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Dialogue: 0,0:00:00.16,0:00:03.68,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,This is The Rundown, I'm Hari Sreenivasan, we're talking about words today.
Dialogue: 0,0:00:03.68,0:00:09.73,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Joining me now is lexicographer Erin McKean, she's the CEO and founder of Wordnik.com.
Dialogue: 0,0:00:09.73,0:00:10.88,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Thanks for joining us.
Dialogue: 0,0:00:10.88,0:00:12.54,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,You're very welcome. Thank you.
Dialogue: 0,0:00:12.54,0:00:18.36,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Google recently launched a kind of a website or a database if you will, along with some folks at Harvard—
Dialogue: 0,0:00:18.36,0:00:23.53,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,the NGRAM, which allows people to search for words through hundreds and hundreds and thousands
Dialogue: 0,0:00:23.53,0:00:28.43,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,of books and periodicals and so forth that have gone back for decades.
Dialogue: 0,0:00:28.43,0:00:30.25,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,What did you do when you first heard about it?
Dialogue: 0,0:00:30.25,0:00:36.03,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,We were very excited when we realized that google was releasing the NGRAM data under a very open license
Dialogue: 0,0:00:36.03,0:00:41.18,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,because it means that lots of people can take that data and try and do cool things with it.
Dialogue: 0,0:00:41.18,0:00:44.96,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And of course at Wordnik, we're all about trying to do cool things with words.
Dialogue: 0,0:00:44.96,0:00:50.32,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And so the data is based on something like 5 percent of the Google Books corpus,
Dialogue: 0,0:00:50.32,0:00:53.88,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,which is not a lot, but it's a lot of words.
Dialogue: 0,0:00:53.88,0:00:59.97,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,What does it teach you about the English language to have access to the occurrence of words over time?
Dialogue: 0,0:00:59.97,0:01:07.81,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Right now, you can think of the kind of science behind the NGRAM viewer as like what,
Dialogue: 0,0:01:07.81,0:01:10.70,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,say, early antibiotics were like.
Dialogue: 0,0:01:10.70,0:01:16.17,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,They aren't very targeted, so you can't really tell the difference between, say,
Dialogue: 0,0:01:16.17,0:01:19.15,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,the word "pretty" when it means "good looking"
Dialogue: 0,0:01:19.15,0:01:23.67,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,versus the word "pretty" when it's in a construction, like, "That was a pretty neat thing."
Dialogue: 0,0:01:23.67,0:01:29.23,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Are we using more new words now? Is the rate of the English language's growth increasing?
Dialogue: 0,0:01:29.23,0:01:36.77,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Right now we can measure it better than we ever have been able to do before, so in the paper that the
Dialogue: 0,0:01:36.77,0:01:40.23,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,researchers from Google and from Harvard published in Science,
Dialogue: 0,0:01:40.23,0:01:45.12,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,they were talking about that they notice more new words appearing over time.
Dialogue: 0,0:01:45.12,0:01:49.90,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And also something that I was very happy to have people from Google and Harvard backing me up on
Dialogue: 0,0:01:49.90,0:01:54.08,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,that they estimated that 52 percent of the words that they looked at
Dialogue: 0,0:01:54.08,0:01:56.75,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,were not in the dictionaries that they checked.
Dialogue: 0,0:01:56.75,0:01:58.26,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,How is that even possible?
Dialogue: 0,0:01:58.26,0:02:02.97,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Well, there are lots and lots of words that happen just once, nonce words,
Dialogue: 0,0:02:02.97,0:02:06.75,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,that if you are making a print dictionary you just don't have room to put them in.
Dialogue: 0,0:02:06.75,0:02:09.72,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And for someone who hasn't been to Wordnik, what's the difference between
Dialogue: 0,0:02:09.72,0:02:12.96,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Wordnik and going to one of the other online dictionaries?
Dialogue: 0,0:02:12.96,0:02:17.69,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,So Wordnik has about six times as many words as most of the other online dictionaries.
Dialogue: 0,0:02:17.69,0:02:22.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,So we show you as much information as we can about as many words as we can.
Dialogue: 0,0:02:22.99,0:02:26.26,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,So if there's a traditional dictionary definition, we'll show you that.
Dialogue: 0,0:02:26.26,0:02:29.26,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,But if we only have three really good sentences from say
Dialogue: 0,0:02:29.26,0:02:32.84,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,the Wall Street Journal, or Forbes, or the Huffington Post, we'll show you that
Dialogue: 0,0:02:32.84,0:02:38.82,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and say, "Hey, real journalists are using this word. You can take their sentences as a model."
Dialogue: 0,0:02:38.82,0:02:40.89,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Since it is getting kind of close to the new year,
Dialogue: 0,0:02:40.89,0:02:46.14,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,what are some of the top words of 2010 or 2011 that you're seeing?
Dialogue: 0,0:02:46.14,0:02:50.37,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,It's interesting, people always want to have the top words of the year, but usually
Dialogue: 0,0:02:50.37,0:02:58.02,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,words kind of incubate underground like seeds for a while until they pop up into popular consciousness.
Dialogue: 0,0:02:58.02,0:03:02.80,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,A couple of words that I've been really interested in lately are all kinda
Dialogue: 0,0:03:02.80,0:03:08.34,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,negative technology consequences words, like geoslavery.
Dialogue: 0,0:03:08.34,0:03:10.80,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And what does geoslavery mean?
Dialogue: 0,0:03:10.80,0:03:17.77,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,So geoslavery is the idea that with all the GPS functionality and tracking on people's cellphones
Dialogue: 0,0:03:17.77,0:03:25.95,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,that abusive partners and spouses can use that data to keep tighter tabs on their partners
Dialogue: 0,0:03:25.95,0:03:29.19,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,With the idea that they're really trying to enforce behavior limits.
Dialogue: 0,0:03:29.19,0:03:31.33,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,What else is popping up like a seed?
Dialogue: 0,0:03:31.33,0:03:39.17,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I really like the word aftercrimes, which is made by analogy to afershocks.
Dialogue: 0,0:03:39.17,0:03:43.87,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,So it's little crimes that pop up in an area after a major crime has occurred there.
Dialogue: 0,0:03:43.87,0:03:49.38,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,So what's the end goal for Wordnik? Does it become the dictionary of choice for everyone?
Dialogue: 0,0:03:49.38,0:03:52.80,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,We're trying to map the whole English language.
Dialogue: 0,0:03:52.80,0:03:55.28,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,What we'd really like to be is GPS for words
Dialogue: 0,0:03:55.28,0:03:58.71,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and show you as much information about as many words as possible.
Dialogue: 0,0:03:58.71,0:04:02.36,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,All right, Erin McKean CEO and founder of Wordnik, lexicographer.
Dialogue: 0,0:04:02.36,0:04:04.48,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Thanks for joining us and happy wording.
Dialogue: 0,0:04:04.48,0:04:06.10,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Thanks so much.
Dialogue: 0,0:04:06.10,0:04:09.12,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I'm Hari Sreenivasan, this is The Rundown. Stay with us.