Buzzing
Each year brings a new crop of buzz words that so saturate public speech, one is tempted to have a New Year's resolution not to invent any new ones during the coming year. Place your right hand on the thesaurus and repeat after me…. Grant Barrett, co-host of A Way With Words, submits the following from 2009: "aporkalypse" (undue worry in response to swine flu), "death panel" (doctors and/or bureaucrats who would decide which patients receive treatment, ostensibly leaving the rest to die), "gay-marry" (to marry someone of the same sex), "tea party" (an organized gathering of antitax, antigovernment and/or anti-Obama protestors), and "wise Latina woman" (a term used by Judge Sonia Sotomayor in a speech before she was a Supreme Court justice).At Lake Superior University, they have compiled their 35th annual "List of Words Banished from the Queen's English for Mis-use, Over-use and General Uselessness." Among this year's candidates are shovel-ready, czar, friend (used as a verb), teachable moment, toxic assets, too big to fail, and bromance. The Houston Chronicle begs to include funemployed, tramp stamp, recessionista, new normal and deficit neutrality.
Labels: language
posted by Dale Hobson @ 1/07/2010
4 comments
4 Comments:
What is IMHO?
IMHO is a popular and annoying new text-speak abbreviation for "In My Humble Opinion."
I love your posts. I haven't missed a single on in the 5 years I've been back. This is lovely, too, but I have to disagree. Allowing language to evolve just gives the evolving culture the nuances it needs to express itself. Just as the written tradition remains static and loses cultural relevance while the oral tradition evolves to keep its cultural relevance, disallowing change in language just makes it more difficult for our culture to evolve.
That said, I HATE most of these new words! "Death panels" and "tea parties" empower people I don't agree with for no logical reason I can find. Most of these new words are irrelevant to my immediate life: I have no "bromances" I would admit to, czars are too far removed from my life to make a difference, I have no toxic assets (well, some have said some of the clothing qualifies), I yearn for the patience to have teachable moment, and I wish I were too big to fail, instead of being just too big to sneak up on anyone.
But while we're at it, let’s ban some of that loud music! Can't an old timer get some rest around here? Now get me my cane and help me out of this rocker, it’s time for my warm milk.
There must be some way to incent this project, or if not, at least to incentivise it.
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