Thursday, April 12, 2012

Meme and 'Among the new words'

Over on the American Dialect Society list, ads-l, there's been some discussion of the word 'meme'. That's enough excuse for me to call attention to the latest 'Among the new words' piece in American Speech by Ben Zimmer and Charles Carson (86.454-479).

Meme has developed a particular meaning with regard to the internet and Zimmer and Carson argue that memes have become "vehicles of linguistic dissemination". They cover a rich set of them, saying a lot of about honey badger, facebomb, facepalm, hoverhand, etc. And  derp or durp or derp derp. (Just do the google image search.)

At any rate, just a chance to remind you of how rich ADS and American Speech are ... whether you're a working linguist or just language obsessed.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I work with a guy nicknamed the Honey Badger - and coincidentally he loves memes, Skyping them to me all the time...

Linguistics Memes are fun too!

Ben Zimmer said...

Thanks for the plug, Mr. V!