Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Domains

Domain: m-w.com

Stories and comments across the archive that link to m-w.com.

Stories · 6

  1. Word of the Year - "Truthiness"

    Entertainment · Humor · · posted by Zonk · from the oh-that-loveable-rascal dept. · 254 comments
    KingSkippus writes "Stephen Colbert calls it 'truth that comes from the gut, not books.' Merriam-Webster calls it their 2006 Word of the Year. The word, first introduced [Windows media] on 'The Word' segment of The Colbert Report, won by a five-to-one margin. In spite of Colbert's ironic dismissal of dictionaries and other reference books, will Colbert's coined word actually be added to those books? With media outlets like CNN and MSNBC covering it, the idea may very well have truthiness."

  2. Merriam-Webster Launches Open Dictionary

    Internet · · posted by ryuzaki0 · from the wikipetitor dept. · 171 comments
    sweganeer writes "Merriam-Webster just released Open Dictionary to better take and share the pulse of language through the Web. Of course, Webster's has long celebrated and conveyed language's evolution - unlike linguistic prescriptivists who fail to grasp that's just what language does; and - where I've compared entries - they've certainly done so in a more consistent, professional fashion than online amateurs have in recent years: might Open Dictionary - in conjunction with Webster's standard Online Dictionary - yield the best of authoritative (top-down) and organic (bottom-up), online lexicography?"

  3. Merriam-Webster Launches Open Dictionary

    Internet · · posted by ryuzaki0 · from the wikipetitor dept. · 171 comments
    sweganeer writes "Merriam-Webster just released Open Dictionary to better take and share the pulse of language through the Web. Of course, Webster's has long celebrated and conveyed language's evolution - unlike linguistic prescriptivists who fail to grasp that's just what language does; and - where I've compared entries - they've certainly done so in a more consistent, professional fashion than online amateurs have in recent years: might Open Dictionary - in conjunction with Webster's standard Online Dictionary - yield the best of authoritative (top-down) and organic (bottom-up), online lexicography?"

  4. w00t is 3rd Favorite Non-Dictionary Word

    Games · Humor · · posted by Zonk · from the not-a-fan-of-confuzzled dept. · 422 comments
    Jay writes "The word has been getting out apparently. No longer just a word for gamers, 'woot' now appears as #3 in Merriam-Webster's What's Your Favorite Word (That's Not in the Dictionary)? contest. It was beaten out by ginormous and confuzzled."

  5. Isn't It Ironic?

    Humor · · posted by ryuzaki0 · from the don't-you-think dept. · 683 comments
    gessel writes "Have you ever used the word "ironic?" Do you know what it really means? If not, is that ironic? Was Seinfeld's "irony" really the cause of the utter collapse of civil society as we knew it? How ironic was it for the CEO of MTV to declare irony a victim of 9/11? The Guardian is running a brilliant article that clears the confusion around a culturally critical and chronically misused word."

  6. Searching for Keyboards Loaded with Features?

    Ask · Hardware · · posted by Cliff · from the i'll-have-a-keyboard-with-'the-works'-please dept. · 131 comments
    halfgeek asks: "I was just considering how keyboard-centric I've managed to make my setup, even under the mouse-hungry Windows GUI (no shouting; I regularly SSH to my Linux routing box for experiments, bring up VMWare when I need some X, and can't live without Cygwin). Almost everything I would want to do can be done without moving a hand to the mouse. I can open up an SSH to my server with Win+Shift+V, bring up a calculator with Win+C, run a one-shot console command with Win+0, open up the MW dictionary website to a highlighted word by hitting Ctrl+C (to copy) and then Win+Enter (to look up the contents of the clipboard). (Much of this is implemented with Perl programs and WinKey.) I also make frequent use of the volume knob and mute button built into my Logitech keyboard. If there is any good route to finding the keyboard I want with all the features I'm thinking of at a justifiable price, whether prefabricated or a wicked mod, I would just love to know about it." There are quite a few options the submitter is looking for, but it basically boils down to is this: the more keys, the better. What keyboards have you found, in your browsing travels, that have been stuffed full of useful features?

    "I'm aggravated over having the mouse still so separate from the keyboard, and I've been looking through the available options along the lines of keyboards with built-in touchpads. The closest I've found to what I want seems to be the Adesso WKB-120, but this is by no means the ideal choice. It does have three basic properties I want: One, it doesn't have the ergo-split form I so despise. Two, its touchpad is situated in the right place, just below the space bar. Three, it's all one piece, so I can keep the board off the desk and on my knees, where it belongs, eh. But it also appears to have those three intensely undesirable and horribly misplaced power management keys, and lacks the volume knob, mute button, and media controls. An illuminated keyboard would also be cool, but I'd take standard beige; it's just that my current black keyboard is hard to see in the dark."