Linguistics Are…Um…Fun?

So today is Friday and that means it is time for some…um…lighter than usual content. Consequently we have a map from Quartz looking at the preferred use of um or uh.

Mapping the preference for Um or Uh
Mapping the preference for Um or Uh

Credit for the piece goes to the Quartz graphics department.

This Weekend’s Menu?

Everybody likes to eat out on the weekend. So from Co.Design comes an interactive diagram breaking down the constituent components of some of the best and worst food creations. Personally, I would have to go with the pretzel croissant.

The pretzel croissant
The pretzel croissant

Credit for the piece goes to Lily Tidhar.

The Curse(s) of the CEOs

It’s Friday, so we should try to take things a bit lighter. For me that usually means knocking back a drink or two and a swear-y exultation about it being the end of the work week. But, it turns out, I’m just trying to emulate our captains of industry. Bloomberg has gone through company conference calls and tabulated the number of swear words used and charted the results. And for fun, you can read some of the excerpts.

They'll swear by it
They’ll swear by it

Credit for the piece goes to David Ingold, Keith Collins, and Jeff Green.

What if Britain Had Won?

A few weeks ago, one of my coworkers, sent me a link to a Newcastle Ale campaign video asking what would America be like if Britain had won the Revolutionary War. Anybody who knows me really well knows I am an Anglophile. I say mobile instead of cell phone, from time to time I switch from apartment to flat or truck to lorry or elevator to lift. So naturally I checked out the campaign site and what did I find? A map of place names if the Americans had not won the war. You can search for your residence or hometown and see what the Brits would have named it.

Though this ignores the fact that most of where I am from was actually named by the Brits. West Chester was originally called Turk’s Head, but after the a bunch of boundary changes that separated the British named Chester from my area, Turk’s Head was renamed West Chester because it is west of Chester, located on the Delaware River. Anyway, place names are cool. Happy Friday, everybody.

I would have grown up in West Chesterwich
I would have grown up in West Chesterwich

Credit for the piece goes to the design team behind the ad campaign.

Venn Diagrams

Seth Meyers debuted his new show last month. And in the debut he used Venn diagrams to tell jokes. And while I was going to poke fun at Arizona, the opportunity for the joke disappeared a few weeks ago. So instead, I will take the time to show another.

The setup:

Who could this be?
Who could this be?

The punchline:

Not me.
Not me.

Credit for the piece goes to Seth Meyers.

It’s Cold Outside

I have spent this past week in Lithuania for work. And it was cold. But it was colder still in Chicago. Thankfully on a Friday we have xkcd to put all this cold into a bit more perspective. Although his example uses St. Louis, I presume it holds for most cities.

It's cold outside
It’s cold outside

Credit for the piece goes to Randall Munroe.

Don’t Worry, You’ll Be Long Dead…

…before any of this occurs. Courtesy of BBC Future and the New Year, welcome to the end of the world as we know it. (Sing it, Michael.)

A long time in the future on a planet very—actually this planet
A long time in the future on a planet very—actually this planet

Credit for the piece goes to iibStudio.