Leximania - Crazy about Linguistics, Translation, Terminology and anything in between!

Localizing Windows Phone apps: New terminology and Style Guides posted

19AugustLeximania.grGreek, News, Onomasiology, Other, Terminology, Translation

Image via CrunchBase

Localizing Windows Phone apps: New terminology and Style Guides posted

Another 15 localization style guides for developing international Windows Phone apps have just been made available by the Windows Phone team.

Style guides provide instructions to help ensure that your app speaks to the user in the same tone, style and level of formality as Windows Phone itself. For example, should you say please or address the user as you and what level of formality is appropriate; should you use Sie or du in German? And how do you abbreviate words for a smartphone screen?

Translations of the individual terms and phrases, such as live tile, hub, pinch or stretch are also available through the Microsoft Language Portal online search.

Erin McKean, a keen lexicographer

19AugustLeximania.grEnglish Language, Language

While browsing through the TED videos I came across this lovely, full of spank and enthusiasm lexicographer. After that I was hooked! I became such a fan that I thought that I could, maybe, gather in this post all the Erin McKean videos I could find online. This most certainly will not be an exhaustive list but I am sure if you watch even a couple of them you will become a fan and at the same time will see your dictionaries from a whole new perspective.

WOTD: sockdolager

19AugustLeximania.grLexicography, News, Onomasiology, Terminology

Merriam-Webster?s
Word of the Day
September 20

sockdolager \sock-DAH-lih-jer\ noun
Meaning: 1 : something that settles a matter : a decisive blow or answer : finisher | *2 : something outstanding or exceptional
Example Sentence: For a while I was completely stumped, but then, all of a sudden, I got a sockdolager of an idea.
Did you know? The verb “sock” (“to punch”) and the noun “doxology” (“a hymn of praise to God”) may seem like an odd pairing, but it is a match that has been promoted by a few word mavens when discussing the origins of the Americanism “sockdolager.” Don’t be too quick to believe the hype, however. When a word’s origin is simply unknown, as is the case with “sockdolager,” there’s a tendency for folks to fill in the gap with an interesting story, whether or not it can be verified. In the case of “sockdolager,” the “sock” part is plausible but unproven, and the “doxology” to “dolager” suggestion is highly questionable. The theory continues to have many fans, but it can’t deliver the knockout punch.

This word of the day, once more, is a very interesting word. I was particularly intrigued by the fact that its origins, much like those of “fatuous” are kind of hazy. So here is what I found about its etymology from online sources:

Boom! Hok! A Monkey Language Is Deciphered, New York Times 8/12/2009

19AugustLeximania.grEnglish Language, Language

By NICHOLAS WADE

Boom boom! (I’m here, come to me!)

Krak krak! (Watch out, a leopard!)

Hok hok hok! (Hey, crowned eagle!)

Very good — you have already mastered half the basic vocabulary of the Campbell’s monkey, a fellow primate that lives in the forests of the Tai National Park in Ivory Coast. The adult males have six types of call, each with a specific meaning, but they can string two or more calls together into a message with a different meaning.

Skxawng!, The New York Times, 4/12/2009

19AugustLeximania.grNews

By BEN ZIMMER

When James Cameron’s science-fiction opus “Avatar” comes to the screen this month, audiences will witness meticulously conceived alien characters — speaking a meticulously conceived alien language. To lend extra authenticity to the Na’vi — the tall, blue-skinned, vaguely feline humanoids living on the distant world of Pandora — Cameron enlisted the help of a linguist to construct a full-fledged language, with its own peculiar phonetics, lexicon and syntax. From the mind of Paul Frommer, a professor at the University of Southern California, was born a Na’vi language, with mellifluous vowel clusters, popping ejectives and a grammatical system elaborate enough to make a polyglot blush.