quote: (Dec. 31) -- Calling all metrosexuals: Get rid of that bling-bling - or at least find another word for it. In its annual compilation of language irritants, Lake Superior State University singled out 17 words and phrases that it says ought to be banned as overused, trite, euphemistic or just plain inaccurate. The 2004 losers were chosen by a university committee from more than 5,000 nominations from around the world.
"Metrosexual" topped the list. Coined in 1994 by British journalist Mark Simpson, the term refers to urban, usually heterosexual men with a keen interest in fashion, shopping and elaborate grooming.
But to Bob Forrest of Tempe, Ariz., one of many to nominate the term for banishment, it "sounds like someone who only has sex downtown or on the subway." Fred Bernardin of Arlington, Mass., asked, "Aren't there enough words to describe men who spend too much time in front of the mirror?"
As for "punked" - or "punk'd," as the MTV prank show spells it - the committee defined it as "bamboozled, duped, flimflammed, hornswoggled."
"Bling-bling," a term for flashy jewelry or other luxury goods, made its way into the mainstream from rap music. Said Todd Facklas of Chicago: "Yes, your mom might say it. Nothing could kill the mystique of a word faster."
The war in Iraq also produced a few entries on the list.
"I'm just waiting on 'Shock and Awe Laundry Soap' or maybe 'Shock and Awe Pool Cleaner,"' said Joe Reynolds of Conroe, Texas.
Sault Ste. Marie, Mich.-based Lake Superior State has been compiling its "List of Words Banished from the Queen's English for Mis-Use, Over-Use and General Uselessness" since 1976 to draw publicity to the small academic outpost. Past lists have lamented such words as "chad" (2001), "paradigm" (1994), "baby boomers" (1989) and "detente" (1976).
Here is the list:
quote: The 2004 list of words that should be banished for "misuse, overuse and general uselessness," according to Lake Superior State University:
Metrosexual: An urban male who pays a great deal of attention to appearance.
X: As in "X-Files," Xtreme, Windows XP and X-Box.
Punked: To dupe, popularized by the MTV show "Punk'd."
Place Stamp Here: Printed on return envelopes.
Companion animals: Also known as pets.
Bling or Bling-Bling: Flashy jewelry.
LOL: E-mail speak for "laugh out loud."
Embedded Journalist.
Smoking Gun.
Shock and Awe.
Captured Alive.
Shots Rang Out.
Ripped From the Headlines.
Sweat Like a Pig: The problem is pigs don't sweat.
posted
Is this is a place we can list our language usage peeves?
I cringe when people use the indefinite article with specific nouns. It sounds so prissy or something. e.g. "That is the sort of thing you might expect to hear a Dan Rather or a Bill Gates saying."
What is "a Bill Gates"? Does that mean anyone whose net worth is over $2 x 10^9? Or maybe anyone who is the founder and CEO of a tech company? I am not sure why but that just creeps me out when people do that. <laughs>
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It's one of several million Bill Gates clones, poised to march from their warehouses in Washington and swarm over the world, buying up small businesses and forcibly connecting everyone to the Internet, whether they want to or not.
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posted
<laughs> I should have expected that from a Bob Scopatz.
I thought of another one! It bugs me when catalogs and fashion magazines talk about "our new pant". When did pants become singular? I always picture just one leg and one hip covered in fabric when I hear that. There are some more recently singularized words like that too, that I can't remember at the moment. Can anyone think of another one?
Next I expect we'll be cutting paper with a scissor.
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posted
What the hell are "neo-conservatives"? Call them what we've called them for a century, now. "Fascists."
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posted
Hey, now, I only do that in the privacy of my own bedroom. Ever since I got arrested for indecent exposure for letting my crazy out near an elementary school, I've learned to keep it in the trousers.
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Yes, I'm sure that's what comes to most people minds when they think of me. "Eddie. He's vulnerable, but well-intentioned."
Heh. Where the hell did that come from? I can't be that vulnerable -- like I said, my crazy's not hanging out anymore.
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Okay, I went to find the official definition of a neo-conservative, rather than judge their quality from their actions. Here's what the Asia Times has to say about the breed:
quote:Although neo-cons profess devotion to liberal democracy, they have never hesitated to assail "liberalism", or what they sometimes call with their Christian Right allies "secular humanism", whose relativism, in their view, can lead to "a culture of appeasement", nihilism or worse. Thus, even while supposedly defending "liberal" and democratic ideals, their attitude is at best ambivalent.
Appeasement is prevented, in their view, by a powerful military capable of defeating any foe, the constant anticipation of new threats, and the willingness to preempt them. Thus, neo-cons have consistently favored big defense budgets, a stance shared by the right-wing machtpolitikers with whom they formed an alliance in the 1970s to end detente with Moscow. In their view, peace is to be distrusted, and peace processes are inherently suspect. "Peace doesn't come from a 'process'," wrote Wall Street Journal editorial writer Robert Pollock last year in a column that denounced the 1990s as a "decade of appeasement".
In this view, war is a natural state, and peace is a Utopian dream which induces softness, decadence and pacifism embodied by Bill Clinton whose "corruption of the national mission, combined with the myth that peace is normal, produces a solvent strong enough to dissolve the strength of our armed forces and the integrity of our political and military leaders", Ledeen wrote in 2000.
Similarly, enemies cannot be negotiated with. "Before the US can worry about rebuilding Iraq, it has to win militarily, and decisively so," the Journal wrote just before the war. "... Arab cultures despise weakness in an adversary above all," a refrain familiar to past neo-con descriptions of the Soviet Union, China, and other geo-political foes.
We had no reason (by the standards of the time) to be upset with the USSR until they started seizing a buffer zone. Thus, at the time they did it they had no need for one. Ergo, they were after something other than a buffer zone.
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T, I'm cracking up at your list... especially in conjunction with Erik's wounded ears from his business meeting. The entire family of software my employer sells all begins with the letter X. And contains an unpronouncable symbol as well.
There are days I feel like Dilbert.
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quote:We had no reason (by the standards of the time) to be upset with the USSR until they started seizing a buffer zone. Thus, at the time they did it they had no need for one. Ergo, they were after something other than a buffer zone.
...Macc, you're not making sense. The West had no reason to be upset with the USSR when the USSR was making a buffer zone, therefore the USSR had no need for a buffer zone? Thus, they wanted more than a buffer zone? Is it so impossible that the US didn't need other reasons to be angered by the Soviet takeover of countries that should have been free?
There was plenty of reason to make a buffer zone. Somewhere around 26 million of them -- that's how many Russians died in WWII. As opposed to something like .5 million from each Allied country. They had reason, if not right, to make a zone of Europe that would be devastated by war to protect their own homes.
By the neo-conservative view, this is perfectly justified. Actually, by the neo-con viewpoint, taking over all of Europe would be perfectly justified -- gotta prevent that future attack, and what better way to do it than to smother every possible threat in its cradle?
Am I wrong? If you were a neo-conservative Soviet Russian back in 1950, wouldn't you be supporting the takeover of not only eastern Germany, but the rest of Europe and possibly a pre-emptive strike on the growing threat of the US?
And heh. Sorry, Sweetcheeks. (That's T.) (Not that I don't dig you too, Macc.)
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And another thing: what the hell is Judeo-Christian? Just freakin' say Christian, since that's what you really mean.
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"bracing for" - as in "bracing for possible terrorist attacks", "bracing for the coming storm", etc. In my part of the country, I don't think I've heard a newscast in months in which someone wasn't "bracing for" something.
"little" - as used by broadcast journalists in front of the name of every child mentioned in any news report. One might get the impression that the first name of every child in the world is "little".
Edit to add: "scorching" - as in "the scorching weather". We had a long hot summer here in California this year. And in all that time, the weathercasters could only find the word "scorching" to describe the heat. Does no one in any of those television and radio studios own a thesaurus? There are other synonyms for "hot". (From Mirriam-Webster online: HOT 1, baking, broiling, burning, fiery, red-hot, scalding, sizzling, torrid, white-hot.)
posted
How about the phrase cautiously optimistic? That's the kind of thumbs-up cheesy political doubletalk that makes me really hate the whole process. It's like saying, "I want to sound confident in a way that will make others confident in me, but won't make me look like a jackass when I get screwed." It's the ultimate non-answer to any question about personal feelings, it's really coming into style among these political-cyborg type creatures, and it seriously gets on my nerves.
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