”LLM grooming” refers to the deliberate manipulation of large language models (LLMs) by flooding their training data with disinformation, aiming to bias their outputs towards specific narratives. It is a specific type of data poisoning. Simplified, it goes a little like this: bad actors will publish thousands of articles on hundreds of websites. (Probably written,… Continue reading The neologism ‘LLM grooming’ explained
Category: neologisms
37 examples of anachronyms
Anachronyms are words that are used “in an anachronistic way, by referring to something in a way that is appropriate only for a former or later time.” (Source) I chanced upon the term through a Reddit post, and was immediately charmed, so I thought I would make a list of them. There are many more… Continue reading 37 examples of anachronyms
What does “75 cozy” mean?
Rebecca Jennings wrote a column for Vox about all the new terms that are being coined on TikTok for the clicks. She even gave the phenomenon a name: trendbait. It was a great piece and I featured it in my newsletter. One annoying thing, though: one of her examples was a term that I had… Continue reading What does “75 cozy” mean?
Why do people sometimes write “wen” instead of “when”?
In the most recent episode of podcast Because Language, presenter and linguist Daniel Midgley tells us about some interesting Internet English he has observed. It is about the placement of the word “when”, sometimes spelled as “wen”. Here are some examples: (I apologise for all the examples being on Reddit, Daniel Midgley did name some… Continue reading Why do people sometimes write “wen” instead of “when”?
Neologism: microgooning
I collect neologisms for my newsletter English in Progress. Sometimes I find them myself on social media (by searching for “English language” and similar). Then I write a blog post about them, because I don’t like linking to social media in my newsletter. “Gooning” is either masturbating a lot, or masturbating in such a way… Continue reading Neologism: microgooning