the expected level for their age compared with those who never write outside school.

Overall, the National Literacy Trust's fourth annual literacy survey of almost 30,000 8 to 16-year-olds shows that boys are much less enthusiastic about writing than girls.

The charity's report Children and Young People's Writing found boys were twice as likely as girls to say that they don't enjoy writing at all, almost a third of girls write daily outside the classroom, compared with only 21 per cent of boys.

Girls write more widely across a variety of formats such as social networking sites, text messages and lyrics. They also tweet more than boys.

It is often argued that the effects of noise on a “complex ability” (e.g., reading, writing, calculation) can be explained by the impairment noise causes to some ability (e.g., working memory) upon which the complex ability depends. Because of this, tasks that measure “sub-component abilities” (i.e., those abilities upon which complex abilities depend) are often deemed sufficient in cognitive noise studies, even when the primary interest is to understand the effects of noise as they arise in applied settings (e.g., offices and schools). This approach can be called the “sub-component hypothesis of cognitive noise effects”. The present paper discusses two things that are troublesome for this approach: Difficulties with interpretation and generalizability. A complete understanding of the effects of noise on complex abilities requires studying the complex ability itself. Cognitive noise researches must, therefore, employ tasks that mimic the tasks that are actually carried out in the applied setting to which the results are intended to be generalized. Tasks that measure “sub-component abilities” may be complementary, but should not be given priority in applied cognitive research.

le 31 décembre 2014 dans Médias




Autrement dit : les femmes, et en particulier, Hillary Clinton, ne sont pas assez intelligentes pour que l’on puisse débattre avec elles et il vaut donc mieux les traiter avec mépris. Le message, on le voit, est clairement misogyne.

Le problème, c’est qu’en russe, le verbe « спорить » employé par le président Poutine, ne signifie pas « débattre », au sens courant de « discuter », mais plutôt « se disputer » ou « se chamailler ». Il existe un verbe spécifique pour débattre qui est « обсуждать ».

La véritable traduction du propos de Poutine serait ainsi : « il est préférable de ne pas se chamailler avec les femmes » ou « il est préférable de ne pas se disputer avec les femmes ». Le propos s’entend ainsi davantage comme l’expression d’une galanterie, certes un rien surannée et paternaliste, que comme une tirade misogyne et méprisante. « Traduttore traditore » (traducteur traitre) disent les Italiens !

La question qui demeure est évidemment celle du caractère volontaire ou non de cette faute de traduction. Imprécision dans le feu de l’action ? Volonté de noircir le tableau ? Impossible à savoir.

Mais ce qui est sûr, c’est que la plupart des médias ont foncé tête baissé, ainsi que l’inénarrable Valérie Trierweiler, « heureuse de ne pas avoir à serrer la main de Poutine », comme elle écrivait sur son compte Twitter quelques heures après l’interview. Il est vrai que Valérie Trierweiler n’a jamais semblé particulièrement apprécier les hommes galants…

I just finished going through the newspaper’s archives to see if I wrote about my New Year’s resolution at the end of last year. Turns out I did, and what can I say? I didn’t really complete my resolutions. Sure, I went the whole year without one cavity, but I’m not so sure I did my best at making less of myself and more of others.

How about you? Did you lose that pesky 20 pounds? Did you adopt a pet or learn a new craft? If you made a New Year’s resolution for 2014 that you completed, let me know. We might just feature you in an upcoming edition of the Bolivar Herald-Free Press.
As for me, I’ll be repeating my resolution again in 2015. My guess is that it’s something I’ll have to repeat each year for the rest of my life. We humans are a bit self-centered, aren’t we. That’s the human condition, I guess. Flashback ...
• • •
I wish that just once in my life, I could make a New Year’s resolution that would stick longer than the time it takes for me to think it up and tell someone I’m going to do this or that.
Once it’s out of my mouth, it isn’t going to happen. Good intentions. Bad execution. My New Year’s resolutions are probably a lot like yours — get in shape, have no cavities this year (Oh, wait, is that just me?), write more letters, watch less TV, create something, be somebody, and on and on we go.
I don’t know from where the idea of New Year’s resolutions came, but I know they are usually nothing more than a pain, a burden and an afterthought.
But one thing that hasn’t been an afterthought to me lately? This quote: “Real life is long on law and short on grace.”
It comes from a book called “One Way Love: Inexhaustible Grace for an Exhausted World” by Tullian Tchividjian, the grandson of Billy Graham. In the book, Tchividjian explains that life demands much from us.
And, not only does it demand much, it demands that we be the best at it — a great marriage, perfect kids, a certain standard of living, an overachiever at work or school. We spend so much time and effort trying to live up to the “laws” set before us by others, and oftentimes by ourselves, that we live with anxiety, guilt and depression. (Not that high standards cause these issues alone, but they can sometimes be the cause.)
Can I be honest? Trying to meet another New Year’s resolution in 2014 just isn’t going to happen for me. I’m too wrapped up with being anxious, stressed out and feeling discontent that I don’t live up to the “laws” in my life that a resolution might send me packing to live in a van down by the river.
I’m guessing that a lot of you feel that way, too. So here’s my proposition. How about instead of trekking through 2014 like we have to be someone or do something great or keep from getting 100 cavities, let’s extend grace to ourselves, and more importantly, to each other. Let’s take the focus off of self and put it on others.
I’m not saying let yourself go. By all means, brush your teeth. Try your best. Do something awesome. But let’s be kind to ourselves, our spouses, and other people.
Let’s extend grace to all, and realize that we’re all in this together. One New Year’s resolution at a time.

La Real Academia Española manifiesta “su máximo respeto y consideración” hacia la comunidad gitana, pero no va a cambiar las definiciones de “gitano” y “gitanada” que figuran en el Diccionario porque se usan “en el español hablado y literario desde 1500 hasta hoy mismo”.

A la asociación de gitanas les parece que el término “es obsoleto y no hace más que alimentar una serie de prejuicios y estereotipos que ya existen”Este viernes la Asociación Gitanas Feministas por la Diversidad ha convocado una concentración, ante la sede la RAE, en protesta por la entrada de “gitano” en la nueva edición del Diccionario, una de cuyas acepciones remite a “trapacero”, definido como alguien “que con astucia, falsedades y mentiras procura engañar a alguien en un asunto”. A la citada asociación de gitanas les parece que el término “es obsoleto y no hace más que alimentar una serie de prejuicios y estereotipos que ya existen” sobre este pueblo. Por tanto, le piden a la Academia que elimine “una acepción tan peyorativa como esta”. Por su parte, la Unión Romaní ha calificado la definición de “inyección de ánimo” a los “racistas del país”.

El Defensor del Pueblo ya se dirigió en febrero a la RAE para que revisara las acepciones de “gitanada” y “gitano” que se contenían en la 22 edición de su Diccionario en lo que se refería a la que imputaba en la definición “a un colectivo de personas, por el mero hecho de su pertenencia al mismo, una conducta negativa, en concreto de engaño”. El “engaño” es, según el Defensor, algo “constitutivo de delito” y “discriminatorio” y mantener esa definición contribuye “a la creación y mantenimiento de actitudes sociales racistas y xenófobas”. La RAE ya modificó la redacción respecto a la 22ª edición La RAE se ha pronunciado en numerosas ocasiones sobre las razones por las que mantenía estos términos, y de nuevo el pleno de la Academia ha vuelto a fijar su postura al respecto en un comunicado.

En su comunicado, la Academia recuerda que, desde julio de 2013 y a lo largo del presente año, ha contestado a los escritos que la oficina de la Defensora del Pueblo le cursó acerca de la redacción de los artículos “gitano” Y “gitanada” en la 23ª edición del Diccionario de la Lengua Española. Ambos artículos fueron modificados en relación al texto de la 22ª edición del Diccionario publicada en 2001. Se adjuntó, en todo caso, a la Defensora del Pueblo “cumplida documentación lexicográfica que acredita que ninguna de las acepciones reseñadas, tanto las de contenido neutro como las positivas y las peyorativas, es ajena al uso del español literario y hablado desde 1500 hasta hoy mismo”.

La RAE mantiene el “respeto” y el “rigor” “El que una palabra o acepción figure en el Diccionario de la lengua española no es fruto de una invención o de la voluntad arbitraria de la Academia, sino que obedece a la obligada incorporación a este repertorio lexicográfico de los usos léxicos del español utilizado en la realidad”, se afirma en el comunicado. La RAE no puede declinar su compromiso, mantenido desde hace tres siglos, de ofrecer al conjunto de nuestra comunidad lingüística el repertorio más fiel que sea posibleLa Real Academia Española “manifiesta su máximo respeto y consideración hacia la comunidad gitana y todos y cada uno de sus miembros”, pero “no puede declinar su compromiso, mantenido desde hace tres siglos, de ofrecer al conjunto de nuestra comunidad lingüística el repertorio más fiel que sea posible de las palabras que los hispanohablantes usan libre y espontáneamente en todas sus acepciones”.

Cuando se le plantean peticiones de eliminar del diccionario determinadas entradas o acepciones, la Academia “examina con cuidado todos los casos”, pero “no siempre puede atender algunas propuestas de supresión, pues los sentidos implicados han estado hasta hace poco, o siguen estando vigentes en la comunidad social”. “Al plasmarlos en el Diccionario, el lexicógrafo está haciendo un ejercicio de veracidad; está reflejando usos lingüísticos efectivos, pero no está incitando a nadie a ninguna descalificación ni presta su aquiescencia a las creencias o percepciones correspondientes”, indica la Academia.

The French search engine Qwant says it does not track people’s online movements.Credit
PARIS — Only a brave — or maybe foolhardy — company would take on Google.

Yet from a small office near the banks of the river Seine, a French search engine called Qwant is doing just that.

The French start-up, whose product was released 18 months ago, is tapping into growing anger here that Google has too much control over how Europeans surf the web.

Some of the region’s lawmakers have already called for the breakup of the American search giant, while the European Commission, the executive arm of the European Union, is in the middle of a long antitrust investigation into Google’s roughly 85 percent share of the European search engine market.

“There’s a need for a choice,” Jean Manuel Rozan, a former financier who co-founded Qwant in 2011, said recently over a cup of coffee. “Europe is the only place in the world where people think that Google is the Internet.”

Turning Europe’s anti-Google sentiment into a successful business, however, is easier said than done.

Google and its various services, including maps and online shopping, hold a tight grip over how Europeans search for information. And despite Europeans’ perceived antipathy toward American tech companies like Amazon and Facebook, the companies continue to have strong followings across the 28-country bloc.

To stand out from the crowd, Qwant sold a 20 percent stake to Axel Springer, the German publisher, this year for roughly $6 million, mostly to buy European servers. Mathias Döpfner, the publisher’s chief executive, has openly criticized Google’s online dominance. Mr. Rozan says Qwant made about a $1.8 million profit last year but will post a loss for 2014 as the company expands into new markets like Germany. The company employs fewer than 50 people between its offices in Paris and Nice, a city in southern France.

The French start-up also has also tried to tap into Europeans’ growing distrust about how they are tracked online, as the likes of Google and Facebook use data gathered from people’s online histories to tailor advertising specifically to individuals.

Along with other Google alternatives like DuckDuckGo and Ixquick, a Dutch search engine, Qwant says it does not track people’s online movements and sells advertising based only on individuals’ search queries.

“We can build a valuable company that can deliver search results to people without tracking them,” said Mr. Rozan, who said that people made about 1.6 billion search queries through Qwant in 2014 — or less than half the search queries that Google handles in just one day.

Qwant also plans to release a child-friendly search engine — Qwant Junior — in early 2015. Google has announced similar plans, but in a sign that the French government is eager to find an alternative to the American tech company, the country’s education ministry has said that it will start using Qwant Junior in some French schools next year.

“If you have three million children who will search on Qwant, then there’ll be six million parents who will know about Qwant,” said Eric Leandri, another of the start-up’s co-founders, who added that the start-up was in discussions with Axel Springer to become the default search engine on some of the publisher’s websites. “When we launched, everyone explained to us why we shouldn’t do this. Now, they think it’s a great idea.”

Qwant’s other twist to the traditional search engine model is to include social media posts from services like Twitter directly in search results.

When people use the company’s search engine, for example, four columns appear on the webpage that offer different takes on Internet queries. That ranges from traditional search results to something called Qnowledge Graph, which offers general information based on the search, drawn from sites including Wikipedia.

“We want to give results from both the web and social networks,” said Mr. Rozan of Qwant. “If we’re just going to offer the same service as Google, we should stop now.”

The French could also learn some lessons from Europe’s past. In 2008, a French consortium — backed by the country’s politicians — created Quaero, an online search tool that was supposed to rival its American counterparts. Yet after  $240 million in public and private funding and several efforts to revamp the project, Quaero shut at the end of 2013.

Despite previous failures to a build a credible European search engine, Qwant’s co-founders hope its focus on privacy and attempts to combine social media posts and traditional search results will set it apart from Google, whose projects are as diverse as a smartphone operating system and trying to develop driverless cars.

“Google isn’t a search engine anymore,” said Mr. Leandri of Qwant. “We are just a search engine. We don’t do robots.”

PUNE: "Derp! Let's make a selvie with this geek chic look, before digital detox hits." From SMSs, to Whatsapping and 140-character tweets, this is the new age language in social media. It is the age where you don't make videos of yourself, you make selvies.

Where to master the fashionable techno look is to go geek chic. Where detox is not just of the body and mind, but also of all things digital.

And, where you would rather shout out derp than use a word to express the futility of a given moment.

Social media has also helped English language evolve in the last 10 years. Twitter is credited with having the maximum impact on the English language with its 140 character limits and the need to be succinct transforming the ways people talk to each other online.

Amish Singha, a literature student, said, "In college, we read playwrights, poets and authors and focus on linguistics. But outside the classroom, amongst friends, the language we use is not the same. That is the beauty of the English language — it lends itself so easily to being modelled and re-modelled." Many terms gain popularity due to the usage at a particular time like twerking, Obamacare and tiki-taka.

Linguistics professor Shiuli Bhattacharyya said a language has to evolve or it stands the risk of dying out. "Look at what happened to Latin or our very own Sanskrit. These were the languages of the learned, but with time they became obsolete," she added.

Bhattacharyya said the evolution of language has a flipside too.

"There is the fear of the original language diluting to a point of no return. But caging language to preserve it will not save it either. We need to find a balance. The language should be preserved," she added.

The words that surround us every day influence the words we use. Since so much of the written language we see is now on the screens of our computers, tablets, and smartphones, language now evolves partly through our interaction with technology.

But will such usage add to the Gen Y and senior citizens divide? Sociologist Sunita Gupta thinks so. "When youngsters talk to their grandparents or even parents using such colloquial terms, many a times the seniors are at a loss," she said.

The evolution of language benefits the youth, not the elders, she added. "At a certain age you can no longer pick up new languages or learn new terms. So, naturally you feel alienated from your kids. Language is supposed to bridge gaps, not alienate," she added.

Bhattacharyya felt at this point, the new age words are not really adding to the richness of the language, but ten years down the line, it may not be the case.

"William Shakespeare and Charles Dickens have coined so many words that are common now. Maybe the usage has changed a bit, but they are part of the language. The same may happen with these words too," she added.

On the flipside, language also loses many words each year. "You won't find people using words like jargogle, twattle, lunting or the amusing beef-witted anymore. But you have to retain the basics.One cannot lose the language," she smiles.

Languages divide

1 JANUARY 2015

I applaud the argument that a deeper understanding of foreign languages is essential in international negotiations, be they commercial, political or cultural (“The words are not enough”, News, 11 December).

Too much emphasis on the utilitarian values of language learning, treating languages simply as another employment skill, has been a key contributor to the decline of single-honours degrees in languages in UK universities.

Paradoxically, however, few career advisers encourage pupils to consider a degree in languages to enhance their job prospects. As a result, applications for language degree courses from state schools pupils in particular are decreasing, creating a serious social gap that can only damage the future of the nation in terms of global competitiveness and social cohesion.

Li Wei
Chair, University Council of General and Applied Linguistics

Do you speak English and another language or know someone who does?

The state Judiciary is looking for individuals who speak both English and another language to become court interpreters.

State court interpreter orientation workshops, which are mandatory for the position, are scheduled to be held in Hilo on Thursday and Friday, March 19-20.

Applications for the two-day workshop are currently being accepted and the registration deadline is Jan. 23.

Formss can be found online on the Judiciary’s website, as well as from the Office on Equality and Access to the Courts at (808) 539-4860. The workshops requires a $120 registration fee, and includes a resource binder.

Individuals who are certified sign language interpreters are also encouraged to apply.

Other requirements, in addition to the successful completion of the orientation workshop to become a state court interpreter, include a written English proficiency exam, a court interpreter ethics exam, and the clearing of a criminal background check.

The job is paid on a freelance basis where court interpreters work as independent contractors in cases where parties or witnesses are unable to hear, understand, speak or use English sufficiently.

Pay depends on the interpreter’s performance on written and oral exams, and is between $25 and $55 per hour with a two-hour minimum.

LOTS of cool new technology products come out every year, but usually only a few stand out. These few, though, are often mind-bending — they alter your perspective of what’s possible in the future. There were four such technologies for me in 2014:

DJI INSPIRE 1 Imagine taking control of an evil dragonfly that can record everything it sees. Then you’ll have some approximation of what it’s like to fly the Inspire 1, a remote-controlled quadricopter released in the fall by the drone-maker DJI. The machine, which sells for about $3,000, is agile and powerful when in flight and offers a few unusual features. Its attached high-definition camera hangs a few inches underneath its body, allowing it to capture an unobstructed picture in any direction. The bird can be operated by two remote controls — one to control flight, and the other to control the camera.

Romeo Durscher, a drone pilot who works at DJI, let me take control of the Inspire 1 during a test flight over the San Francisco peninsula just before Thanksgiving. As he described all the serious uses for the bird — especially for photographers and videographers who’ve long yearned for a cheap alternative to helicopters for aerial imagery — I became hooked. It’s hard to think of a more visceral pleasure in tech than a machine that can dart across the sky at your will. Welcome to the terrifying thrill of the drone age.

Photo

The Oculus Rift Crescent Bay prototype. It conveys the sense of being immersed in a picture that those who have tried it call “mind-blowing.”
OCULUS RIFT’S CRESCENT BAY In March, Facebook announced that it would spend $2 billion to acquire Oculus, a start-up whose virtual-reality headset has generated huge interest. The company’s progress since then has cemented the logic of the acquisition: Oculus’s virtual-reality tech just keeps getting more and more realistic.

One huge problem in virtual reality is motion sickness. If your eyes see a picture that looks just slightly out of sync with your perception of motion, you’re going to feel a little queasy. In September, Oculus showed its latest prototype, Crescent Bay, that can track a user’s head in a complete 360-degree swivel, allowing for a sense of being immersed in a picture that observers called “mind-blowing.” When I tested an earlier prototype alongside a more sophisticated virtual-reality machine at Stanford University in the fall, I felt pretty much the same thing. Virtual reality sounds like a gimmick, until you try it; then you’ll understand why, in the future, we might often escape reality.

SKYPE TRANSLATOR The universal translator that can automatically bridge any language barrier has long been a staple of science fiction. Now it’s almost here, at least in a limited, but still quite impressive, demonstration. Skype, the popular video-calling service owned by Microsoft, unveiled in December a preview version of Skype Translator, which performs near-instantaneous voice translation between people speaking English and Spanish. You can call up a business contact in Mexico and say, “Hello,” and she’ll hear a friendly, Siri-like voice say, “Hola!” on the other end.

Continue reading the main storyContinue reading the main story
But it goes deeper. In Microsoft’s demonstration, students in Mexico City and Tacoma, Wash., were able to understand each other well enough to play a guessing game. After trying out the preview, Peter Bright, a writer at Ars Technica, called it “breathtaking.” He added: “It’s like science fiction has come to life.”

Skype Translator is the product of Microsoft’s deep investments in machine learning and natural-language processing. Because those processes only get better as more people use them, services like Skype Translator are bound to get much better.

GOOGLE’S IMAGE SUMMARIES A few young men in shorts and T-shirts are standing on a wide-open green field, all posed as if they’re in motion, and between then, in midair, is a small white orb that appears to be made out of plastic and seems to be spinning. How would you describe this scene in a few words? If you’re human, it likely won’t take you more than a few milliseconds to come up with a caption: “A group of young people playing a game of Frisbee.”

But if you’re a computer, translating such an image into words has long been out of reach. Until now. In November, Google showed off the results of an artificial intelligence project that can look at an image consisting of common items and describe, in comprehensible English words, what’s going on in the picture — often with startling accuracy. Given a picture of two pizzas sitting on a white kitchen stove, the machine spit out, “Two pizzas sitting on top of a stovetop oven.” It did as well identifying a group of elephants, a guy riding a dirt bike and thousands of other such images.

The system uses a neural network, an artificial intelligence system that mimics the human brain, and which Google has used, in the past, to identify cats in YouTube videos. It still isn’t perfect, though. Given a picture of a road sign covered in stickers, the computer saw “a refrigerator filled with lots of food and drinks.”

NEXT IN PERSONAL TECH
Bedtime Technology for a Better Night’s Sleep
MOST EMAILED


Well: The Super-Short Workout and Other Fitness Trends

What Made College Football More Like the Pros? $7.3 Billion, for a Start

‘Downton Abbey’ and History: A Look Back

Frank Bruni: A Democrat to Watch in 2015
Op-Ed | Steven Rattner: The Year in Charts

The Wreck of the Kulluk

This Land: An Oasis of Care for People With Intellectual Disabilities
Restaurants: The 10 Best New Restaurants of 2014

Putin's Way: How Putin Forged a Pipeline Deal That Derailed

Editorial: When New York City Police Walk Off the Job
View Complete List »
More on nytimes.com
More in Personal TechGo to the Personal Tech Section »

MACHINE LEARNING

Bedtime Technology for a Better Night’s Sleep

STATE OF THE ART

Retina 5K iMac: Powerful Proof of the PC Renaissance

APP SMART

Apps to Ring In the New Year, and for the Resolutions After

GADGETWISE

Ways to Avoid Email Tracking
Q&A

Managing Mail on the Mac
Also, guides for Android users and news from Facebook, including a reminder that a new privacy policy goes into effect...
Q&A

Adding the Sun, Moon and Stars to Google Calendar
Include some interesting events — off-planet and closer — to your daily reminders.

L'entraîneur-chef d'Équipe Canada junior ne va plus s'adresser aux médias en français au début des conférences de presse d'après-match, comme il avait coutume de le faire jusqu'à maintenant au Championnat mondial junior. Benoît Groulx parlera plutôt anglais pour se plier aux règlements de la Fédération internationale de hockey sur glace (IIHF).

Groulx a été pris à partie par un journaliste finlandais, lundi soir, après la victoire du Canada sur la Finlande (4-1). Après chaque match, les deux entraîneurs doivent faire une brève déclaration devant les journalistes. Selon les règlements de l'IIHF, la déclaration doit être en anglais, ou à tout le moins traduite pour les médias internationaux.

Sauf que depuis le début du tournoi, Groulx fait sa déclaration initiale en français, sans traduction. Il répond ensuite aux questions des journalistes en anglais ou en français, selon que la question soit posée dans une langue ou l'autre.

«Seul un entraîneur canadien peut être assez arrogant pour s'adresser à des médias internationaux en français», a tweeté lundi soir le journaliste finlandais Juha Hiitelä. Puis, dans un message subséquent, il a soutenu que l'entraîneur finlandais, qui ne comprend pas le français, avait aussi trouvé le geste «arrogant». «J'aurais dû parler finnois», a dit Hannu Jortikka, qui avait plutôt fait sa déclaration en anglais.

Traduction offerte

Hier, l'IIHF a envoyé une note aux organisateurs du tournoi pour leur rappeler qu'une traduction doit être fournie. «Il peut parler en français, mais ça doit être traduit», a expliqué un porte-parole de la fédération, Adam Steiss.

Mais plutôt que de recourir à des services de traduction, Benoît Groulx va simplement parler anglais à partir d'aujourd'hui, après le match Canada-États-Unis à Montréal.

«Je l'ai fait de façon anodine. Dans notre premier match, le coach slovaque ne parlait ni anglais ni français. Ensuite, le coach allemand vient de Montréal et parle français, explique Groulx. Je ne pensais pas que c'était un problème. Je me suis rendu compte hier que l'entraîneur finlandais ne parlait pas français. Je vais faire attention et parler en anglais la prochaine fois.»

Après la déclaration initiale, l'entraîneur répond aux questions des journalistes. Selon le règlement de l'IIHF, ces réponses doivent aussi être traduites lorsqu'elles ne sont pas en anglais. «Mais on est flexible là-dessus», explique Adam Steiss. Groulx devrait donc pouvoir répondre aux questions des médias québécois en français.

Les traductions sont à envoyer au comité français d'Eurodram avant le 31 décembre 2014

The most used word in 2014 isn’t a word, but an emoji — the heart emoji, to be exact.

This is the 15th year that media company Global Language Monitor has revealed what it says are the most commonly used words, phrases and names.

The Austin, Texas-based company says that the lists are comprised through computerized algorithms that analyze the use of English words across the internet.

“We have millions of sources that we check,” says Paul J.J. Payack, president and chief word analyst at the GLM. “We look at the 275,000 top newspapers in the world, books, social media, and several million blogs. Specifically, the heart emoji went wild, showing up millions of times a day.”

The heart emoji is at the top of the list for most used words in 2014. Trailing behind at number two is the popular pound-sign hashtag, followed by “vape” (smoking an electric cigarette), which stands at number three.

Top Words of 2014

The Heart Emoji (for love)
Hashtag
Vape
Blood Moon
Nano
Photo Bomb
Caliphate
(White) privilege
Bae
“Bash” Tag
Transparency
Sustainable
Clickbait
Quindecennial
Comet
Last year, the top words were “404,” “fail” and “hashtag.”

In addition to figuring out the most popular words, GLM also ranks top names and phrases annually.

As a result of the shooting of an unarmed teen in Ferguson, Missouri, demonstrators chanted “hands up, don’t shoot” during protests, making it the number one most used phrase of 2014.

“Cosmic inflation” and “global warming” ranked at numbers two and three, respectively.

GLM released the list of most popular words, names, and phrases on Christmas Day.

To qualify for the lists, all words must be found globally, have a minimum of 25,000 search engine results and have depth, meaning they must appear in various forms of media.

PenPower, a provider for devices with built-in smart human-machine interface technologies, announced on Tuesday (December 31st) that it has launched a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter for its new product,  WorldPenScan X. The device is considered the world’s  first pen scanner for iOS and Android smartphones.

Product manager at PenPower, Daniel Liu shared, “With this scanner, users can extract printed sentences and convert them into texts on the smart phone. By integrating with translation software, WorldPenScan X can turn your smart phone into an electronic translator.”
Along with the newest Bluetooth LE technology, no extra setup is needed to pair the Bluetooth connection between WorldPenScan X and smart phones. Bluetooth connection is automatically established when powered on. Users can scan sentence by sentence in books, newspapers, flyers, and magazines, easily get them translated into foreign languages and share the information across iOS, Android, Mac and Windows. Liu noted, “You scan documents anytime, translate and share information anywhere. Export the information to your desktop computer through your favorite productivity application for a seamless transition.”

WorldPenScan X can recognize more than 30 frequently used languages, including English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Arabic, Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, Japanese and Korean. On the desktop PC or Mac, nearly 200 languages can be recognized and translated.

Liu then added, “During the developing process, we have made great efforts and overcome a lot of difficulties. We broke through the limits of BLE technology by optimizing the transmission mechanism, especially to iPhone. And we also developed a special Thresholding method to ensure we get the best image quality for higher recognition accuracy. Now, we are almost there and we need your help to pledge the project and better yet share this with your friends.”