the buzz log
Celebrate National Punctuation Day. Period.
In an era of text messages and tweets, punctuation has been the first to go (followed by vowels and articles like "the" and "a"). Still, National Punctuation Day, founded by a former newsman, continues the fight to uphold order in the English language.
Lost cause or valiant effort? Despite tech trends to the contrary, people do care about punctuation—even if they are mostly schoolkids: In the past 30 days, about 44% of “punctuation” searches on Yahoo! are kids under 13 ... boys alone make up 39% of the searches.
Missed Marks
Comma: Among all the punctuation searches, commas confuse the most—and we're not even talking about serial offenders (as in the debate over whether or not to put a comma before the conjunction and in a series: "'Twilight' vampires are super-strong, glittery, and hot."). Another comma controversy: whether anyone besides a poet should use “comma splice."
Apostrophe: Apostrophes wreak the second-most anguish, with people trying to figure out "plural possessive nouns apostrophes" (e.g. "Stay out of the women's room" and "My classmates' cloaks are in the cloak room") and "rules of use of apostrophe for nonliving things" (e.g. to be at "wit's end" is okay, but "car's door" should be "car door").
As if the English language wasn't confusing enough, an apostrophe doesn't just mean getting all possessive: People go online to figure out literary apostrophes. That's when people talk to an absent person or a concept as though they're in the room, and expect a response (as in, "Love, why do you forsake me?" or "Why, O Great Punctuation God, can't people distinguish between it's and its?"). Yeah, lots of drama involved.
Hyphen: Proper punctuation goes beyond communicating an idea so that there's no misunderstanding. There are social consequences too: Queries into "hyphenating last names" and "hyphenating last names after marriage" dive right into matrimonial politics, which gets multiplied when the offspring come. Something to consider—a premarital punctuation agreement.
Below, courtesy of the company with the trademarked exclamation point, are the dirty dozen of troubling punctuation marks. Don't abuse them. Happy Punctuation Day.*
Most Searched Punctuation Marks on Yahoo!, past 30 days
- Comma
- Apostrophe
- Hyphens
- Semicolon
- Question Mark
- Quotation Marks
- Ellipses
- Parentheses
- Exclamation Point
- Colon
- Period
- Bracket
*No harm was done to any punctuation marks during the writing of this post...we hope.
Capital Games
Literary terms, Cliff Notes, and science fair project ideas. Oh, yeah, it's on now.
Searches on Yahoo! are smartening up, now that students are back in session. One notable spike has been on "state capitals," which is a good trend considering geography has always been a sore subject among Americans. The National Geographic's last survey reported young adults 18-24 "demonstrate a limited understanding of the world."
That includes our own backyard. So, people have been going online for imaginative ways to memorize where each state's seat of power lies, including games, quizzes, maps, puzzles, raps, and songs (like the Animaniacs ditty sung in a pseudo-Brit accent).
Of course, this whole memorization would have gone a lot easier if founding fathers and civic planners made sure the capitals remained the most populous city (27 are not) or at least contained the state name (only Indianapolis and Oklahoma City extend that courtesy).
As it is, some poor capitals don't get any respect, from America's itty bittiest state capital (and no, it's not in the smallest state) to where Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger hangs out. Roundups like The Nifty Fifty States and 50states do their best to make this kind of learning fun, but there are just some capitals that will always draw blank stares. On the upside, that makes for some good betting games. (Kids, no betting unless mom says ok.)
Here are the 10 hardest state capitals to remember, based on searches on Yahoo! in the past week (and the answers).
Ten Hardest State Capitals to Remember
- Capital of North Carolina
- Capital of California
- Capital of Alaska
- Capital of Maryland
- Capital of Georgia
- Capital of Florida
- Capital of Montana
- Capital of New Mexico
- Capital of New York
- Capital of Washington
Answers: Raleigh, Sacramento, Juneau, Annapolis, Atlanta, Tallahassee, Helena, Santa Fe, Albany, Olympia.
Induction Hosts, Warrior Mindset, Sheepskin Boots: What's the Buzz
Our picks from the day's hottest searches.
- David Thompson (breakout). Michael Jordan, headed to the Hall of Fame on Friday, anointed North Carolina alum "Skywalker" to host his induction.
- Obama School Speech (+581%). No. 44 released his speech in advance and addressed the nation's children today.
- Warrior Mind Training (+289%). Time magazine profiled an Army program out to teach 1.1 million soldiers "the art of mental toughness."
- Uggs (+185%). Ladies are putting away the whites and pulling out the sheepskin boots.
- State Capitals (+125%). It's homework time. Here are some answers: Tallahassee, Frankfort, and Olympia.
Filed under: Sports, Education, Military, Shoes, Barack Obama, Geography
Western Adventures in Education for Iraqis
Iraq may be trading up, from Western military support to educational opportunities. According to Inside Higher Ed blog, an Iraqi government program plans to fund 10,000 annual scholarships for its citizens to study at American and British universities.
The Iraqi Parliament has set aside $54 million (about half of what Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki requested, but still not bad) to launch the program, set to run for five years. A Washington academic group is helping the government out with the logistics, and the first round will be chosen by the end of July.
Iraq has been on an educational spending spree: It recently promised to double Fulbright Student Scolarship offerings. Not everyone (including American scholars) loves the idea of money going to Western universities, rather than back into the Iraqi infrastructure. As for worries about even a bigger "brain drain" from Iraq, the Higher Committee on Educational Development requires students every year of their scholarship with a year of working in their native country, or pay everything back.
To most involved with the effort, though, this educational (and cultural) exchange can do nothing but good. Right now, about 225,000 American undergraduates are getting up to scholarly speed in the Middle East.
As one Valparaiso University employee puts it, "The exchange of international students promotes mutual understanding around the world, which leads to more peaceful relationships regionally." First lessons though: How to deal with Western red tape.
Smart Money Move: Student Loan Makeover
While the price of ignorance is high, the cost of college—not to mention graduate education—has become astronomical. A government initiative aims to change all that.
It's a simple concept called Income-Based Repayment, which reduces student loans so they aren't more than 15% of income. (Some people making very little income won't owe a cent.) After 25 years of repayment, debt is wiped out. If you're a teacher or work at a nonprofit, more good news: Your debt will be cleared after 10 years.
About 1 million people are expected to participate in the program. To see if you qualify, you can use the calculator here. U.S. News & World Report blog has some helpful tips for anyone who wants to apply.
News of the loan program sent searches soaring on the Web. Queries for "new student loan law" jumped to the head of the class with a whopping 8,800% increase. Other popular lookups included "consolidate federal student loans," "new law for student loans," "government help with student loans," and "department of education student loans."
See, now you can tell your parents it was a smart move to get that philosophy degree after all.
Filed under: Education
top movers
| Rank | Subject | 1-Day Move |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ford 400 | Breakout! |
| 2 | Indonesia Ferry | Breakout! |
| 3 | Jordan Chandler | 3481% |
| 4 | Evan Chandler | 2322% |
| 5 | American Music Awards | 1841% |
| 6 | John F. Kennedy | 1529% |
| 7 | Turkey Stuffing Recipes | 1361% |
| 8 | Liam Hemsworth | 1172% |
| 9 | Lou Dobbs | 1142% |
| 10 | Hendrick Motorsports | 888% |
top leaders
| Rank | Subject | Move | Score |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Black Friday | +340 | 1290 |
| 2 | NFL | +489 | 670 |
| 3 | Jennifer Lopez | +451 | 515 |
| 4 | New Moon | -67 | 250 |
| 5 | American Music Awards | +236 | 249 |
| 6 | UFC | -36 | 239 |
| 7 | Miley Cyrus | +66 | 169 |
| 8 | Hulu | -11 | 154 |
what's the buzz?
A subject's buzz score is the percentage of Yahoo! users searching for that subject on a given day, multiplied by a constant to make the number easier to read. Weekly leaders are the subjects with the greatest average buzz score for a given week.
For more detailed information, visit our FAQ.