The feeling of guilt for using too much carbon,

e.g. too much air travel,

driving to the corner shop in the car, etc

‘Man, I have to fly to Zurich for the second time this month’

‘Whoa, you must have some major carbon guilt over that’

Summer 1979–writing my doctoral dissertation (on a typewriter) in an unairconditioned apartment in St. Paul–and listening to Patti Smith:

“Love is the power to see similarity in the dissimilar.” Minima Moralia.

Kairos: the Journal of Rhetoric, Technology, and Pedagogy announces a new venue for learning and research, the PraxisWiki. The editors are opening PraxisWiki to graduate courses addressing research in computers and writing. PraxisWiki offers an opportunity for graduate students to engage in online scholarly collaboration with colleagues from other programs and the Kairos Praxis editorial staff.

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What do you call a word that can convey opposite meanings depending on how it’s used? A word such as sanction, which can mean either “allow” or “prohibit.” Or screen,…

To calculate how cost effective an alcoholic beverage is. Otherwise known as the cost per shot ratio.

Ben - I am so drunk off the two Fuzzy Navals I consumed in the last 10 hours.

Neal - I just alculated that you are a sober loser.

Last week the Texas Supreme Court ruled against a young woman who had sought damages from an Assemblies of God church for an exorcism done when she was 17, largely on free-exercise grounds. The case is

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Voting is such a basic right in a healthy democracy, yet it becomes the nexus of so much corruption…here, and elsewhere in the world. The people are the stake-holders, as it were, and our votes are the stakes. But what happens when those stakes are denied us, or worse, forced upon us with no viable set of options. The ONE candidate, the ONE stake, sets up a sham election…and often a violent sham at that. Zimbabwe is a prime example of the classic double bind, damned if you do, damned if you don’t. ‘Hanging chads’ takes on a whole new meaning (along with lynching/cinching the vote). What happened in Zimbabwe should be paired with classroom discussions and writing prompts as we enter this last stretch in the U.S. presidential election.

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Acronym for ‘I think you’ll find’

Because sometimes FYI just isn’t irritating and smug enough.

"FYI the dress code in this office is for ties to worn to all meetings"

"ITYF it is normal to dress-down on dress-down Fridays"

Does the English word Ahoy!, a shout of attention, really come from Czech?

What’s the history behind Soapbox in the sense of a speaker’s platform?

If something is said to be Sapid, would you eat it?

(phrase): for a heterosexual to enter an LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans) event such as a Pride parade or festival. Coined by Natasha Bedingfield in an interview about Milwaukee’s Pridefest in Summer of 2008, referring to gate crashing, but the interviewer heard "gate" as "gay," which was equally appropriate.

1. There were so many men at the New Kids On the Block concert, I felt like I was gay crashing!

2. We’re going to gay crash Woody’s after dinner and then go to the midnight movie.

McCain develops a video game. I don’t think I’ll embed it on our website, though.

I hadn’t had a cigarette since 1990, but certain departmental events (note the external locus of control) in 2003 led me back to them. I now have not had a cigarette for a week; today the mental fog seems to have lifted, so I’m implementing the following policy. If you see me at the office or a conference and I am smoking a cigarette, I am required to pay you $1. You may claim this simply by pointing at the cigarette and rubbing your fingers together. This policy does not apply to pipes or cigars.

Rhetorician I.A. Richards (1893-1979) called them the most important words for two reasons:
They cover the ideas we can least avoid using, those which are concerned in all that…

A “Tip-of-the-Hat”, if you will, after a bystander passes gas in an egregious manner. Basically it is your vote of approval during post-flatulence that the individual did indeed go above and beyond the normal farting standards.

Chris: <FAAARRRRRRT>!!!

George: "Good Push, Chris!"

I asked my students to bring in examples of speeches that trouble in some form or fashion some of the ethical stances of communication that we discussed in the ethics unit. One student gave a very moving presentation, in which he came out to the class. He held a sign that read “I heard you” as he played the following youtube clip. Happy Anniversary, Stonewall.

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The Washington DC gun control ruling should come down from the Supremes around 9 a.m. central time. If you want the live blog, check here. It would appear that Scalia will be issuing the majority opinion (since he hasn’t written a majority opinion for this particular sitting, and the CJ usually distributes them as evenly as possible).

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“We do not understand music — it understands us. This is as true for the musician as for the layman. When we think ourselves closest to it, it speaks to us and waits sad-eyed for us to answer.”

The philosophy that when you die, your soul goes up on a roof and gets stuck. (George Carlin)

"I don’t believe in rencarnation I am a strong Frisbeetarianist."

This is the most depressing thing I’ve read in a while: efforts to police the food served at the Democratic National Convention in Denver–no fried food, for example. I just don’t get it–this yuppie authoritarianism.

I find it a difficult but useful exercise when I am asked to summarize, whether for a grant application or book proposal or the recent workshop at Northwestern, what it is that I do, or how I go about analyzing texts/events. Here’s a quite condensed description that I’m trying to flesh out, so any questions/condemnations would be helpful.

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For those of you (like me) gearing up for the U of Wisconsin Public Address conference on Civic Republicanism this September, a very useful review of an edited volume on Republicanism and Political Theory, including a short bibliography. The discussion of neo-Athenian and neo-Roman versions of the republican revival is especially interesting.

Over 400 years ago, an English curate named Henry Peacham characterized the figures of speech as “wisdom speaking eloquently.” Through the play of language, he said, “the singular partes of…

using email to back out or ditch on plans, dates and even relationships.

he didn’t want a confrontation so he decided to email bail on the chick he promised to call last night.

(adj) Something which arouses no interest at all.

Used to politely avoid admitting this, which indirectly expresses your indifference.

Yes, your bottle cap collection is interesting.

the routine at issue in the landmark free speech case,
FCC v. Pacifica:

Words fascinated George Carlin. From his early routine on “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television” to the inventory of euphemisms in “Airline Announcements,” language–especially bent or abused language–was…

Over 400 years ago, an English curate named Henry Peacham characterized the figures of speech as “wisdom speaking eloquently.” Through the play of language, he said, “the singular partes of…

The common practice of men, where after using a public restroom, instead of actually washing their hands, they simply slightly dampen them under the sink and then dry them on the pants or a paper towel. Thus giving the illusion that they did in fact wash their hands.

She ragged on you about washing your hands? Why didn’t you do a courtesy wash?

Mark Liberman of Language Log bids (an early?) farewell to the Bushism:

“Count me among those who will not be at all sad to see the last of the Bushisms industry. In the end, it’s a bit like making wheelchair jokes about FDR, except that all of us commit infelicities of verbal expression from time to time. I guess that W gets tangled up a bit more often than most politicians do, although I think that even this much is not entirely certain.”

Porn created with the game Spore.

"Hurry up and watch that sporn on Youtube before it gets removed."

A British term for a friendly if inconsequential conversation, Chin wag, delights a subscriber.

EU legislation may outlaw a particularly public example of Contextomy.

A rare word, Gorbellied is just as much an insult as it sounds.

A sexually explicit animated icon used in chat conversations.

Pat really got me in trouble with my boss when he unleashed his new bukake eroticons in our MSN chat while I was doing a presentation to a group of investors.

SCOTUSblog tries to read the tealeaves for next Monday’s big Supreme Court cases, by counting the distribution of majority opinions thus far in this term. The 3 big cases (I’ll add the links later, time permitting) are DC v.

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“There is some who say that perhaps freedom is not universal. Maybe it’s only Western people that can self-govern. Maybe it’s only, you know, white-guy Methodists who are capable of self-government. I reject that notion.”—London, June 16, 2008

Remember when Republicans believed in racial equality?

(from Wikipedia):

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“A good writer is simply one who says all he wants to say, who says only what he means to say, and who says it exactly as he meant to…

Intentionally posing in other people’s photos, for a later surprise.

Usually people making funny faces in the background, without the knowledge of the main subjects of the photo.

Jim is always photobombing, he messed ups some of the best photos from the wedding.

The 46th Anniversary of SDS’ Port Huron Statement was last weekend. It’s still inspiring, I think, despite my own solidly Old Left commitments. I think we need a panel of close readings/analyses of this document for the next RSA. Any thoughts, now?

I noticed Trent Baston has been writing some interesting opinion pieces for Campus Technology. Yesterday’s article was “Learning in the Webiverse: How Do You Grade a Conversation?” Here’s the teaser:

Academics have long talked of the “academic conversation.” Now, Web 2.0 has called our bluff. We live in the midst of a non-stop world conversation. But, are conversational skills (in writing) important and, if so, how do we teach them?

See also these recent articles:

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Used in many MMORPG’s to indicate that you will be away to go to the restroom.

Dude1 "Hey dude, sorry, but I need to take a bio break because it feels as if I have a turtle-head poking out."

Dude2 "Dude, please, just say your going bio. I don’t want a picture dude."

Firefox 3 has just been released to a massive wave of early adopters, and, based on my experience with the betas and now the production version, I can attest to its performance improvements and cool new interface. However, I ran into a problem when installing Firefox 3, wherein all of my Firefox 2 bookmarks were lost. For all the open source folks here, I thought I’d post a link to mozillaZine’s solution to the bookmark problem.

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Time has a piece on a recent report about the potential for our enemies to create a ’super-soldier’ along the lines of the fear-mongering that went on during the Cold War. The rhetoric of fear takes many forms, and it strikes me that looking beyond this election (and the hopeful change in the administration), we should tackle (and by that I mean take on, rhetorically) the media who give space for this kind of so-called reporting.

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For some years I have been confident that a revival of the study of English grammar was certain to come. There are two reasons for my confidence. The first is…

This button is on sale at the Republican State Convention courtesy of a group called Republican Market. The Austinist’s Patrick Dentler points to this and asks whether mudslinging by political candidates is the least of our problems in the coming months:

“With this being the first presidential election since the ascension of YouTube and blog culture, many see the mudslinging and dirty work being done not by the candidates, but by surrogates [and] independent interest groups.”

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How the fuck.

HTF do you expect to pull that off?

Nope, no sense of decency, sirs, at long last. . . .

A research question: is there any reference work that would tell me what the sales figures are for, say, a novel published in 1929?

Charity Mugger. One of those people who stands in the street with a big brightly-coloured bib and quite possibly a clipboard soliticing donations to the Feline Liberation Army or some other worthy cause.

Bloody hell, I had to pretend to be on my mobile phone for about ten minutes walking down the High Street to avoid all the chuggers!

Today’s opinion column in the NYT is worth a look. Stanley Fish takes on his critics on the topic of politics. Whether you agree with him or not, it’s refreshing to see a “public intellectual” given ‘voice’ in the mainstream media.

I spent Thursday through today at Northwestern University. The rhetoric folks had the good idea of letting their graduate students plan a workshop, in this case bringing in Sam McCormick, Katya Haskins, and me to talk informally about our work, starting with responses to three questions: 1. How we conceive the role of the rhetorical critic, 2. How we define rhetorical studies and our relationship to the larger field of rhetorical studies, and 3.

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In these 10 articles, we turn to the pros for smart advice on how to improve our own prose.

Natalia Ginzburg: On Being a Great Small Writer
“I try to capture the…

To become enraged; to lose one’s temper, clothing and power of coherent speech before embarking on a spree of violence and wanton destruction. After the comicbook character who turned from an unregarded geek into a thundering green mass of unstoppable fury.

"It all happened so fast… the Broncos ran in their fifth touchdown and he just Hulked out. I hope he’s going to pay for a new TV. And window."

Is there anything our dear Kendall cannot do? He can be heard giggling, thoughtfully, on NPR’s All Things Considered, aired yesterday.

Vomit or snot from a baby found around the upper chest or shoulders of their father which shows the world that they are a parent.

Nice shirt Pete, was the daddy badge an optional extra?

Did Back to square one really derive from BBC football commentaries? We say not.

A reader objects to World Wide Words using preventative. Surely the right word is preventive?

A rare term derived from Latin, Patibulary ought to have solemn and religious associations, but is often used facetiously.

Personification given to mainly booze, and sometimes referring to other drugs. Generally used to refer to drugs when a person is feeling down and a person is saying it’s what they need and/or use to feel better.

Guy 1: That sucks about your girlfriend leaving you for another guy after all your time together

Guy 2: Yeah, I’m gonna have a few appointments with Dr. Feelgood, even one tonight.

In one respect, present participles are pretty simple, straightforward constructions. Whether laughing or crying, they’re formed by adding -ing to the base form of a verb. No exceptions. Present…

The mother of your child(ren), whom you did not marry and with whom you are not currently involved.

Oh her? She ain’t nothing to me now, girl, she just my baby mama. So, can I get your number?

The mother of your child(ren), whom you did not marry and with whom you are not currently involved.

Oh her? She ain’t nothing to me now, girl, she just my baby mama. So, can I get your number?

A point in a conversation where you say something that you really didn’t mean to.

I told Robin that I saw Mike with some girl at the movie theater last night. It just came out of my mouth like Word Vomit.

A point in a conversation where you say something that you really didn’t mean to.

I told Robin that I saw Mike with some girl at the movie theater last night. It just came out of my mouth like Word Vomit.

This is evidently not a parody website.

For a couple of weeks, I’ve been reading about how David Sedaris’ new book may contain some “exaggerations.” It seems to me that this became a hot-button issue (or at least more of of a hot-button issue) when Oprah berated James Frey about his “lies” in A Million Little Pieces. Sedaris admits that he exaggerated some details…he is a storyteller after all.

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In an exclusive interview with the London Times, Bush ” expressed regret at the bitter divisions over the war and said that he was troubled about how his country had been misunderstood. ‘I think that in retrospect I could have used a different tone, a different rhetoric. Phrases such as ‘bring them on’ or ‘dead or alive’ . . . indicated to people that I was, you know, not a man of peace’. “

“When I say writing,” observed novelist Robert Louis Stevenson, “O believe me, it is rewriting that I have chiefly in mind.” Indeed, says Joyce Carol Oates, “The pleasure is the…

Driving techniques and car mods aimed at increasing your gas mileage to the absolute max. Often practiced with a Toyota Prius or other hybrid vehicle.

Yoshi is hypermiling cross country this week. He is trying to go from Chicago to LA on one tank of gas!

A little tempest is occurring on CRTnet, the listserv for NCA, over the most recent issue of QJS (which I thought was remarkably good, not least because Debra Hawhee has an uncanny ability to get people to write book reviews, something that anyone who has been a book review editor knows is nigh unto impossible these days). I get the sense from reading the exchanges (Lucaites did a perfectly fine job of responding) that some other agenda is being pursued here, but I’m not sure what.

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An adjective used in hip-hop culture to describe someone who is considered to be well respected, coming from a combination of the words "true" and "real".

Trill ass niggaz keep it true and real.

An adjective used in hip-hop culture to describe someone who is considered to be well respected, coming from a combination of the words "true" and "real".

Trill ass niggaz keep it true and real.

“Whoever thinks is not enraged in all his critique: thinking has sublimated the rage. Because the thinking person does not need to inflict rage upon himself, he does not wish to inflict it on others. The happiness that dawns in the eye of the thinking person is the happiness of humanity. The universal tendency of oppression is opposed to thought as such. Thought is happiness, even where it defines unhappiness: by enunciating it. By this alone happiness reaches into the universal unhappiness. Whoever does not let it atrophy has not resigned.” T.W.

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This is why I’m not an early adopter:

“The mouse did seem to be waiting: instead of scampering into the darkness it held itself almost completely still, except for small attentive movements of its ears and the constant trembling of its whiskers.”

On the run from Urizen’s henchmen, the children undertake a hazardous underground journey. At the bottom of a frozen cavern, they find out more about one of the clue cards.

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Apple’s iPhone before activation. Refers to how useless it is when it can’t do anything, and its striking resemblance to a brick.

I can’t activate my iPhone, so I’m sitting at my computer crying and staring at my iBrick.

If you’re a logophile (that is, a “lover of words”), you probably enjoy challenging–or annoying–your friends with frequent installments of the game “Did you know?” For example, did you know…

Apple’s iPhone before activation. Refers to how useless it is when it can’t do anything, and its striking resemblance to a brick.

I can’t activate my iPhone, so I’m sitting at my computer crying and staring at my iBrick.

a person who does not wash their hands after urinating is placed on the ‘yellow list’, or they are ‘yellow listed’

Co-worker: You may want to double up on the hand sanitizer after shaking hands with Edith, she was yellow listed last week.