Welcome to Learned, a short, weekly look at language, education, and everything else under the sun. I’m Joel, linguist and professional slacker. This week, we're wrapping it all up.
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Wrap up is a strange little phrasal verb. Most phrasal verbs come with a whole set of differing adverbial particles that give them their meaning - think how "put up" differs from "put away" or "put out." But not wrap up. You don't wrap out or on or away. You just wrap up. Up, itself, has the distinction of being the most common adverbial particle found in phrasal verbs; it's so common it has taken on a more distinct meaning than others, that being "to completion." Think, for example, of "drink up." Someone tells you to do that, you drink the entire glass of...whatever.
Every December brings out its fair share of wrap up posts - the best books, albums, movies, and so on. (Here are articles from The Atlantic and The Verge; both have some interesting takes on this year's pop culture moments.) Buried in the midst of all these lists are a few standouts that itemize and analyze other aspects of pop culture and daily life. Here are a few of my favorites from this year.
To begin, here is Tom Whitwell's annual post of 52 things he learned in 2020. As always, it is a fascinating list, containing both the mundane and the sublime. The former, at number 1 - everyone's hay fever is worse because cities only plant male trees, which produce pollen, and the latter, at number 26 - "A fully-dressed 20th century man would carry 78 buttons and have 24 pockets."
The Oxford English Dictionary put out their annual report regarding the word of the year. Only, they couldn't choose just one. Instead, they've ended up with a list of more than a dozen words that came to prominence throughout the year. Although the words are more-or-less what you'd expect, i.e. they're all COVID-19 related, of particular interest is the amount of detail the report goes into on World Englishes and how they have broadened and adapted the greater, global English lexicon. Truly, if you read this letter because you have an interest in languages and linguistics, you should read this report.
Book covers straddle the line between art and commerce more effectively than just about any other form of advertising. Movie posters have to sell you on who's in the movie, album covers have to sell you on the artist who made the record. Book covers have to sell you on the contents based solely on the title. (Most authors are too unknown to have the same draw as, for example, a movie star.) And they have to do it without telling you what the actual story is. To do that, designers create visually arresting works of art. And they do it over and over again. Kottke has a great round-up of several lists of this year's best book covers.
Kottke also has a good round-up of the best photographs of the year. Most years, I make time in my schedule to visit the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography when they host the International Photojournalism Award winners. This year, that didn't happen. Which meant that a surprising number of this year's best photos were completely unknown to me. What's more, going through the articles to see them all was more stressful than I had anticipated it would be. A lot of the stress of the past year is still too fresh to be viewed with any remove.
Moving on (phrasal verb!), Time has a list of the 100 Best Inventions of 2020. Nature has a similar list, albeit much shorter, which is their 10 remarkable discoveries in 2020. Both lists, while interesting reflections on the year that has been, are more notable to me in that the inventions and discoveries listed in them are very likely to be news stories in the coming years. In other words, these lists tell us in vague, uncertain terms, which way the future is headed. And, frankly, the overall positive and affirming nature of the items discussed is a welcome salve for an overstressed year.
The last wrap-up on my list comes from Bloomberg. Every year, the writers and editors assemble their "jealousy list" - the stories they wish they had broken and written. I'll admit that the tongue-in-cheek snark of the list is a little less palatable this year than in others, but the list itself remains a very good rundown of the best news writing and reporting of the year.
So, that's that. I'm calling this year done and will be spending the remaining few days hanging out with my family and studiously avoiding anything resembling real work. I hope you've had some positive developments in your life this year and I wish nothing but the best for you for the next. Thanks for reading.
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Stay strong, stay curious. Learn something.
Joel