Criticism. Essay. Fiction. Science. Weather.
week:
1"Mark it 8, Dude." Get it?
Plus, fake facts are for sissies. 2The reality of the unreal
and the art of chewing. 3Getting interrogative with the Dark Continent
and ants are the Internet's idol. 4The author displays his clothes in piles on his bedroom floor. And 1,000,000 Rhode Islanders can't be wrong. 5One size counterfeits all, plus there's a run on limes and the movies don't talk good no more. 6The sweet and no-so-sweet of time travel
and the rigors of uncancellation. 7Personal Parties and Friend Finders considered 8Gamers of the world unite too much
and the new Star Wars scores. 9This week: one guaranteed way
to make yourself more famous. 10Awkward and tacky journalism in celebration of journalism. Plus, individuality now more expensive. 11There are balls in your head
and buds in your heart. 12The upsides of federal incorporation.
The downsides of shoddy adevertising. 13The first 90ways Quaterly Review begins!
1, 2, 3 pieces of Criticism! 14Not being able to look away from
bad grammar and junk material but still LMFAO. 15Spam can be fun if you don't
mind the corporate pimping. 16Some movies go Direct-To-Video.
We feel their pain. 17What the American media doesn't
want you to know about the Tour. 18Dumbing down The Honeymooners for
the preschool set; plus, pain as upper. 19It's 2005. Do you know what your
building's ecological ethic is? 20That building is whispering
ethical nothings in your ear. 21These movies will never know the
warm embrace of a projector lamp. Direct-to-video reviews return! 22The English language is growing & 90ways is on the case.
Neologisms Spoken Here. 23The American frontier is back and ugly as ever:
Here comes Sheriff Privatization. 24When making a British book into a British movie, it's all about the British, no matter what galaxy you're in. 25Condi bites the big one, Apple bites Condi, or Apple just bites. Plus, all the news that's packaged poorly. 26The Second Quarterly Review cometh... 27The rap album based on [adult swim]
has already been leaked. 28The road to Blockbuster is paved with good intentions: Direct-to-Video reviews are back! 29The preschool set belongs inside the lines
and the rain belongs in It. 30They're what everyone's talking with:
Neologisms Spoken Here. 31What time is it?
It's Standard Candy Time. 32Transportation is overrated.
And underrated. 3390ways' investigators go into the field.
And are vaguely saddened. 34See it again, whether you want to or not.
Picture this, in spite of yourself. 35Old comedians don't die,
they just get taken seriously. 36Pro: It's a 90ways debate.
Con: Both sides are just so salient. 37As long as Brokeback Mountain is sold out, we'll keep giving you Direct-to-DVD Reviews... 38At least we can all agree those people who say "Happy Christmas" are insane. 39The Third Quarterly Review
is ringing out the old year! 40New words for the new year. 41False starts and happy endings.
There's value in dead-ends. 4290ways has a confession to make.
We made up our history, too. 43Bringing you the latest from the world of dissembling: 90ways inaugurates the Hoax Report. 44It ain't about the facts, ma'am.
It's about the truth. 45Oscar nominations have been handed out. Direct-to-DVD movies snubbed again. 46What are the 90 points of it all? 47Spring: new growth, redemption,
Spring Traning. 48Technological advances notwithstanding, there's a whole new kind of static over the 6 o'clock news. 49O'Reilly's on the warpath.
The Chinese are not. 50The Hoax Report returns. And Canada beats Team USA. (That last part's actually true.) 51There's a lot packed into that intro and we feel no need to approach it in an organized manner. 52It's a surprise;
that's why you should have seen it coming. 53It's our party and we'll cry if we want to. 54Now that big, gothic banner looks positively antique. Plus, who cares about which cares about baseball. 55Being proud of Junior and bored in June. 56Every time I hear that song, I see a Cornell alum hitting a home run. 57What do heroin and Christian prayer have in common? They both star in the Direct-to-DVD finale! 58The cutting room floor in the desert.
The recording studio at first base. 59Tinted contact lenses and poorly delivered jokes. Foolproof. 60If you can't make a real quick 70 mill, how else do you justify a $125 million budget? 61Landmark case of 2006:
Orchestra v. Organ. 6290ways is interested in the words here, too. 63Everything in Criticism today is not quite right. 64Sports Utility Vehicles. Sort Of.
Sports. Golf, anyway.
65It's our Second Annual First Quarterly Review! 66Behold: The return of new word reviews. 67Bringing global warming in from the cold,
one dollar at a time. 68Don't believe the zinc industry's hype. 69It's crazy on the street.
It's best-selling on the teevee.
70Still crabbing about lost CD revenue?
Time to learn to shake your new moneymaker. 71Thrown into a plane.
With snakes. 72Space and Worlds and
snakes on planes. 73One giant vehicle is for war,
the other is for one day sales. 74It's all laid out for you.
From the numbing consumerism to the noble freedom. 75Sure the natural majesty was great,
but how about that Motel 8? 76One of life's great mysteries:
An Arby's in Mountain Time. 77Fall teevee is upon us.
Maybe some of it won't suck. 7852 + 26 = 78.
One and a half years of Ways. 79The smell of pigskin is in the autumn air. 80Someone needs to speak up in the name of common sense. 81New words are all around us.
Neologisms Spoken Here. 82What Dallas is now to someone who never knew it before: The Nostalgia Watch. 83Oh. The Horror.
A special Halloween installment of The Hoax Report. 84It was awful.
WomenAndChildren awful. 85It's like Carrie, but even better.
And somehow that became a great movie. 86He's in the corner.
And he wants to help you sleep. 87Up in the air. It's a bird. It's a hot-air balloon.
It's the 90ways Hoax Report! 88Tearing through the sentimentality and the water-colored memories: It's the Nostalgia Watch. 89Of all the Anabaptists in all the world... 90It's the week we've all been waiting for. 91We're reviewing the quarter to ring in the new year. 92Ringing it in is a burden we all carry. 93Am I my brother's keeper? 94This is all true. 95Notes to Notes.
Sometimes ears taste better than pens. 96Neologisms Spoken Here.
New words created through misappropriation. 97The lies of the diamond dealers. 98Crime, punishment, and the bits in between. 99Same name.
Different albums. 100All the forensics in the world can't
turn up any evidence of character. 101What makes America great
and not so great. 102Fanboy hand-wringing. Shocking. 103Panic in the streets,
Monsignor style. 104It's our second anniversary.
Break out the cotton. 105He kills for all the right reasons. 106The World's Cheese Imagination is within our grasp... if only. 107It's never an easy choice. 108Just give me one thing I can play for.
For this installment, Neologisms Spoken Here is focusing on existing words being shuffled throughout the grammatical deck and coming out as new words. Adjectives become adverbs, nouns become verbs, adjectives become nouns, and, finally, a word on proper nouns going mainstream.
Real
Judson Merrill
adv. See "Really."
Adverbs are the bastard outcasts of the diagrammed sentence. There are entire lectures in writing course dedicated to eradicating their use. Like cats in tall grass, editors stalk them for elimination.
And yet they live on and prosper and grow, although the growing part sometimes requires unorthodox measures. Nouns and verbs swell their ranks with the invention of things. [See Ms. Drimmer, below.] Adjectives spring up from slang like dandelions. Adverbs are forced to recruit their new members from the adjective camp. "C'mon! It's so easy. All you have to do is wear this 'ly' and you're totally in."
Recently, however, something strange has happened. Real has become an adverb. It did so in spite of Really already sporting an "ly" and holding down the adverb spot for many years. Undeterred, Real marched into adverb territory just as it was.
Really had become too earnest. Really was for little kids and others constantly confronted with skepticism. "Give me back that pog or I'll tell. I really, really mean it." Anyone using Really suddenly sounds as if they protest too much. Real, on the other hand, plays it cool. It's that rare monosyllabic adverb with nothing to prove. It's emphasis without the histrionics and pleading of Really. That "ly" was always sort of a lame give-away. Maybe more adjectives will follow Real's example and make the leap to adverbdom without tarting up first.
Charles Badley
v. From the late English bad meaning bad and talk meaning talk.
Apparently defame, sully, tarnish and slander weren't enough, so the OED added a new verb, bad-talk, meaning to speak ill of someone. Ever since the tragic execution of Winston Smith, Big Brother has been racking his brains for improvements to Newspeak. How better to simplify the language than to make verbs out of nouns? How better to make nouns than to combine two words, so basic that any cab driver can understand them. Then, one can gradually apply the original principles of Newspeak.
Bad-talk won't be the end product, of course. In a few years, the OED will phase in ungood-talk, followed, in a few years, by double-plus-ungood-talk, as in, "I hear you've been double-plus-ungood-talking me to my friends; please stop or I will throw lye into your face."
Judson Merrill
n. From the phrase "a big man."
The online basketball community has a few favorite pastimes: speculating wildly about trades; feverishly debating things like All-Star and MVP selection months before there could be any way to make a judgment... or care; and turning adjectives into nouns. It saves keystrokes.
The flagship adjenoun to come of this practice is Big. Centers and power forwards, pituitary freaks who are considered under-sized at 6'8", have long been "big men." Now, to spare us all the agony of two syllables, they have become Bigs. Few words are more annoying than Big the noun.
The unsettling thing about adjectives becoming nouns is the absolute way in which it reduces someone to one trait. Not that it's so very important to consider Shaquille O'Neal's acting talents when watching him on the basketball court but just because he's a big man doesn't mean he has to be a Big. Bigs is upsetting in the same way Blacks and Whites are upsetting, reductive words. Using one descriptor to name a person is as dehumanizing as it is lazy.
Imprecision in language is, at least, an equal opportunity. Referring to guards as Smalls is beocmign more common in the wake of Big's success.
Sonja Drimmer
I can't stop shilling for corporate America, and I swear all my clothing is logo-less. Yet I've developed a sort of branding tic that's endemic to American society and is possibly the greatest marketing ploy since subliminal advertising. It's not that I want to be a walking advertisement, but when my nose is running, the urgency of the moment demands that I ask for a Kleenex. And when the need arises to clean my ears, I go looking for Q-Tips. I can't simply photocopy anything, I've got to Xerox it, and wanting to write anything in permanent ink demands that I pick up a Sharpie. Of course, if I change my mind and make a vain effort at erasing my words, I'll reach for some Windex or just give up and cover it up with Wite-Out. It doesn't seem to matter that when I use these products they might not even be the brand to which I refer. Somehow, the brand itself has become the product, indicating what? That its makers have succeeded in the ultimate marketing game, manipulating the very vocabulary with which Americans speak? Or that they've defeated themselves with branding ubiquity, rendering us deaf to the call of the label? Truly, I don't know. I'm just thankful I've never Hoovered anything, what with its images of a crusty old cross-dresser.