Dawgspeak: An Experiment in Lexicography

So, I might have mentioned a time or two before that I'm a Linguistics major. This requires me to spend a lot of my time looking at languages and how they work. I've studied languages from a general perspective (general Linguistic classes), and up close and personal (actual foreign language classes). This past semester, I got to look at an aspect that I don't normally pay a lot of attention to: Lexicography.

Lexicography is the study of dictionary making. It's something that not a lot of people actually think about, but almost everyone is affected by the decisions that lexicographers make. Lexicographers decide what words actually go in the dictionary, how it's defined, whether or not the definition includes a picture, etc. I took the class because I needed to fill in requirements for my Linguistics major, but I ended up falling in love with the class.

My teacher was Don McCreary. He's everything you would possibly imagine a professor to be: incredibly intelligent, wears "professor"-y clothes, and a dry voice that you would imagine would instantly send you into a land where words become monsters that try to eat you (e.g., sleep). But, on the first day of the semester when this professor describes the class, and he says a word like "cluster-f*ck", you start to pay a little more attention. It turns out, this class was not only going to teach me how dictionaries are made, but in fact my class was assigned to take on the editing of Dawgspeak, a slang dictionary that documents colloquialisms from the past couple of years. It was originally printed in 2000 (Dr. McCreary has been the "Editor-in-Chief" of this for the entire duration), and has been updated every couple of years ever since.

Our job at the beginning of the semester was to pick out all the words from the last edition (in 2008) that were no longer being used. We took out words like "cockpocket" (another name for a vagina) and "6 Flags over Jesus" (a large church that spends way too much money on its buildings and has restaurants and such inside). While they were very funny, nobody had ever heard of them before, so they got tossed onto our survey. The next step was to ask students who weren't in our class whether or not they used any of these words on our list (since each small group had their own sets of letters, naturally some good ones slipped through the cracks, because each person knows their own set of words, and not necessarily all of them. Personally, I only knew the computer-related ones). Once that long and boring process was finished, we were finally allowed to start adding our own words in. I put in words like WoW whore (a person who has no social life except to play the popular computer game World of Warcraft) and FTW (saying something is really awesome.  This acronym stands for “for the win”. The abbreviation is used only in text, though the phrase itself is commonly spoken). We then would read the entries aloud and double check to make sure that we weren't just making stuff up to get  a good grade. 


Towards the deadline, we realized that we forgot about the help pages. I was asked to edit the "Teh Interwebs Help Page" after I told the professor what "Rule 34" was (click at your own risk. Though the site is safe for work, further research may cause your retinas to burn indefinitely. Remember, what has been seen cannot be unseen). Then we were home free, and received our printed copies just in time for Christmas (the online version is cool, but it's not as satisfying as actually seeing yourself in print).


In all honesty, this class was probably one of my favorite classes in my entire college career. I've never laughed so hard while learning so much. So, if you ever need to take a class, and you see "Lexicography" in your course list, take it: you never know how much fun it could be.


I'm going to keep this one short and without pictures because, well... it's CHRISTMAS!!! I'll probably give you a blog tomorrow (but be forewarned, it's going to be a candy-induced hyper one, so don't expect Shakespeare). Also, I'm sorry this post is not one of my better ones, but I've been stuck on it for a week now, so I figured I'd go ahead and post it and just ask for forgiveness. See you next time!!

Well, I'm no Harry Potter...

Our poorly photoshopped avatar

...but I do love to play quidditch. Yeah, that's right. I'm one of those nerds who gets a kick out of playing imaginary sports. This marks my fourth (well, technically third, but that's a story for another time) year playing, and I must admit that it's a most enjoyable way to spend a Sunday afternoon. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, then Go read Harry Potter!!

A snitch, a Ravenclaw, and a Slytherin are all discussing
something

When I tell people about my favorite sport (though it always seems more like a confession than bragging), I usually get one of two questions: "Do you play with broomsticks or "How can you play without magic?" The answers are a) No, and b) easily. The rules are fairly straightforward. The field is set up with 3 hoops connected to one giant PVC pipe stand on each end of the field. There is a square roped off on the ground that surrounds the hoops that no players can go inside. There are 7 people on the field: 5 chasers and 2 beaters. There are no keepers due to the crease, which provides more potential to defend / score actually on the field. The quaffle is represented by a frisbee, and gameplay is actually very similar to Ultimate Frisbee in regards to chasing. The only difference being that instead of scoring "touchdowns", you have to score the quaffle through one of the three hoops. The beaters are around to complicate things, however. They have 2 bludgers (imagine smaller dodgeballs) that they have to dribble around and try and hit people with them. If you get hit, then you have to spin around 5 times (or in my case, stand still and count to five on your hand. I have vertigo, so spinning around on top of the world already spinning a lot is never a good thing.). The next question I hear is "So what about the snitch? Surely you don't have some little ball with wings flying around?" About this time, one of two responses will come out of my mouth. If I'm annoyed by you being a smartass who's only asking questions to make fun of me later, then I'll go on and on about magic and snitches and unicorns and Cheez-*ts. If you're genuinely interested, then I'll tell you that the snitch is actually attached to a person wearing a special yellow shirt . It's fastened and velcroed to their back, and their job is to run and hide anywhere around the block that we play (The actual quidditch field probably only makes up about 20% of this area, so he / she has a lot of places to hide). The snitch is released during halftime, which is 30 minutes after the game starts (it used to be released at the beginning, but the Gryffindors kept cheating and finding it after about 2 minutes of gameplay). Its value has also decreased from 150 to 55 points, so it's not so much of a deciding factor, but it can make the game interesting, especially if your team isn't playing so well that day.

Their battle cry is something about Thundercats.
Ours are "Burn, pillage, eat the babies" and "Blood
makes the grass grow, KILL KILL KILL!"

So you might be asking yourself, "Well, if she isn't playing for Gryffindor, then which team does she belong to?", which is a very valid question. There are currently 6 quidditch teams: Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, Slytherin, Death Eaters and the Quafflepunchers. When the game was founded in 2007, there were only the four houses represented. I knew immediately which house I wanted to be sorted into, and if there was a real Sorting Hat, the scene would have been similar to Draco Malfoy's sorting. When I signed up, I immediately requested Slytherin, and played on the team for two years. In 2008, quidditch was becoming so popular that they added a 5th team in: Dumbledore's Army. 2009 was a mystery year for me, because I wasn't at this particular school. So I arrive back here in 2010, and I see an opportunity to progress in my dark ways. Most of my teammates made the switch while I was away. I joined the forces of She-who-must-not-be-named (my captain's a girl), and took the Dark Mark. This year we have done fairly well for ourselves, and this past Sunday we defeated the Hufflepuffs 65 to 30 (don't let the name fool you. Those Hugglepoofs are stacked), and the mid-year tournament is coming up in the next month or so.

So, I mentioned that we do not use broomsticks. However, you will probably do a google image search and find an image similar to this:

The "other" Quidditch.

This is because there are two versions of quidditch out there. I must admit to not knowing much about the other version, only that they follow the Harry Potter world rules a lot closer than we do. Our quidditch looks more like: 

A random game in 2008

Wow! Somebody's actually throwing the frisbee to me! (2008)

Warm-up before a game (2007)

Beater with his bludger.

That's about all you need to know about UGA quidditch. If you want to read a little more about it, go here.

EDIT: CNN actually did a story on us!! You can watch it here

Humans vs Zombies

These are my moderators. They're the guys that make sure the events run

 smoothly and that everything is legal.

This year I was determined to play. I followed the event on Facebook. I signed up on the website. I even read the rules. This year, I was going to actually get to play Humans vs Zombies. I mean, come on: imagine a 40,000 acre campus, with over 1200 students actively playing, trying to neutralize the zombies / turn all the humans into members of the infectious horde. I mean, who wouldn't want to play that? I heard about this game for the first time last year. Unfortunately, I couldn't play because being in another country seriously hinders being able to play at my particular campus. Oh well. Better late than never.

Sooooo, I signed up on the website and wrote down my ID code on a little piece of cardboard. This code is very important: it's what separates human-me versus zombie-me. If I get tagged, then I have to give this scrap to the zombie who "bit" me (a zombie bites a human by tagging them with both hands). Meanwhile, I have to arm myself against these cerebrally ravenous creatures. Obviously, we humans can't use real weapons to arm ourselves with, as this would certainly cause trouble as headshots would be a little more permanent. However, we are not left defenseless: our weapons consist of Nerf guns and sockbombs. It sounds a little simple, but let me tell you: those little darts can sting if shot from the right weapons. And the sockbombs are a good way to take out zombies if your aim isn't all that it should be. So, knowing this, I promptly forget about buying any ammo the weekend before and go to school completely unarmed. Fortunately, I also forgot my identifier (in order for players to know if someone is also playing or not, we all had to wear bandannas. These bandannas also had to have neon duct tape on them, so the police would know you weren't actually a terrorist but someone who is trying to save the human race from complete zombification. If you're a human, you have to wear the bandanna as an armband. If you become a zombie, then the bandanna has to be around your head or neck. Zombies also need duct tape so the humans can know which people are actually playing and which people are trying to make a fashion statement).

Day 1: I ran civilian throughout the first part of the day. As I was on the bus heading to class, I saw people at almost every bus stop with colored armbands and these ridiculously HUGE Nerf guns. I kept kicking myself at my lack of preparation, but swore that I would come back in the afternoon to hunt zombies, fully armed and merciless. When my classes finally ended (I get out at noon, but it seemed like I was stuck in class for 35000 hours), I made a beeline for my car and drove straight home to drop off my books. While I was there, I picked up my roommate Allie who also wanted to play. I loaded up with sockbombs and tied my bandanna around my arm. Once armed, we then headed out...to Walmart (we needed a lot more firepower than a couple of socks. We needed Nerf).

What my gun looks like.

When we arrived at Ye Olde Wally World, the first thing we saw was the granddaddy of all Nerf guns. Unfortunately, it was almost certainly on the ban list of not-so-legal Nerf guns to have on campus. So we headed back into the toys section only to find that the entire area had been picked clean of all the Nerf guns that were on the good list. There was only one decent gun left that was still legal, so we snatched it up as quickly as possible. Throw in some refill darts and some teal colored duct tape and we were ready to hunt some zombies.

We arrived on campus, only to realize that our guns were battery operated. The nearest convenience store is on campus, so we had to sneak around, armed with two non-functioning guns and 4 sock bombs running around and hoping that no zombies try to attack us. Even though we both know that it's only a game and it's for fun, we're both completely terrified and on edge. Thankfully, we arrive at the store unpursued, and we purchase our batteries, only to discover that we have no idea how to actually turn the things on. What you can't see in the above picture is an orange knob with "on" on one end, and "off" at the other. Seems fairly straightforward, right? Well, there's no clear way to indicate exactly how you're supposed to turn it on. It looks like a dial, and it spins like a dial, but nothing happens. Finally, one of us figured out that it's a switch, not a dial. tl;dr- Nina's not so smart sometimes.

After finally getting everything started, Allie had obligatory school things to do, so we separated ways. I canvased the entire campus alone (NEVER a good idea), but didn't seem to see any zombie or horde-ish activity. After a few hours, I finally found a human hunting party of about 10 heavily armed guys. Around this same time, I was supposed to rendezvous with Allie. We set up a designated meeting spot, and the guys were nice enough to provide cover for me while I waited. Unfortunately, we waited in vain. While we were waiting, I suddenly heard a scream with a most familiar voice...Sure enough, it was Allie. We decided to set a new rendezvous point: my car.

I walked with the guys for a few more minutes, but eventually we had to part ways, as they were hunting in a different area than my final destination. My car was in the opposite part of campus from where I was, and it was late enough that the buses weren't running anymore. Not to mention I was completely alone, with any number of shadows that could easily hide a clever zombie... Paranoid doesn't even begin to describe how I felt as I walked to my car. Every single leaf that rustled, every tiny bit of motion in the corner of my eye made my heart pound a little more, made me just a little more tense. Finally, I saw my first zombie: my roommate. She was in the parking lot, but her back was to me. I turned on my gun and shot her (if you shoot a zombie, they can't attack you for 15 minutes). She wasn't too amused. When we were finally in my car, I felt all the tension that had been mounting drain from my body (vehicles and off-campus sites are neutral zones). I would live as a human for another day.

Day 2: This day was by far the most uneventful day of the week. I somehow managed to sneak my way into class, only to discover that two of my classmates had been turned the day before. I saw the other remaining humans eyeing them warily, but I wasn't worried about them: my next class was in the same building, so I was safe no matter what. Once I got out of classes for the day, I literally walked throughout campus again without seeing a single zombie, got into my car and went home. Sleep deprivation demanded that I pay penance to the sleepy gods, and I once again survived to fight another day.

Day 3: I started the day similarly to Day 2. I managed to sneak into my class, give a presentation completely decked out in ammo, building hop though buildings between my next class, which garnered me no end of strange looks, and successfully make it to my final class of the day. Afterwards, I once again walk to my car without any sight of an undead. Today, however, I decided to hunt again instead of taking a nap. I walked back up to where I was, and I saw a fellow hunter. He needed an escort to his next class, and I agreed to go with him. Along the way, a seemingly innocuous moped drove by. The next thing I know, I feel hands slamming into my back. I turn around, and I see the zombie that just attacked us both. Now I have to switch teams: the humans are the prey, and the zombies are the good guys. After I get turned, I decide to call it a day and go home.

Day 4: My first full day as a zombie began much in the same way as the other days. The exception being that this time the humans are my enemies, and I was trying my best not to be shot by Nerf darts. In my first class, there were no survivors. We all gave each other knowing looks and exchanged "turning" stories. I saw a couple of hunters, but I failed in actually killing them. During one attempt, I tried to sneak attack him by going into the building behind him and pulling a one-over on him. Unfortunately, I didn't count on him being the bait. I got shot twice by his friend who was lying in wait for zombies to attack him. However, I did manage to successfully sneak attack two gentlemen who were most displeased to discover that their transformation into zombiehood was caused by a short girl.

Day 5: This was the day that every player was looking forward to: Final Mission Day. Our ultimate goal was to protect our Zombie King and take out all remaining humans. Our "hive" was at the top of a parking deck at the edge of campus. The humans' objective is to take what they called the "Big Bad Bow" up to the top of the deck and shoot the king, thus making zombies mortal. We interspersed throughout the deck and lay in wait for the attack. Those poor humans didn't stand a chance. They didn't even make it halfway up the deck before we had eliminated all the carriers of the B.B.B. (only the mods were allowed to carry it, so no more mods = game over). In the spirit of fun, we decided to make the run a second time. All the humans who were turned went back to being humans, and we all had to start from the beginning. However, this time the zombies decided to create a line at the beginning and go on the offensive. With a cry of "LEEEEROOOOOY JEEENNNKIIINNNNSSS!!!", we ran and attacked the waiting humans. This time I was the one who took out the mods and caused the victory for the horde (I'm still pretty proud of myself about that, even if it didn't technically count :) ).

So my total kill count ended up being about 10. All in all, I don't think I've ever had this much fun being that completely terrified. Hopefully, I'll be able to survive a little longer next semester. And I'll definitely be better prepared: I'm going to be dual-wielding. Thanks for reading! Sorry it was so long...Hopefully next time I won't go on so much :) Till next time!