Spellchecker: Arbiter of Language?

The Seattle Times is running a piece on the influence of spellcheckers on language and how decisions are made about what is and isn't included in their dictionaries. Interesting stuff, though, I admit, not as in depth as I would have liked (because I'm a word geek).

Thanks to oldmangrumpus for the tip.

English of the future

More language geekery, this time on how language changes over time and speculation with regard to what English of the future will look and sound like. Some great stuff here, especially for those world-building types amongst you.

ETA: I just saw a phrase I love: vocabulary churn, referring to how slang passes in and out of vocabulary. ::squeeee::! (Ooh, think I just committed slang....)

Picked up from BoingBoing.

D&D and photography

Wizards of the Coast and Hasbro respond to McCain staffer Michael Goldfarb's condescending remarks about D&D players. The military loves this game and, by the way, so do many of the PhDs I know. Take that, jerkface! (Thanks for the tip, mysticalforest. Go WotC!)

I'm assembling a portfolio of photographs to submit to stock photography houses. I'm really doing it, starting tonight. How'd I get the get-up-and-go to do this? oldmangrumpus, who has worked for stock photography houses for the last 15 years or so, stopped by tonight to pick up something that I promised him, and he gave me a primer on what's required and where to look and how to recognize what I have that might and might not work. So while I'm job hunting, I think I'm going to take out my lovely, expensive camera and actually do something with it. This, my friends, could be the start of something cool. We'll see.

Will blog about the DNC a little later. Missed a lot of it today, though I didn't miss Obama.