‘Orbisculate,’ word invented in CNY, added to Words With Friends dictionary - syracuse.com - Dictionary

A word that was invented in Central New York has been added to the dictionary — for Words With Friends, that is.

Mobile game company Zynga, Inc., announced Monday that it added “orbisculate” to the in-game dictionary for its popular word game, Words With Friends. The Scrabble-like app also made it the “Word of the Day,” and detailed its full etymology on the WWF “Definition” page.

Neil Krieger, who died of complications from Covid-19 last year, created the word “orbisculate” for a class assignment while he was a student at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., during the late 1950s. According to the official website orbisculate.com, the word means “to accidentally squirt juice and/or pulp” from foods, such as a grapefruit, into one’s eye, or onto someone’s body, clothing or elsewhere.

Krieger’s children, Syracuse University alumnus Jonathan Krieger and Cornell alum Hilary Krieger, said their father used it so often they thought it was a real word for most of their life. After his death, they launched an effort to get the word added to official dictionaries in honor of his memory.

“Our dad would have gotten a huge kick out of his creation being played in Words With Friends. Being part of a game that’s played by millions will help add our father’s word to the vernacular, and ultimately, the English language dictionary,” Jonathan said in a statement.

From left to right: Neil, Susan, Jonathan and Hilary Krieger. The family is trying to get "orbisculate," a word invented by Cornell University alumnus Neil Krieger, added to the dictionary.Provided

The Kriegers have since gotten the word used by multiple celebrities, including TV host Ellen DeGeneres, “Girls Trip” star Tiffany Haddish, CNN anchor Jake Tapper, comedian Sarah Silverman, and chef Jose Andres.

“Yeah, the problem with making yourself a drink that has some kind of like twist of lemon in it is - the risk is that the lemon could orbisculate into your eye,” Silverman said, imitating a squinting face during an “Ellen Show” segment earlier this month. “And that always causes you to kind of do that. This is like a good reaction of orbisculation.”

Jonathan, who graduated from SU’s Newhouse School in 2007, and Hilary, who graduated from Cornell like their dad, are also trying to raise money to benefit Carson’s Village, a Dallas non-profit that helps families after the loss of a loved one.

For more information on “orbisculate” and their efforts to get it in the dictionary, visit orbisculate.com.

Create new words and definitions on SLictionary with our Quick Start Guide - CoinGeek - Dictionary

Looking up words in the dictionary is sooo last century. Making up your own words on Urban Dictionary is so last decade. It’s 2021 and we have Bitcoin back again—why not make up your own words, and get paid if they catch on? SLictionary lets you do all that, and we’re about to show you how.

SLictionary (the name means “self-learning dictionary”) works on the principle that language is a living thing, evolving over time and with new words added by the communities that use them.

“We’re burning all the inefficient, lazily-conceived dictionary skeuomorphic saddlebags”, says SLictionary’s homepage. As well as Bitcoin payments, it also utilizes gamification, pictures, videos and sound as much as possible to aid pronunciation and memory retention. The community participates by voting on the most popular words, definitions and the most well-constructed arguments for why they should become part of our daily lives.

On SLictionary you can play different roles. There are “Knowledge-Seekers,” “Word$miths,” and “Word Barons.”

It also uses a micropayment structure, similar to that on social networks like Twetch or Relica, where users pay tiny amounts to use the service, and creators earn from the proceeds. Users need to have a Money Button account to use the platform.

Such payments are only possible on Bitcoin SV (BSV). Since Bitcoin’s original protocol rules were reinstated in January 2020, and the (later-added) limitations on transaction block sizes were removed, Bitcoin is once again able to create whole new economies based on fast, small (even tiny) payments. Pay US$0.01 to search, which gets you the full meaning/s of the word you’re looking for as well as the right to vote on which parts you like best.

It all happens instantly, and with fees so small they’re barely noticeable, on BSV.

Knowledge Seekers can vote on the best words, best definitions for words, and even the best part of a definition. Those who created them (the Word$miths) earn a large share of those micropayments, rewarding their efforts.

Words and their definitions are “lit” when Knowledge Seekers click the lightbulb icon next to them. The more votes, the more money their creators make. For more rewards, the users called Word Barons can also sponsor bounties on content they’d like to see—win the bounty and get paid even more.

SLictionary is definitely not some hastily thrown-together project that simply adds Bitcoin to something that already exists. It’s a well thought-out system of incentives, education and entertainment that makes the most of Bitcoin technology, the way it’s supposed to work.

Watch the Quick Guide above to find out how to join in, then visit the SLictionary site to try it for yourself. Just as Bitcoin is so much more than money, SLictionary is so much more than a dictionary. It isn’t just creating a new economy with digital cash, it’s creating a whole new language, culture, and the way these things are formed.

New to Bitcoin? Check out CoinGeek’s Bitcoin for Beginners section, the ultimate resource guide to learn more about Bitcoin—as originally envisioned by Satoshi Nakamoto—and blockchain.

Mother 3's Fan Translation Patch Has Been Updated - Nintendo Life - Translation

Yesterday marked the 15th anniversary of the cult classic Game Boy Advance title Mother 3. While there's still no sign of an official localisation, fans many years ago took matters into their own hands by releasing their own translation.

While nothing official is happening, it seems the fan translation is celebrating the 15-year milestone with a special patch - bumping this build up to version 1.3. Mother 3 fan ranslator Tomato says the new patch is "almost entirely" thanks to fellow translator @Lorenzooone, who spent the three years reprogramming the game.

Today is MOTHER 3's 15th anniversary 😮

Here's a new version of the translation patch! https://t.co/VmGbPsSLu2

(the new patch is mostly technical stuff, bug fixes, and performance boosts, the translation tools have been updated too, they're here: https://t.co/GdnbSQs5xt ) pic.twitter.com/F8ouGsQtiJ— Mato (@ClydeMandelin)

April 20, 2021

As detailed in the tweet above, the patch fixes various bugs and issues, and even makes some improvements. You can get the full rundown here.

At this rate, this seems about as good as it's going to get for the Mother 3 15 year anniversary. Do you have any fond memories of this game, or are you still hoping for an official release here in the west? Leave a comment down below.

Cisco Webex Innovation Breaks Through Language Barriers with Real-Time Translation for More Inclusive Meeting Experiences in Indonesia - Taiwan News - Translation

News Summary:

• Webex customers can preview real-time translations from English into 100+ languages including Bahasa Indonesia
• Webex AI-powered, real-time translation drives more inclusive collaboration through virtual meeting experiences that are 10x better than in person interactions
• Webex innovation paving the way for real-time translation beyond English

JAKARTA, INDONESIA - Media OutReach - 21 April 2021 - Eliminating language barriers is a key step to enabling a truly hybrid workforce. To help, Cisco recently announced the availability (currently in preview) of its real-time translation feature while also dramatically expanding the language library from 10+ to more than 100 languages, including Bahasa Indonesia. As part of the all new Webex, organizations across Indonesia can provide employees with inclusive and seamless collaboration experiences, which is essential to supporting the needs of a workforce that is more dispersed than ever before.

Users can create their own personalized Webex meeting experience by quickly and easily self-selecting the language of their choice from the most commonly used languages, such as Arabic, Dutch, French, German, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin, Russian and Spanish, as well as more localized languages such as Danish, Hindi, Malay, Turkish and Vietnamese. The personalized language experience provides a path through one of the major hurdles in global business – the language barrier. Now users can engage more fully in meetings, translating from English to 100+ other languages, enabling teams to communicate more effectively with each other, and opening new opportunities for businesses to build a more inclusive, global workforce.

For businesses, there's a talent and cost benefit. The feature enables businesses to focus on finding the best talent regardless of wherever they call home or their native language. And a recent report from Metrigy on intelligent virtual assistants found that nearly 24% of participants have meetings that include non-English native speakers and of these, more than half have been using third-party services to translate meetings into other languages (incurring an average cost of $172 per meeting). Integrating intelligent virtual meeting assistants with language translation capabilities significantly reduces or even eliminates this cost entirely.

"The inclusive features of Webex help create a level playing field for users regardless of factors like language or geography. Enabling global Real Time Translations is another step toward powering an Inclusive Future, and an important component of driving better communication and collaboration across teams." said Jeetu Patel, SVP and GM Security and Applications, Cisco. "AI technologies play an integral role in delivering the seamless collaboration, smart hybrid work and intelligent customer experiences that Cisco is known to deliver."

Webex has a rich history of helping employees innovate and remain productive wherever they are. Since the pandemic, Webex has not only continued to help businesses thrive, it has also been an integral platform for governments to continue to lead remotely, doctors to meet with patients safely, and educators to teach students at a distance. It's clear that the future of work will involve a combination of remote and on-site interactions, known as hybrid-work. Cisco has a clear vision of how technology can help customers realize that future today and create a more inclusive world for all, by enabling a Webex experience that is 10x better than in-person while at the same time making in-person interactions 10x better as well.

Availability

The expanded Real-Time Translation feature is available in Webex as a preview and will be orderable and generally available in May.

Not all dialects included in translation.

Additional Resources:

About Cisco

Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) is the worldwide leader in technology that powers the internet. Cisco inspires new possibilities by reimagining your applications, securing your data, transforming your infrastructure, and empowering your teams for a global and inclusive future. Discover more on The Network and follow us on Twitter.

Cisco and the Cisco logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Cisco and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and other countries. A listing of Cisco's trademarks can be found at https://ift.tt/Uir7pd. Third-party trademarks mentioned are the property of their respective owners. The use of the word partner does not imply a partnership relationship between Cisco and any other company.

Google translation tools are creating a legal mess - Fudzilla - Translation

We did warn you

Translation tools from Google and other companies could be contributing to significant misunderstanding of legal terms according to research due to be presented at an academic workshop.

For a while now we have been pointing out that firms are relying too much on AI-based translation tools in the mistaken belief they are fit for the purpose. We have said that it will take a few being hauled before the courts before they realise that the few cents they save is not worth the piss-poor and inaccurate translations they are getting.

However, now the academics are warning that Google translate is producing howlers which could cause some real problems mostly because it does not understand legal terms.

For example, an English sentence about a court enjoining violence, or banning it, into one in the Indian language of Kannada that implies that the court-ordered violence. "Enjoin" can refer to either promoting or restraining an action. Mistranslations also arise with other contronyms, or words with contradictory meanings depending on context, including "all over", "eventual" and "garnish", the paper said.

To be fair, Google is marketing its machine translation as “a complement to specialised professional translation" and that it is "continually researching improvements, from better handling ambiguous language to mitigating bias, to making large-quality gains for under-resourced languages".

However, that has not stopped companies and some translation agencies from creating a cut-price product called a “machine translation” which is essentially someone taking Google Translate or DeepL and making it readable. The difference in price is half that of a translation so companies are falling for it.

The study's findings add to the scrutiny of automated translations generated by artificial intelligence software.

Researchers previously have found programs that learn translations by studying non-diverse text perpetuate historical gender biases, such as associating "doctor" with "he."

The new paper raises concerns about a popular method company use to broaden the vocabulary of their translation software. They translate foreign text into English and then back into the foreign language, aiming to teach the software to associate similar ways of saying the same phrase.

Book review: The Dictionary of Lost Words - InDaily - Dictionary

“In 1901, the word bondmaid was discovered missing from the Oxford English Dictionary. This is the story of the girl who stole it.”

Pip Williams’ meticulously researched debut novel follows the story of Esme Nicoll, a young lexicographer-to-be who devotes her life to an alternative dictionary. Esme spends her childhood under the sorting table in the Scriptorium, the shed in editor James Murray’s Oxford backyard where he and his assistants are assembling the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, falling in love with words and collecting the occasional slips that float down unnoticed.

Each misplaced, discarded or neglected word is dotingly placed by Esme into an old wooden trunk, and as she enters her teens, she becomes more obsessed with which words make it into the dictionary and which don’t.

The novel is set as the Great War looms and the women’s suffrage movement is gathering momentum, with this illicit collection of words becoming the theme as Esme crosses into womanhood and learns that “all words are not equal”. The history of English is often told through the lens of white men, and in 19^th and 20^th-century England, they were the people in charge of the words. Williams’ book gently highlights that the lack of representation of women in this respected tome was due to structural biases rather than deliberate omission.

Based on the true events of the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary, The Dictionary of Lost Words is a deeply engaging novel that combines a love of language with a cast of richly realised characters and relationships. Esme is a relatable character, intelligent yet imperfect; fighting to give women’s words their proper place in the English language while navigating friendship, love and loss. Esme’s relationship with her father, a companionable relationship of equals, is one of the novel’s greatest elements.

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At its heart, The Dictionary of Lost Words is about unspoken words, forgotten meanings and the tragedy of words that are left behind. Williams’ exquisite storytelling will keep you hooked, and lovers of language will get a kick out of the historical provenance of various words.

The Dictionary of Lost Words has received a multitude of well-deserved accolades in recent months, catapulting it to one of the most successful books to come out during lockdown. Experience this novel for yourself rather than getting swept away by the hype. Take the time to savour the breathtaking detail and lose yourself in words, one lost word at a time.

The Dictionary of Lost Words, by Pip Williams, is published by Affirm Press.

Sumudu Narayana is a freelance editor and beta reader based in Adelaide.

————-

A Year in Review  is an initiative by  Writers SA, with assistance from the Australia Council of the Arts, to produce a series of book reviews published in InDaily  over 12 months.

The reviews will focus on titles published during the pandemic, highlighting the work of Australian authors and publishers during this difficult time for the sector, and giving literary critics an outlet for their work that supports a strong culture of reading.

See previously published reviews  here.

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Google translation AI botches legal terms 'enjoin,' 'garnish' -research - Yahoo Finance - Translation

Bloomberg

A $1 Trillion Liquidity Surge Is Morphing Into a Leverage Boom

(Bloomberg) -- It was supposed to be a temporary buffer -- more than $1 trillion of debt taken on by U.S. companies last year to ride out the economic devastation caused by Covid-19.But with the economy rebounding and interest rates still near all-time lows, it’s becoming increasingly tempting for corporations including Home Depot Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc. to spend those cash cushions on acquisitions and dividend hikes. In many cases, they’re now borrowing more.The risk is that unfettered access to cheap debt -- even for less creditworthy companies -- will ease the pressure on executives to pay down their liabilities. That could extend a decade-long trend of swelling corporate debt levels, increasing the chances of a greater reckoning once interest rates rise or the next time capital markets seize up.“Today’s liquidity becoming tomorrow’s leverage is going to be the story of 2021 for at least some companies,” said David Brown, co-head of global investment grade fixed income at Neuberger Berman, which has $405 billion in assets.Rising CashTotal debt loads for U.S. companies outside the financial industry rose 10% in 2020 to $11.1 trillion, according to the Federal Reserve, in part because lower interest rates have made it less burdensome for many companies to shoulder more debt. So far, corporations have largely been hoarding the money rather than spending it. Non-financial companies in the S&P 500 index that reported results before March 31 had about $2.13 trillion of cash and marketable securities on their books in the most recent quarter, up more than 25% from a year earlier, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.But that’s likely to change, according to strategists at Barclays Plc. With the U.S. giving Covid-19 jabs to more than 3 million people a day now, and the economy showing signs of a resurgence as more consumers feel safe to go out and spend, companies are likely to be more aggressive in deploying cash.That’s likely to show up in the form of dividends, share buybacks, acquisitions, capital expenditure, and debt repayments, Barclays strategists led by Shobhit Gupta wrote in a report on Friday. Their analysis of comments on company conference calls shows that more management teams have been talking about making one-time dividend payments in recent months, and have been discussing buying back shares. The volume of acquisitions has also been growing.Generally, companies with higher credit ratings, in particular those at least four steps above junk, are likely to feel comfortable maintaining higher debt levels, the strategists said. Those with lower grades are more likely to pay down obligations.Home Depot sold $5 billion of bonds in March 2020, saying soon after that it wanted to make sure it had enough cash to tide it over during the pandemic. Then in January it borrowed $3 billion more for its acquisition of HD Supply Holdings Inc., its former subsidiary serving professional contractors. In February, the retailer said it was increasing its quarterly dividend by 10%. Meanwhile, total debt jumped by about $5.8 billion over the company’s fiscal year.Higher EarningsInvestors don’t always get hurt when a company boosts its borrowings. In the case of Home Depot, its earnings have risen alongside its liabilities, as the pandemic has spurred house-bound people to fix up their properties.The retailer prepaid $1.35 billion of bonds in March, and credit-rating firms aren’t looking at downgrading the company, which is ranked five steps above junk by Moody’s Investors Service and S&P Global Ratings. But analysts have said the boom in home improvement may fade in the coming year as people finish their projects and spend more time outside the home as the pandemic eases.Most money managers viewed companies’ extra debt as being short-term. Verizon said in April 2020 that it was issuing notes to boost its cash levels, describing the move on a call with investors as a step to help it “manage through the impacts of the Covid pandemic.”Then last month it sold more than $30 billion of bonds in multiple currencies, swelling its total debt to a record high in the process, to help finance purchases of 5G spectrum. The company views the rise in leverage as a temporary move to fund a strategic asset that positions the company for growth, according to an emailed statement from Treasurer Scott Krohn in response to an inquiry from Bloomberg.“For many industries, this liquidity was supposed to be temporary,” said Terence Wheat, senior portfolio manager of investment-grade corporate bonds at PGIM Fixed Income, who declined to comment on any specific corporation. “Now some companies may use it for acquisitions rather than paying down debt.”Lower PenaltiesCorporations are borrowing more now for the same reason they’ve been boosting debt levels for years: because they can. The average yield on an investment-grade corporate bond was just 2.2% as of Monday, far below the mean of the last decade of around 3.17%, according to Bloomberg Barclays index data.And companies are finding that adding on more debt doesn’t necessarily hurt them much. The penalty for a ratings downgrade is generally minimal. A corporation in the BBB tier, or between one and three steps above junk, pays about 0.47 percentage points more yield than companies in the A tier, or four to six steps above speculative grade, according to Bloomberg Barclays index data. That’s close to the lowest difference in a decade, and according to Barclays strategists, reflects the fact that insurance companies have been buying more BBB debt.That shrinking penalty may be why more than half of investment-grade corporate bonds by market value are in the BBB tier, versus just 27% in the early 1990s. Typically, most investment-grade companies can choose to pay down debt and merit higher ratings if they wish.“Companies have chosen to lever up,” said Richard Hunter, global head of corporate ratings at Fitch Ratings. “The wild card is going to be companies’ choices now.”Acquisition Time?For some North American companies, buying competitors looks like a good use of cash, as it can allow them to boost future earnings. Canada’s Rogers Communications Inc. said last month that it plans to acquire Shaw Communications Inc. for $16 billion. Its debt levels are expected to rise to more than five times a measure of earnings, a leverage ratio commonly associated with junk credit ratings. But the company said it plans to delever to a ratio of 3.5 times over the next three years.Rising profits for companies have helped make their debt levels look less worrisome by at least one measure. The ratio of corporations’ earnings to their interest costs has been climbing for the last few quarters, signaling they have more income available to pay their debt. For investment-grade firms in aggregate, that ratio is now better than it was pre-Covid-19, while the metric for junk-rated companies has almost returned to levels before the pandemic, according to Bloomberg Intelligence.High cash levels at companies make indebtedness look lower now by some measures. Net leverage, which subtracts cash from debt and compares that net debt level to a measure of earnings, is near pre-Covid-19 levels for both blue chip companies and riskier speculative grade corporations on average. Total leverage, which doesn’t subtract out cash, remains significantly higher that it was pre-pandemic, according to a Bloomberg Intelligence analysis of the investment-grade and high-yield corporate bond Bloomberg Barclays indexes.If companies keep spending their money instead of paying down debt, net leverage will rise, said Noel Hebert, director of credit research at Bloomberg Intelligence.“Ratings agencies have become comfortable with higher and higher leverage, thus companies are more and more happy to take advantage of it,” Hebert said. “There’s an incentive to hold leverage at elevated levels because there’s no real mechanism that’s punishing you.”(Updates with detail on insurance company demand in paragraph 16)For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2021 Bloomberg L.P.