Hunter Dickson led No. 1 Kansas to an impressive win over Michigan State, while Mark Pope aced his first big test as Kentucky's head coach.

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More than once, I think, veteran or (the noun vet) has been nominated  for US>UK Word of the Year. Dru, who nominated it for 2022, felt that it was appearing more often in UK contexts:

The word I’d propose is ‘veteran’ in the US sense of a former soldier. Some may dispute this as a word for this year as many of us have long been aware of it as an American expression, but since the summer of this year, I’ve increasingly heard it used on the BBC and elsewhere to meaning a former member of the UK armed services.

In the UK hitherto, it has just meant ‘old’, possibly slightly distinguished and used of cars etc.

The US abbreviation ‘vet’ causes confusion here as ‘vet’ means a doctor for animals, short for veterinary surgeon.

I considered making it the WotY, but it didn't feel 2022-ish enough. (You'll see why below.) But I put it on my to-be-blogged-about-sooner-rather-than-later list, and here we are! If you don't want to see all (BrE) my workings, scroll down to the TL;DR version.

The ex-soldier sense of veteran wasn't made up by Americans. Since the 1500s, veteran has been an English noun referring first to someone with "long experience in military service or warfare" (Oxford English Dictionary sense 1a) or "an ex-member of the armed forces" (sense 1b). Note the difference there: in the 1a meaning, the person is still probably serving, whereas in the 1b meaning they're retired from service. 

That second (1b) meaning, the OED notes, is "now chiefly North American," though there are UK examples peppered through their timeline of quotations. 

In BrE it is still used for sense 1a, to refer to old-but-still-going things or people. It's sometimes used like that in AmE too, often in relation to theat{er/re}, as in a veteran of stage and screen. The usage that Dru mentioned, veteran car, is particularly BrE. In AmE, you could call such a thing a vintage car (as in BrE too) or an antique car, as shown here in the GloWbE corpus: 

It's tricky to investigate whether the ex-soldier meaning of veteran is going up in BrE usage because how much we talk about veterans varies a lot according to what's going on in the world. But to have a little look-see, I searched for the phrase "war veteran(s)" in Hansard, the record of the UK Parliament. There is almost no usage of the phrase before 1990, then a lot more in 2000–2009. 

Now, maybe some of these are in sense 1a, the 'been serving for a long time' sense. But a peek at the data shows that most of the 2000s examples relate to compensation for Gulf War veterans, so it does seem to be more the ex-soldier meaning. Note that [more AmE] WWI/WWII veterans are usually called First/Second World War veterans in BrE, and there was the Falklands War after that, so it's not that there were no "war veterans" before the 1990s. 

A different tool, Hansard at Huddersfield, takes us up to 2021, and there we can see that this use of veteran appears to have stabilized, rather than continuing to increase. But in Covid Times, it's likely that there was just less debate about ex-servicepeople in Parliament—so we can't make too much of that stability. It could be increasing in comparison to other ways of talking about ex-servicepeople. 

What about vet?

I've written about vet before—in fact it was my 2008 UK>US Word of the Year. But in that case it was a verb (as in to vet a candidate). Now I want to just look at the noun—or nouns.

Vet can be short for (more AmE) veterinarian/(BrE) veterinary surgeon. You take your pet to the vet. It rhymes and everything.  Let's call that vet1. The OED has examples going back to 1862, and marks it as "chiefly British", which, as we're going to see, might not be the best way to describe it. 

In AmE since the 1840s, vet has been used as a shortened form of veteran. Let's call that vet2.

In AmE, where both are used, context is usually enough to tell the difference between vet1 and vet2. You take your dog to the vet1. People study at vet1 school. But a Vietnam vet is probably a vet2 and not a Vietnamese vet1. 

Both vets are well-used in AmE. I used english-corpora.org to take a 100-sentence sample of the noun vet from the Corpus of Contemporary American English. Of the 100, 57 definitely referred to the animal doctor, 23 referred to former soldiers, 3 referred stage or other veterans, and 6 were neither of these nouns (1 verb, some acronyms, a typo, and a Dutch word). That leaves 11 where I couldn't tell in the very brief window of text which vet it was; it referred to a person who'd been introduced earlier in the text. Had I had the full text, I assume there would be close to zero ambiguous cases—but even with a very short window of context, it was usually easy to tell. (For some examples, see below. Click to enlarge.) In any case, note that the majority refer to the animal doctor. I had a quick peek in the Corpus of Historical American English, and the phrase "to the vet" (as in I took my dog...) is there since the 1940s, increasing in use each decade. 

While the singular was usually the animal doctor in AmE, in the plural, vets, it's more likely to refer to former soldiers, since they are more often discussed as a class than veterinarians are. 

So, as is often the case for homonyms, context usually tells us which thing we mean.

Is the use of vet2 increasing in BrE? Well, probably some, but it's harder to find good evidence for it. There are scattered uses of war vets in Hansard since the 1960s, but it's probably too new and informal to be used in parliamentary talk. When I was researching it as a possible Word of the Year, I looked at samples from the News on the Web corpus, and found 5 examples (of 100 vet) in 2011 and seven in 2022 (the highest years were 2019 at 11 and 2020 at 20, but there were only 3 in 2021). My small sample size could have skewed things (but it was as much as I could give time for). A lot of the UK examples I looked at were about American vets, in which case the UK news source could have been quoting an American person or possibly publishing text from a wire service, possibly originally written by an AmE speaker. So, as I say, it's not simple to spot the truly BrE usage. 

TL;DR version

DOESN'T MATTER Had Sex

HATERS GONNA HATE

Just two dudes completely roasting the hell out of each other in a distinctively non-PC way. The back and forth here is what makes it. Sorta like this facebook thread that answered funny questions black people had about white people, it's good to see online conversations like this that don't spiral out of control.

Has Trump seen people holding signs on the internet before? It never turns out well.

These people are not afraid to carry on hilarious protest signs and tell the world what they really think of Donald Trump's Presidency. Via: Sad and useless  

Just when we thought we'd never get anything better than Donald Trump grasping that orb, we get this dark-humored, delightfully awkward pic that just oozes cringe. Naturally, people were ready to flood Twitter with some entertaining captions. 

Queen Elizabeth wore a neon green outfit to her 90th birthday party. What could go wrong? Oh right, the internet...

Slick Willy just had to go and crack a dad joke that simultaneously dug on President Trump and kept the pun game strong, didn't he? Naturally, people were highly entertained and vaguely irritated. 

New York Magazine published an excerpt from Ivana Trump's memoir Raising Trump - and it has since become a wildly entertaining meme. Thhe excerpt is actually a quote from Ivanka, reminiscing about her "punk" days. 

"During my punk phase in the nineties, I was really into Nirvana. My wardrobe consisted of ripped corduroy jeans and flannel shirts. One day after school, I dyed my hair blue. Mom wasn't a fan of this decision. She took one look at me and immediately went out to the nearest drugstore to buy a $10 box of Nice'n Easy. That night, she forced me to dye my hair back to blond. The color she picked out was actually three shades lighter than my natural color… and I have never looked back!"

The quote has left Twitter users in stitches, making Photoshop memes and mocking the wealthy businesswoman's statement. The results have been delightful. 

Poor Mayor Pete just can't seem to catch a break on the internet. The presidential candidate from South Bend, Indiana tweeted a photo of himself walking down a hallway on Saturday with the caption, "On my way back to Iowa. It's phase 4. Let's do this." The tweet has been catching a fair amount of flack for appearing to be staged. 

Here are some of Twitter's most amusing reaction memes and tweets!

The internet is reacting to comments made by Donald Trump during a COVID-19-related press briefing held yesterday. Trump claimed that the virus could be treated by bringing "light inside the body" or injecting a disinfectant. Thankfully medical professionals were quick to denounce these claims, and people on the internet have since been creating some excellent memes on the matter. 

This should go without saying, but please don't inject yourself with disinfectant, y'all.

On July 28th, Axios reporter Jonathan Swan interviewed President Donald Trump on HBO about several topics including the staggering number of COVID-19 cases in the United States. His reactions to some of Trump's remarks are priceless, and needless to say, the memes have been top-tier. You can watch the interview here and garner your own reactions. Now on with the memes!

On day two of the supreme court confirmation hearings, Amy Coney Barrett held up a blank notepad to reveal that she hadn't been referencing any notes during questioning. Many republicans were impressed by this 'epic ownage' of the libs, but memelords of the internet knew exactly what was about to go down. We all know what happens when a public figure holds up a piece of paper: memes, baby. 

We've narrowed it down to some of our favorite ACB notepad memes and even included examples of other times the internet did its thing with a blank canvas. These politicians make it way too easy. 

Experience the nostalgia of gaming's golden age with this classic primitive space arcade game. Perfect for collectors and enthusiasts, this game captures the essence of early arcade fun with its simple yet addictive gameplay and retro aesthetics. Classic Gameplay: Navigate your spaceship through waves of enemies. This game is a must-have for anyone looking to relive the excitement of early arcade gaming or add a piece of gaming history to their collection. Whether you're a seasoned gamer or new to the arcade scene, this game promises hours of fun and challenge. Don’t miss out on owning a piece of arcade history!

The #MeToo movement seemed poised to help us create more equitable workplaces — where women thrive as much as men. Unfortunately, we have yet to see this come to fruition in any significant way. And, in some cases, the backlash has made it even more difficult for women to get ahead. The hashtag #MeToo was […]

The post Are women really no better off in the workplace after #MeToo? appeared first on DiversityJobs.com.

As the nation marks the one-year anniversary of the Pulse Nightclub massacre in Orlando this week, a group of experts on active shooter/hostile incident response will assemble at National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) headquarters to develop NFPA 3000, Standard for Preparedness and Response to Active Shooter and/or Hostile Events. It is expected that the initial standard will be completed by early 2018; then the public will have the opportunity to offer input for immediate review.

September is Campus Fire Safety Month and this year the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) and The Center for Campus Fire Safety (The Center) are working together to promote their national Campus Fire Safety for Students campaign. The campaign raises awareness about the dangers of fires among college-aged students who live in on- and off-campus college housing.

Knowing that today’s homes burn faster than ever, the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) announced “Every Second Counts: Plan Two Ways Out” as the official theme for this year’s Fire Prevention Week campaign, October 8-14, 2017. Experts say you may have as little as two minutes (or even less) to safely escape a typical home fire from the time the smoke alarm sounds.

Older than easy but not yet novels. The fact of the matter is that while Easy Books are hard to write, Early Chapter Books are hard to categorize. They're also ideal bedtime books for older children, which means that with the European imports you get a lot of experimentation. American early chapter books are pretty much just written to please. Here then are the books written with 6-9 year olds in mind.

Image by Mario Jr. Nicorelli is licensed via CC BY-NC 2.0 Over the past weeks, the CC board and team have been working behind the scenes on our strategy refresh. We are excited to share our progress as we enter the community engagement phase of the refresh and explain how you can contribute to the process.…

The post CC Is Refreshing Its Strategy. Here’s Why Your Voice Matters. appeared first on Creative Commons.

Keeping your refrigerator's water dispenser clean ensures that the water you drink is fresh and safe. But let's face it, cleaning it can be a bit tricky. I've got the lowdown on the simplest and most effective way to get the job done.

The post Easy Guide: Clean Your Fridge Water Dispenser appeared first on Unclutterer.

Shares of Indian food and grocery delivery firm Swiggy rose 2.5% in their trading debut on Wednesday, after its $1.4 billion IPO last week, but pared initial gains on concerns about its path to profitability. The stock listed at 420 rupees ($4.98) on India's National Stock Exchange, compared to…

Dogecoin shot higher on Tuesday night, extending its postelection surge after President-elect Donald Trump formally announced the creation of the Department of Government Efficiency, which he referred to as "DOGE" in his statement. Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, former Republican…

Robin Zeng, the billionaire founder of CATL , aims to reinvent the world’s largest battery maker as a green-energy provider and to slash the cost of developing electric vehicles, upending the economics of the industry that has powered its growth.

Examining MicroStrategy’s record-shattering $21bn ATM Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. History, they say, doesn’t repeat, but it often rhymes. Bitcoin-hodling MicroStrategy is an excellent example. In early 2000, MicroStrategy embodied the…

Conspiracy theory purveyor Infowars and most of its assets are set to go on the auction block Wednesday, with Alex Jones waiting to see if he will be allowed to stay or if he will get kicked off its online platforms. The private auction is being held as part of Jones' personal bankruptcy, which…

Shares of the company were down 39% at $1.8 after the bell. The stock has fallen nearly 80% this year, while the S&P 500 passenger airlines index jumped 52%. The ultra-low cost carrier is in advanced discussions with bondholders to hammer out a bankruptcy plan that would have support from a…

CATL , the world's top battery maker, will consider building a U.S. plant if President-elect Donald Trump opens the door to Chinese investment in the electric-vehicle supply chain, the company's founder and chairman, Robin Zeng, told Reuters.

Shares of Indian food delivery giant Swiggy rose nearly 8% on their trading debut Wednesday after its IPO became the country's second largest this year. The company raised 113.27 billion Indian rupees ($1.34 billion) in its IPO that closed Monday, pricing its shares at 390 rupees apiece. The IPO…

Robin Zeng, the billionaire founder of CATL, aims to reinvent the world’s largest battery maker as a green-energy provider and to slash the cost of developing electric vehicles, upending the economics of the industry that has powered its growth. Zeng told Reuters in an interview that he expects…

In This Article: NINGDE, China (Reuters) - CATL, the world's top battery maker, will consider building a U.S. plant if President-elect Donald Trump opens the door to Chinese investment in the electric-vehicle supply chain, the company's founder and chairman, Robin Zeng, told Reuters. "Originally,…

At least 10 Ukrainian soldiers died in the Donetsk region after the Kurakhovo Reservoir dam was blown up, TASS reported, citing Russian security forces. The blast flooded nearby areas, trapping soldi...

To navigate the dangerous new era, Keir Starmer must end the culture of denial around the biggest strategic mistake of modern times The 35th anniversary of the Berlin Wall coming down was not commemorated much in Britain last weekend. It is no Poppy Day. The unravelling of the iron curtain doesn’t…

We characterize optimal product market policy in an unequal economy in which firm ownership is concentrated and markups increase with firm market shares. We study the problem of a utilitarian regulator who designs revenue-neutral interventions in the product market. We show that optimal policy…

HONG KONG/WASHINGTON -- China has vowed to strengthen security after a hit-and-run attack in the southern city of Zhuhai killed 35 people, shocking the nation and highlighting what some experts see as an alarming pattern. On Tuesday evening, authorities revealed the scope of the devastation left…

US prohibits airlines from flying to Haiti after planes were shot by gangs PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — The Federal Aviation Administration prohibited U.S. airlines from flying to Haiti for 30 days after gangs shot three planes and the United Nations also Tuesday temporarily suspended flights to…

Asia-Pacific stock markets were trading mostly lower Wednesday, tracking losses on Wall Street as the U.S. post election rally stalled overnight. Asian traders assessed corporate goods data out of Japan, which showed year-on-year producer price growth, or wholesale inflation, in October reached…

Despicable Me 4 tie-in smells more like popcorn while a waddling duck and an interactive pet monkey also feature A “fart blaster” with a repertoire of 15 sounds that blasts “fog fart rings” and a waddling mother duck are among the toys destined to appear on Christmas lists as experts predict a…

Hans Niemann is gearing up to play tens of thousands of players simultaneously at Web Summit. The chess world will try and break a new record at the Web Summit technology conference in Lisbon this week when Grandmaster Hans Niemann competes online against what he hopes will be tens of thousands of…

China battery giant CATL would build US plant if Trump allows it, chairman says Trump wants to block Chinese EV, battery imports but open to US plants with American workers Contemporary Amperex Technology (CATL), the world’s top battery maker, will consider building a US plant if president-elect…

European stock indexes traded lower in Wednesday's premarket session, with the US Consumer Price Index (CPI) report firmly on investors' radar ahead of its release at 2:30 pm CET. Analysts anticipate ...