June 19, 2009

Blogger in Brooklyn asks: How about "Orwellian"? Is that on the list?

by

The New York Times is watching you ....

The New York Times is watching you ....

“If The New York Times ever strikes you as an abstruse glut of antediluvian perorations, if the newspaper’s profligacy of neologisms and shibboleths ever set off apoplectic paroxysms in you, if it all seems a bit recondite,” says Zachary M. Seward, you have cause for hope: The Times is surveiling word definition searches conducted by its readers and may be using the resultant data to dumb down or up — I can dream, can’t I? — accordingly.

As Seward details in a report for the Nieman Journalism Lab, the Times has recently added a feature whereby, in its online edition, if you highlight a word, you can get a pop-up definition. “[I]t turns out the Times tracks usage of that feature,” reports Seward, who has gotten hold of a memo about it circulated to Times staffers by deputy news editor Philip Corbett. It charts the 50 most looked-up words and cautions reporters to “avoid the temptation to display our erudition at the reader’s expense.” As Seward observes, it’s “a reminder that news sites are sitting on a wealth of data, from popular search terms to click rates, that can help them adjust to reader preferences.”

Seward’s post includes the full chart of the 50 most looked-up words, but here at least is the top 10:

1. sui generis
2. solipsistic
3. louche
4. laconic
5. saturnine
6. antediluvian
7. epistemological
8. shibboleths
9. penury
10. sumptuary

Dennis Johnson is the founder of MobyLives, and the co-founder and co-publisher of Melville House.

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