Languistics

I'm a frequent browser of Language Log (see also my sidebar links) and I've always loved wordplay, puns, and general language oddities. (Even now I just wondered for the first time why the study of language is called linguistics and not languistics and that's how I came up with the post title. I would guess it probably has something to do with Latin, that famously dead ol' language that just never quite goes away.)

Anyway, yesterday I received in the mail a postcard ad for a local realtor. Boldly exclaimed across the top of the card is the slogan "I Get Results!" Really? That's nice. But wouldn't it be better to say something along the lines of "I get positive results" or perhaps "I get the results you're seeking," anything which better conveys a favorable outcome for the potential client? After all, doesn't everyone get results, one way or another? The guy who first tried parachuting out of an airplane got a result, I'm sure. All the folks who tried to developed flying machines before the Wright Brothers got results too. Evel Knievel's bones suffered from many a result after his numerous motorcycle jumps.

Another language-related observation requires a bit of an intro...

I once commented in the past on the somewhat annoying (in my opinion) practice of my ISP's home page—the default initial page no matter what I've set as my desired home page in the web browser—offering headlines gathered from the web, but presenting them in a partial format with just the first few words showing followed by "..." to indicate there's more. Naturally you have to click to read the rest. (Sometimes there even appears to be ample space for one or two more words instead of the ellipsis, but regardless I can't understand why they don't just figure out a way to provide a second line wraparound to show the full headline.)

To be fair, often just the fragment is sufficient to provide at least a clue as to what the item is about. But other times there's no way to really understand it except to click the link. For instance, you might see something like "Doctors warn against sex..."—WHAT?! In trees? With chipmunks? In trees with chipmunks? The imagination can run wild (but usually runs to chipmunks).

Of course, if you click the link it takes you to a page where the full headline appears, but only a brief partial blurb or summary of the item in question. You still have to click yet another link to get to the full story. But at least the intervening blurb page usually has numerous useful and benevolent comments from visitors who somehow make the issue—whatever it may be—out to be George Bush's fault or encouraging everyone to pray that God's will be done and then a polite and respectful debate ensues. That's probably best left, though, as fodder for another post someday (if I should even dare to venture into such things in more detail, but I suspect I shouldn't so I probably won't).

Anyway, my next language observation really has nothing all that much to do with the partialness of the headline except that the practice, by its very use, can contribute to a certain amount of confusion. In one of those headline fragments I just encountered a word I don't recall having seen before. The visible part was "Creative Labs goes after modder who makes..." and clicking the link brought up the rest: "...their sound cards actually work on Vista."

The word "modder" briefly threw me. I actually did figure it out before I even clicked the link (as you no doubt already have as well, being the obviously astute reader you are for visiting here—LOL!). At first I briefly wondered if they meant "mudder" though I didn't see why Creative Labs would care at all about race horses. The next thing that occurred to me was the better possibility that they typoed "mother," but I still didn't think so. (Or perhaps they meant "monger."—LOL again!) Finally I realized that "modder" is a slanged-up version of "modifier," as in one who tinkers with a product and gets it to do things it otherwise wouldn't (and possibly shouldn't). Maybe this is an accepted term in wide use, but nevertheless it briefly baffled me.

Oh yeah, the headline linked, oddly enough, to a particular Creative Labs message board instead of, as is much more usual, an actual news article or blog item about something. As for the issue of what the "modder" was doing and why Creative Labs took issue with him, I have no comment one way or another, especially since I ended up not really delving into the matter any further.

(By the way, just because I perceive some peculiarities in other folks' language skills or wording choices on occasion does not mean that I think I'm immune to linguistic lapses. I'm not. Why, I'd bet that you can probably find all sorts of verbal oddities and linquistic quibbling points in this post alone!)