chronic.linguist

Today’s Slashdot has a fascinating discussion of Google’s decision to use the term labels rather than tags to refer to user-defined categories for their digital content. One user opines:

It makes more sense to call them “labels” because the word “tag” generally refers to html/xml tags. Since you can use these tags (although you don’t have to) to create the label type of tags, it’s especially confusing.

In any case, it’s closer to plain English to call them labels. That’s what you’re doing. If I’m in GMail and I want to indicate that an email is work related it is closer to plain English to say that I labelled it work than to say that I tagged it work.

While others’ native speaker intuitions may disagree about whether label or tag is more natural or “plain English,” I happen to agree that using tag as a category for web content could easily cause confusion thanks to the term’s use in reference to the code that defines a web page.

Other comments revolve around the appropriateness of hierarchical categorization, as in today’s file systems—as opposed to the non-hierarchical notion of labels/tags. Some commenters feel that hierarchical structure allows for better organization; others point out problems:

Let’s say I make my folder as follows:
/pictures/trip/2006/Christmas/pic001.jpg

Why shouldn’t I be able to type in:
/trip/2006/Christmas/pictures/pic001.jpg

And get the same result?

Hierarchies are a horrible way to manage data, because no one “category” is always a subset of another. Pick the more general term here:

Pictures
2006
Christmas
Trip

You can’t. Or else it depends on a number of things….

In other words, we often use orthogonal categories for things; neither “Pictures” nor “2006″ is necessarily contained within the other like “cat” and “dog” would be subcategories of “animal.”

If I had to suggest a system, it would be a blend of the hierarchy and label models: allow for labels to be organized under other labels, and apply the most specific one(s) to a particular piece of information. Crucially, it should be possible to narrow searches to include only those items matching all labels in the search (or subcategories of these labels). To follow the above example, pic001.jpg could be labeled with:

• pictures, which in turn is labeled media and keepsakes
• 2006, which is labeled ’00s, which is labeled years
• Christmas, which is labeled holidays
• trip, which is labeled activities

This scheme would assert, e.g., that all pictures are also media and keepsakes. So pic001.jpg should be included in the results of a search which makes use of any of the bold labels above.

John Oliver “reports” on the use of scare quotes.

I’m glad to see that somebody gets it.

Do certain 24-hour news networks use interrogative captions to make insinuations without the appearance of bias? The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart reports.

Now that I’ve exposed the sordid state of affairs that is descriptive linguistics, I have my own modest proposal for returning to the glory days of spoken English. What is the one solution that will be reasonable, practical, and above all, effective?

I go farther—ahem, further—than most of my contemporaries, wimpy prescriptivists who merely whine about the decline of the language. A state of affairs where good grammar is perceived as passé and pretentious calls for desperate action: for laypersons to take their speech seriously, they must be made to pay for their transgressions. For example, I believe that those found guilty of splitting infinitives deserve decapitation, and anyone who leaves a participle dangling ought to be hanged. Some other punishments that fit the crime (Bureau of Linguistic Corrections, take note):

Confusing ‘sit’ and ‘set’ electric chair

Run-on sentences hit-and-run

Ending a sentence with a preposition falling off a cliff

Treating ‘data’ as singular electrocution

Using ‘impact’ as a transitive verb (e.g. That impacts our decision) stoning

Misuse of bulleted lists firing squad

Comma splices lethal injection

Misspelling ‘buffet’ starvation

From a storefront in Jackson (Hole), Wyoming

…when it comes to written language, that is.

Sadly, it is increasingly difficult for us sticklers to find refuge from offsensive usage offenses.

Minutes after arriving in Montana via the not-so-sprawling Billings airport (it has 6 gates), I was minding my own business by the baggage claim, only to be assaulted by linguistic turmoil in the signage: a violent subject-verb disagreement, only to be outdone by two apostorphe atrocities that would make Lynne Truss blush¹:

Later, an otherwise glorious wooded trail in Yellowstone was marred by this affront to proper punctuators everywhere:

And to think that I spent my vacation in ground zero of a linguistic insurgency!