Can we talk about Wordle?

Look, I love a good word game just as much as the next guy or gal. Maybe more. (I do the Spelling Bee in the New York Times digital edition practically every day, ditto the crossword.) 

So when I read about this addictive new word game that was sweeping the internet, I had to check it out. And I could see why the game, called Wordle, after its "inventor," Josh Wardle, was so popular. It's a real brainteaser. You know what else Wordle is? A rip-off of a game called Jotto invented in 1955 by Morton M. Rosenfeld. 

And you know what I don't love? Plagiarism and people who take credit for other people's work or games and journalists who are too lazy to do any research or fact check their articles. (I'm looking at you Daniel Victor of the New York Times.) 

If I read one more effing article about Josh Wardle "inventing" Wordle -- i.e., Jotto -- I am going to effing scream. JOSH WARDLE DID NOT INVENT THIS GAME. It's been around for over 60 years. (Actually far longer.) My mother and I played it in our heads back in the 1970s. (Scorepads? Phooey!) And I began playing mental Jotto with my daughter in the 2000s. 

Which led me to wondering why the makers of Jotto didn't sue Wardle over Wordle. But as I discovered, 1) IP law surrounding games like Jotto/Wordle is complicated. And 2) the company that supposedly produces Jotto, Endless Games, doesn't seem to produce it right now. And hasn't for a while. I did a search on the Endless Games website, but I couldn't find it. Though I found some other cool games. So it's possible that Jotto is in the public domain and fair game. However, to say that Wordle is original is WRONG. 

All that said, I will still play Wordle. (My best score so far? 3/6.) For now. At least until some other non-plagiarized word game comes along. 

Trump translator: What Trump really means

Supporters of Donald Trump say people cannot, or should not, take what he says literally. So how can people understand what Trump really means when he speaks?

To assist you, we here at J-TWO-O have carefully analyzed Trump's most frequently spoken words and deciphered, or translated, them for you in this handy chart.

Now when you listen to Trump, or read about something he said or tweeted, you can understand what he really meant.

THE TRUMP TRANSLATOR
When Trump says…	What it really means is…
Amazing	Not so amazing; ordinary; really bad
Bad people	People who call out Trump’s lies
Best	Worst
Big League (often misinterpreted as “Bigly”)	That whatever or whomever Trump is referring to is screwed, big time.
Crooked	That person is smarter than Trump (and less crooked, dishonest).
Dishonest	Someone said or published the truth about Trump or one of his advisors or businesses and he doesn’t like it. So he’s trying to discredit the person or organization.
Failing	That person or business is succeeding (most likely in debunking something Trump says), or that person or organization said or did something Trump didn’t like, so he’s trying to discredit it.
Fake News	That news organization is printing the (uncomfortable, unflattering) truth about Trump and/or one of his businesses or associates.
Fantastic	Fantastic for Trump and millionaires like him. Bad for everyone else.
Huge	Small, like Trump’s hands
Loser	That person is more popular or smarter than Trump; a winner
Out of control	Out of my, Donald Trump’s, control
Overrated	That person or organization gets (or got) better ratings, won more awards, than Trump; that person or organization said something (probably true) about Trump that Trump didn’t like.
Really smart	Really dumb
Sad	Bad for Trump
Terrible	Terrible for Trump
They	Bad hombres, non-white males, esp. immigrants, and people who either sued Trump or said bad things about him; also news organizations
Tremendous	Small or tiny, soft (like his… hands); bad, poor
We	I, Donald J. Trump
Weak	I can bully that person.
Winning	Losing; a loss for most Americans

Sluts, bitches & hos: Women, the last bastion of denigration

As we have learned in the last few weeks, making racist, racially charged, or anti-gay comments or slurs is now a punishable, or fireable, offense. Or at the bare minimum will incur the collective wrath of social media, celebrities, bloggers, Liberals, the main stream press, and, on occasion, even Republicans.

But it is still fine to slur, denigrate, demean, or slut-shame women! 

I know, PHEW! Right, bitches? I mean, we wouldn't want Rush Limbaugh or Bill O'Reilly to lose his job or be suspended, right*? And what would life be like without rap music?

And lest you think that guys are the only ones getting away with saying awful, humiliating things about women, just check out all the press around Monica Lewinsky this week.

While society has taken steps to ban or punish bullying in other arenas (at school and online), apparently it is still a-okay to denigrate or humiliate, or "slut shame," a woman for something stupid and naive she did, consensually, with a married man who should have known better, at the age of 22.

And you know who are the worst offenders? Women! WTF? Seriously, WTF, ladies?

Shame on us.

I'm not saying that it's okay for women, of any age, to go around seducing, or trying to seduce, married men. It is not. But find me one college age or slightly older female who hasn't lusted after a married professor, rock star, celebrity or famous person, who wouldn't have jumped at the chance to have "sexual relations" with that man.

Indeed, at Hillary's alma mater back in the 1980s, trying to seduce the (often married) male professors was a sport.

We women can be such hypocrites.

And it's not just the Monica Lewinskys who get the abuse (deservedly or not). Any woman who is deemed too flirtatious, too aggressive, too threatening, or too whatever, especially if she is attractive -- even if she hasn't done anything wrong -- is fair game.

We women can't win. You turn down a guy, you're a bitch (according to the guy). You don't turn him down, you're a slut (according to other women).

By the way, of the 201 slang words for women, the majority are derogatory and have to do with sex (and loose morals), while there are only 72 slang terms for a man, the majority of which are not really pejorative, mate.

And while I applaud society cracking down on racists, bigots, and homophobes, I wish sexism and misogyny, vicious anti-female comments and slurs, were greeted with the same ire and intolerance. (Ditto anti-Semitism, but that's another blog post.)

*For the record, former shock jock Donald Imus was not fired from WFAN back in 2007 because he jokingly referred to the Rutgers women's basketball team as "hos." It was because Imus called them "nappy-headed hos," i.e., he used a racial slur. (Just Google "Donald Imus firing." Almost all the articles cite Imus as using a racist or racial slur, not the fact he called the women hos.)

What's in a name?

As a writer, I always get a little nervous when people talk about banning words.

Yes, in a perfect -- or just civil -- world, there would be no bad or pejorative words, words used to show contempt or to belittle or disrespect another person. But more often than not, the real culprit, or evil-doer, is not the word but the person speaking or using it.

Words, while they can be cruel, or cruelly used, only have the power to hurt or to harm if you allow them to (except in the case of libel or slander).

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never harm me.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not endorsing the use of hateful or hurtful words. But I don't think the solution is to ban them.

Which brings me to the Ban Bossy movement. Brought to you by Sheryl Sandberg's nonprofit LeanIn.org organization and Girl Scouts of USA, Ban Bossy is an effort to help instill confidence in young girls -- to encourage their leadership skills and initiative instead of disparaging or belittling their attempts to lead or take charge by labeling them as "bossy." Or as Ban Bossy puts it:

When a little boy asserts himself, he's called a “leader.” Yet when a little girl does the same, she risks being branded “bossy.” Words like bossy send a message: don't raise your hand or speak up. By middle school, girls are less interested in leading than boys—a trend that continues into adulthood. Together we can encourage girls to lead.

As someone who was called bossy more times than she can remember (and is still called bossy), I get it. Though it never held me back. (Hey, someone's got to take charge. Might as well be me.)

But instead of banning the word bossy, why not teach girls to ignore it -- or to embrace their bossiness?

Indeed, why not start a movement to turn the word from being something pejorative into something positive? After all, you can't spell bossy without B-O-S-S. And doesn't everyone want to be the boss, or head, or supervisor, of something, or someone? Isn't that what Sheryl Sandberg has been preaching when she talks about "leaning in," to get women to take charge of their lives, to embrace their inner boss and go for it?

Once upon a time, not that long ago, bitch was a pejorative term to describe a certain kind of woman (cruel, immoral). And in some cases, it still is. But today when we call someone a bitch goddess, it means she is wildly successful.

Not that I'm encouraging people to call little girls bitch goddesses.... 

But being called a bitch never bugged me either. Instead of taking the term as an insult, I took it as a mark of the speaker's lack of vocabulary or intelligence -- or dislike of women (or women who speak their minds).

In fact, when one charming boss (hi Jonathan!), who had a reputation for making his female reports cry (and for banging his shoe on a desk), called me a bitch, I smiled and looked him in the eye and said, "You know the difference between a slut and a bitch? A slut will sleep with anyone. A bitch will sleep with anyone... except you." He never called me a bitch again.

So instead of banning words like bossy, let's embrace our inner bitch goddesses, ladies, and show the world who's boss.

The death of the English language?

When I was growing up, I loved to look up words in the Oxford English Dictionary, which we happened to have a copy of (as my mother was a college English teacher, specializing in Victorian literature). Indeed, at one point I seriously considered studying linguistics and semantics, as I love language and words.

But, after being sent an article about some of the latest words to be included in the Oxford English Dictionary (or OED) -- hat tip, which happens to be one of the new phrases, to friend of the blog D. -- I have to say, this is not my mother's dictionary. And I am not happy.

Vajazzle? Really? How many people (outside those who watch the British reality TV show The Only Way Is Essex) actually use or know that word? And how many people will still be using this word five or 50 years from now? Which douche (yet another new word) thought it would be brilliant to include that gem? And can we vote him off the island?

Granted, not all the new words seem ridic (like ridic). Inbox, ripped, and video chat all make sense to me. But do you really need a special entry for date night? And is mwahahaha even a word? And lolz? (Please note, I am not laughing.) But whatevs (which was added last month).

Do these words really belong in the Oxford English Dictionary? (The Urban Dictionary, definitely, but the OED? Not so much, IMHO.)

I don't know about all of you, fellow lovers of the English language, but I could use a group hug about now.

Note: You can find a list of all the words the OED added this August here.