New Year's Resolution Contest! December 31 - January 14 Based on REDEFiNE iT: Dictionary of Newfoundland English

Instead of the usual Word of the Week we issue a challenge!


December 31 - January 14

In one sentence state a New Year's Resolution using all of the Words of the Week issued thus far by the facebook group REDEFiNE iT : Dictionary of Newfoundland English.



Your statement must include your resolution but may also include an explanation of its motivation or any contingencies you anticipate in the application of your resolution.You may ply the words in the sense indicated by the Dictionary of Newfoundland English definitions of the words or one of the "redefinitions" of the words posted to this group. It's up to us to guess the meaning of your Resolution.



A Jury will be struck and two weeks from now a winner and two runners up will be announced.Criteria for judging the winning three entries will be articulated by the Jury on announcing their final decisions!



The winner will recieve one full set of Rattling Books audio titles (18 in total).The two runners-up will each recieve a copy of Merrybegot by Mary Dalton, the book that inspired this Facebook Group and a copy of The Big Why by Michael Winter in which the term "blue drop" appears so beautifully.



Here is the List of Words to include in your New Year's Resolution:



shive


waddock


bawn


lewardly


blue drop


bawk


gud


drung


boo


pishogue


angishore


yaffle


marl


droke


merrybegot


nuzzle tripe



Post your Resolution either here or on the REDEFiNE iT Facebook group page under the relevant Discussion Board Topic.




This contest is sponsored by Rattling Books.




May the Gud be with you in the Blue Drop!

In Preparation for a Contest: tongue-twister

Rattling Books hereby gives notice
that we are preparing a contest.

It will be related to words.
It will be fun.
It will twist your tongue.

In preparation let us consider what Wikipedia has to say about the term tongue-twister.

Tongue-twisterFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (we have abridged the following; to see the complete entry on Wikipedia click here)

A tongue-twister is a phrase that is designed to be difficult to articulate properly. Tongue-twisters may rely on similar but distinct phonemes (e.g., s [s] and sh [ʃ]), unfamiliar constructs in loanwords, or other features of a language.

The hardest tongue-twister in the English language (according to Guinness World Records) is supposedly The sixth sick sheikh's sixth sheep's sick. William Poundstone claims that the hardest English tongue twister is "The seething sea ceaseth and thus the seething sea sufficeth us."[1]

Repetition

Many tongue-twisters use a combination of alliteration and rhyme. They have two or three sequences of sounds, then the same sequences of sounds with some sounds exchanged. For example, She sells sea shells on the sea shore. The shells that she sells are sea shells I'm sure.

This one won grand prize in a contest in Games Magazine in 1979
Shep Schwab shopped at Schwab's Schnapps shop;One shot of Scott's Schnapps stopped Schwab's watch.

Some tongue-twisters are short words or phrases, which become tongue-twisters when repeated rapidly (often expressed as "Say this five (or three, ten, etc.) times fast!"). Examples include toy boat, Peggy Babcock, Irish wristwatch, and Red Leather, Yellow Leather. Big whip is another that is difficult for some people to say quickly, due to the lip movement required between the "g" and "wh" sounds.

Spoonerisms

Some tongue-twisters are specifically designed to cause the inadvertent pronunciation of a swearword if the speaker stumbles verbally (see spoonerism). An example in Polish is ząb, zupa zębowa, dąb, zupa dębowa (a tooth, tooth soup, an oak, oak soup). The word dąb forces an unsuspecting victim to further utter dupa dębowa (oak arse).

An English example of this sort:
I'm not the pheasant plucker, I'm the pheasant plucker's mate,And I'm only plucking pheasants 'cause the pheasant plucker's late.I'm not the pheasant plucker, I'm the pheasant plucker's son,And I'm only plucking pheasants till the pheasant pluckers come.

Or another:
I am a mother pheasant plucker.I pluck mother pheasants.I am the most pleasant mother pheasant plucker,to ever pluck a mother pheasant.

Loanwords and other language elements

Certain loanwords contain unfamiliar constructs, which are used in tongue-twisters. For example, Finnish strutsin perhe (the family of an ostrich) has the consonant cluster "str", whereas such consonant clusters do not occur in native Finnish words. Repeated, this might be pronounced as "strutsin perse" ("ostrich's arse").

Audio Book Contest Results

The Audio Book is Dead; Long Live the Audio Book

Rattling Books is pleased to announce the two winners of its audio book renaming contest, which featured on the Rattling Books Facebook page. To bring you up to speed: We solicited submissions of a new term to describe audio literature because “audio books” seems to have gathered nothing but negative associations in its tenure as reigning moniker.

The winning entry, DigiLit, was proposed by two entrants: Dana Evely in South Korea and Anne Mulkeen Murray in St. John’s, both of whom will receive fine—dare we say it?—DigiLit from Rattling Books for their winning entries.

The contest was judged by audiophiles and literary sages Julie Wilson, George Murray and Shoshanna Wingate. For full bios, please see below.

Thanks to all who participated in the contest, judges and entrants. Rattling Books is planning an ongoing series of word-related contests, so stay tuned. Details to follow as we dream them up.


Judges:

Julie Wilson
is the author of the popular book blog Seen Reading. She works at House of Anansi Press where she is the resident Facebook guru. Her fiction has been published in Taddle Creek and in Maisonneuve magazines. She lives in Toronto.

George Murray
is the award-winning author of four collections of poetry, the most recent of which is The Rush to Here (Nightwood Editions, 2007). His poetry and fiction has appeared in journals in Canada, the United States, Australia and Germany. He is the editor of the literary blog bookninja.com and a book reviewer for the Globe & Mail.

Shoshanna Wingate
is a poet and fiction writer. She received an MFA in Poetry from the New School and has extensive experience working with non-profit literary organizations, including Poets & Writers, Inc in New York. She is currently the Executive Director of the Writers’ Alliance of Newfoundland and Labrador.

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To see a complete list of the contest entries, visit the discussion board on Rattling Books' Facebook group page.