Wordia blog

This week I’m going to attempt to write the blog with the theme of crap Christmas Cracker jokes as we’re hoping to see Santa come down our chimney and are currently discussing if we’re leg or breast men – turkey wise of course. So first up out of our yuletide wordia cracker:

First up: what do you get if you cross a star with a sailor? A hugely successful indie band of course! Following massive success in the early and mid noughties Starsailor have been a bit quiet of late. But here at Wordia we’ve learnt that it’s only really because like every other band in the known universe they’ve decided to leave EMI. They are back with a bang in a few months time with a new album on the Virgin label. We caught up with lead singer James Walsh on the cusp of his big comeback. For a man who regularly performs in front of thousands he was remarkably softly spoken, but unsurprisingly eloquent with a lyrical quality to his turn of phrase. Watch out for his endearing videos coming soon.

Next is more of a riddle than a joke. Can you guess the real names of up and coming double act Bronya and Siony? Honda and Sammi? Inge and Hermione? No – it’s Sonya and Briony, who have made the almost double bluff of protecting their anonymity by merely switching the first letters of their Christian names. Could they be the next French and Saunders? Quite possibly on the evidence of the definitions they gave us. Word play is really their forte so they were perfect for wordia.

It just wouldn’t be Christmas without a knock knock joke in a cracker. So in that spirit try this one: Knock knock. Who’s there? Dungeon. Dungeon who? Dungeon know that we went to the London Dungeon this week! Your correspondent hadn’t been to the spooky attraction since he was in short trousers and didn’t recall it being particularly alarming. But in the interim period they’ve really upped the ante and it actually ended up being quite scary. They’ve got real rats you know! We were escorted round by the PR lady and the actor we were filming with and to avoid bumping into the paying public we kept on having to walk up and down a bit of the dungeon known as plague street. One of the main features in that area is a mannequin dressed as a plague victim which, when triggered by a sensor, sneezes a mist of water (hopefully!) at hapless passers by. You know in Indiana Jones and the Last crusade when having seen a useless Nazi decapitated Indy knows how to time his run just right so he avoids the slashing blades of the booby traps protecting the Holy Grail. Well in this case the PR lady and the actor (being seasoned pros) were the Indys and we were the useless Nazis – getting hosed in the face by the sneezing dummy on no less than three occasions.

Finally in site news ‘Illustration’ by Quentin Blake is still number one on the wordia chart. If you’ve found a definition you think can beat it make sure you rate it at the end of your viewing of it so it races up the chart to challenge for the top spot.

A very happy Christmas to you all and as always, keep it wordia.

Disorder, affliction, malaise. Call it what you will but we’ve been defining illness offline pretty well this week. There’s been more sniffles in the wordia office than that hayfever sufferers convention I went to in a hay barn surrounded by a highly polluting ringroad. But disease is just a word to the dictionary and the wordia must, and did go on.
In terms of filming we’ve been keeping it pretty showbiz this week. First up was a trip to see Leanne Jones. She is the multi-award winning star of hit West End musical Hairspray. We arrived backstage at the theatre to find that the dreaded lurgy wasn’t just confined to our office but had dared to afflict the crème de la crème of theatreland’s talent. The one and only Michael Ball – no less- was under the weather, causing much consternation amongst the backstage crew. However we were delighted to see Michael stroll casually through the door looking the picture of health. Comforted that the audience wouldn’t be deprived of their main attraction we were able to chat to Leanne with our minds set at rest.
Next up was wordia’s first proper Hollywood film star. This was a pretty big moment for us. After all it’s not everyday you get to shake hands with George of the Jungle himself – Brendan Fraser. Having appeared in blockbusters like the aforementioned Disney comedy, the Mummy trilogy and Crash, Brendan was in town to promote his new movie Inkheart. When relating the experience of meeting him back at the office the description that Homer Simpson gave of God upon meeting him in a dream came to mind, i.e. “nice hair, good teeth, a class act all the way”. Unlinke God, Brendan was very down to earth and I would recommend keeping you eyes peeled for his definitions coming soon – particularly of ‘protagonist’.
In site news after many fantastic entries our Christmas competition has closed. All the winners’ videos (as chosen by the wordia community) are well worth a watch so do take a moment to  give them a spin.
ALIVE by hennell

COMMUNION by fishcatshoe

GOODNESS DaveyBoyz

POWER by fishcatshoe
Finally after two weeks at the top Nick Clegg’s definition of democracy has finally been knocked off the prestigious perch of highest rated video on wordia. In fact it’s dropped all the way down to number three. In its place is Roald Dahl’s legendary illustrator Quentin Blake giving us his feelings on illustration, closely followed by a very funny film that Daveyboyz feels defines parody. We couldn’t agree more.
As always, keep it wordia.

We’ve had a bit of a whirlwind of filming this week. Four very different personalities got captured by the wordia cameras, united only in their desire to redefine the dictionary. First up we found ourselves skulking around Hampstead Heath with the comedians’ comedian Mr. Tony Law. Tony is a Canadian who’s big in Australia and lives in the UK. After regaling us with his multifarious heritage he casually slipped into one of his definitions that he likes to go on time travelling adventures with his dachshunds. Not being ones to argue we let him get on with it, which he did in fine style, putting us completely at our ease. Especially considering that if we needed to do a re-take we could just ask Tony to take us back in time and have another go without wasting any tape.

Right on the other end of the entertainment spectrum was Mr Midas – the UK’s number one dancehall artist. This is one dude who hates the cold. Screaming his frustrations at the British weather from the pit of his well-tuned lungs. So it was just as well that we made him film all three definitions for us outside in temperatures close to freezing. In hindsight we probably should have explained ourselves better when we called the day before to tell him we had a cool location in mind.

Next we had every male teenager from the 90s’ sticky tissue generator: Melinda Messenger. Melinda’s the latest celebrity to bring out their own branded fragrance. Not being versed in the art of perfumery we were amused when reading the press release that perfumes traditionally have three tones to their odour: ‘top notes’, ‘heart notes’ and ‘bottom notes’. To us a bottom note conjures up images of an embarrassing expellation of noxious gas from betwixt one’s buttocks, not the subtle hint of a spring meadow that Melinda was going for, and certainly not something to have blended into a perfume. Having said that Melinda was such a joy to meet and work with that it doesn’t seem beyond the realms of fantasy that her farts do indeed smell of freshly cut flowers.

Finally we were out and about with movie actress Margo Stilley. Like Tony, Margo seemed to be a person with a foot in several continents. She was born in the USA, lives in London and is about to go and do some charity work in Africa. It made us momentarily jealous of these celebrities’ globetrotting lifestyles, before remembering that where there’s a computer, there’s wordia. So although in one way we’re in London, in another way we’re also everywhere………sort of.

In on-site news Nick Clegg’s democracy is still number 1 in the wordia charts. Do you have any new favourites or can the man from Europe’s best-supported third party hang onto the top spot for another week.  Also our fab competition is still open for a few more days. So don’t forget to define power, communion, alive and goodness for your chance to win some christmas cash.

As always, keep it wordia.

So it’s almost the season of goodwill to all men and generosity of spirit. In that vein we’ve launched our first ever competition. A major international brand has approached us asking for wordia users to define some words that embody their message. There’s potentially £1000 up for grabs if you are judged by the wordia community to have delivered the best definition of these words. So get uploading and you may well be able to upgrade that Christmas Turkey to a free range Goose and buy Granny a turbo-zimmer.  But you’d better be quick as the competition closes on 8th December.

On the main site we’ve launched better functionality for all our users. Now every wordia member can add some linkable artwork and a biography to their profile page to accompany their avatar and basic information. It’s a great chance to promote an external project or simply tell the wordia community a little more about yourself. So if you want to tell us about what you’re up to outside the site then get uploading.

In other news we’ve been out filming with X-Factor artistic director and Grease is the Word / So You Think You Can Dance judge Brian Friedman. Brian had very nice Hollywood teeth and used them and the rest of his mouth to good effect in defining a couple of words for us. Having nailed both his definitions in one take we complimented him on his slick delivery. He replied with the amusing but slightly Orwellian quip that ‘nothing exists unless it’s been on TV’.  Perhaps not totally surprising from a guy that works with Britney, Justin and the like on a regular basis.

We’ve also been down on a farm recording with Comedian Adam Riches. It all got rather muddy, a little bit rainy, and accutely pungent. At one point a cow let us know what she thought of our efforts by pooing a heroic amount of faecal matter in our general direction. But somehow Adam managed to concentrate on comedy and the resulting videos were properly funny. Watch out for them in the next few weeks.

Finally it seems that it’s a boom time for the democratic process. Not only did the world’s favourite politician win the US presidency but Nick Clegg’s definition of ‘democracy’ is officially the highest rated definition on wordia. What do you make of it?

As always, keep it wordia.

First of all some self congratulations are in order. We’re two months old! Whooo hoooo! We’ve got the balloons up at wordia towers and I write this wearing a party hat with a nice slice of cake sitting on the desk next to me. By way of further celebration we’ve been rolling with some real high achievers – exactly the kind of people we hoped to be filming with when we set out on this lexicographical adventure. First on the list has to be the Children’s Laureate himself, Quentin Blake. Everyone knows Quentin’s amazing illustrations from the Roald Dahl books but what we were surprised to learn was that the guy is a prodigious author in his own right as well as a hugely in demand curator of art exhibitions. So to have him define illustration and even do some drawing right in front of us was a real treat.
Next on the hitlist was Nick Clegg – the leader of the Liberal Democrats. According to a recent poll Nick is trusted to run the country by more Briton’s than Gordon Brown. Now while that’s not necessarily saying that much in the current climate we were impressed with his hair (foppish but not overbearing), his office (right in the middle of the houses of parliament, next to Westminster Hall where Charles the First was tried for treason and Winston Churchill lay in state) but more importantly his definitions of liberal, freedom and democracy. We want these words to start a debate on wordia. So if you have feelings that are different to Nick’s why not upload a response to his videos with your own definitions?
We’ve also filmed with legendary Bon Viveur Keith Allen who, as you’ll discover if you watch his definition of Island, is definitely not a fan of U2. This is the guy who, in the mid-Nineties, persuaded Damien Hirst to serve up his penis on a plate to Stephen Fry, after the latter had requested a sausage breakfast at the Groucho Club. So we weren’t quite sure what to expect when we arrived. Thankfully however there was no nudity, or indeed sausages, involved and Keith’s definitions can be found here.
The last stop of our recent exploits was a trip to the BBC Good Food show. On entering the vast exhibition hall our eye was caught by a stall of animal rights protestors which due to some unfortunate planning had been placed in between two stands of butchers – unfortunately displaying scores of delicious looking dead animals. We were tempted to get the group’s definition of ‘location’ but instead pressed on and filmed with some of the UK’s top chefs who explained what various foody words mean to them. Watch out for those tasty videos coming soon.

Last Friday Ed and Pete were invited up to the rather splendid National Media Museum in Bradford to attend not one, but two events. The first was the opening of the museum’s excellent exhibition celebrating 50 years of Blue Peter. Upon arrival we got chatting to a very polite and charming lady who happily gave us the time of day and took an interest in our site. Unbeknownst to us we were talking to one of TV’s greatest unsung heroes who has influenced the lives of practically every kid born since 1950, the great Rosemary Gill. Not only was Rosemary the first editor of Blue Peter – turning it into the British institution we know and love today – but she went on to invent multi-coloured swap shop, which begat Saturday Superstore, which begat Going Live which begat Live and Kicking which begat TMI. This was the woman who created Saturday morning TV and God bless her for it. Standing next to Rosemary was the very stylish and striking Leila Williams. Leila was the first female presenter on Blue Peter, blazing a trail for legends like Valarie Singleton and my own personal favourite, Janet Ellis. In her day Leila was quite the foxy lady, even winning Miss Great Britain in 1957. We had the pleasure of filming a clip for wordia with Leila and you can see it on this site very soon.

Being the big media high rollers that we are we got taken out for a posh dinner by the museum, attended by 3 former Blue Peter Editors. Each one was wearing the much coveted Gold Blue Peter badge, which you can only get if you are the Editor of Blue Peter or you save someone’s life. If a regular Blue Peter badge gets you into museums for free presumably the gold version grants access to your own parking space at the BBC, a villa in the South of France and immunity from police prosecution. Having ate and drunk our fill of food, wine and children’s TV nostalgia we retired full of the joys of sticky back plastic.

Following a hearty full English it was back to the museum the next day for MediaFest ‘08, a day of discussion and debate on the media industry to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the museum. We listened to a fantastic Q&A with Janet Street Porter before the main event – our very own Ed Baker going toe-to-toe with a raft of media intelligentsia to discuss the not-at-all-ridiculously-big subject: the ‘future of media’. Ed held his end up remarkably well, coherently answering all questions thrown by the clearly knowledgeable chair and audience, whilst simultaneously name-checking wordia at every conceivable opportunity. He did us proud. The museum recorded the session and will soon be available as a podcast from their website.

Other events that have kept us amused recently were going to film at the Metro Snow event and going to our first movie junket, for the upcoming cinema release documentary ‘Religulous’. Watch out for the resulting videos over the next few weeks.

Today the wordia team visited BBC Television centre for Ed’s big debut on TV. The wise folks at BBC World news picked up on the buzz around our site and decided that it would make a fun item for ‘BBC World today’. And so it proved. They sent a nice car to pick us up from Wordia Towers with slightly less nice driver who insisted on eating copious amounts of stinky fried chicken at the worryingly early hour of 11.00. After flirting with being late due to horrendous traffic on the Westway we arrived with a comfortable 15 minutes to spare. It was straight into make-up for Ed before being whisked onto set with the small but beautifully proportioned Jonathan Charles. The floor manager counted down, the lights came on, and suddenly our very own co-founder was live in front of a potential 68 million people, which was a bit weird when from our perspective at the back of the studio he was live in front of us, a poorly watered money plant and a dodgy coffee machine. But with the poise of a seasoned veteran our head honcho held his end up rather well and before you knew it the item was over and we were back in the car on the way home, although this time thankfully without the chicken-loving driver. You can see the big moment in its entirety below.

In other news we’re officially web site of the fortnight. The very sensible people at WebUser Magazine gave us a 5 out of 5 rating and a rather nice write up. Apparently the site “has a smart minimalist interface that makes it a pleasure to use” (top work James and George!) and our content “is already building nicely”. We couldn’t agree more. Check it out in full here.

We’ve had an interesting week at wordia. The site’s been getting a lot of interest and we’ve been really pleased with the feedback we’re receiving from around the world. But it’s not been all sunshine and light. First the Times and then the Independent published articles questioning Wordia’s validity. Basically they argued that having members of the public define words risks confusing and undermining the English Language because a dictionary should be compiled by experts and experts only.

But we knew they were wrong and like Skywalker vs Vader we took the blows and valiantly struck back. Our adviser and investor Michael Birch took ‘the pen is mightier than the sword’ route with a rather nicely worded letter in the Times. Then completely independently we were delighted to see that Dr Johnson’s biographer Henry Hitchings sprang to our defence. He countered the assertions that Johnson would have been horrified by wordia, saying that Johnson was interested in the different ways that words were used by different people. If anyone should know, Henry should!

From our point of view these articles have completely missed the point. We started the site to see what individual words mean to individual people and to create an entertaining way of presenting language that will help people improve their vocabulary and literacy.

But the other thing wordia is all about is encouraging debate about language. If there’s one theme that can definitely be said to have come out of this varied media coverage - it’s debate. So we’re happy. Bring it on!

So wordia is born. A frantic week of getting the site tested and ready to press the button of truth culminated in the team gathering at Dr Samuel Johnson’s house, 17 Gough Square, London, at 9am on Thursday 18th September 2008.

The future and past of the dictionary meet at last

Contrary to popular opinion Dr Johnson didn’t actually write the first dictionary. Lexicography had been going on in some form or other for hundreds of years in various different languages. But what earned Dr J. his place in history was creating the first comprehensive alphabetical glossary of a language with illustrative examples of how each word was used. In other words he produced the first version of what we now recognise as a dictionary. It took him and his team a whopping 9 years to compile and write it – over twice as long as it took Michaelangelo to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. For most of those 9 long years the team of amanuenses were based in the attic of 17 Gough Square. Seeing as wordia is taking Johnson’s illustrative example concept to the next level by adding video into the mix we see ourselves as in some small way continuing the great man’s work. So it made sense that it was in Dr Johnson’s drawing room of all drawing rooms that we set about draining coffee at an alarming rate and welcoming members of the press, friends and family to the launch of wordia.com. It began to sink in that after months (and in one case three years) of hard work we were watching people interact with the site for the first time. Those pain au chocolat suddenly began to taste all the sweeter.

There to say hi to wordia for the first time were orators Alex Horne and Doc Brown, not to mention the big daddy himself- Mr Bebo, Michael Birch. Speeches were spoken, questions were answered, videos were viewed. The concept was live and we could go to the pub and watch the hits coming in.

So now we’re almost a week in. We’ve had a lot of people checking us out and the first user generated videos are starting to arrive. We’ve been in the national press and featured in a load of blogs from all around the world. We’ve even caused a little controversy – which is always fun. It’s an exciting and very encouraging start. We hope you stick with us for the ride.