Bill Peschel lists 5 phrases I would ban if I were dictator.
I warned my salivating colleagues at a news meeting last Monday that overplaying the Cheney hunting gaffe would backfire, especially in a state boasting the second-largest number of licensed hunters -- and I believe I have been proved right.
I hope this is the first and last time I encounter "cuddle puddle."
Anything shallower than Dan Bown's prose has a problem.
Well, I did see Brokeback, but have to confess it was not as entertaining as the Brokeback shopping lists emailed me by a colleague last week.
I think it may be too late to do anything about "blog," but why don't we try?
I agree, all good phrases and subjects to ban I think! (though in the UK Cheyney has not been quite as ubiquitous as the US, though bad enough: and I personally have never heard of "cuddle puddle" or that expression thingy, thankfully.)
ReplyDeleteIn the UK it would be:
Labour govt identity card bill
Smoking ban
Microsoft ads ;-) (see Petrona)
Brokeback Mountain (this one crosses the Atlantic!)
And fifth, blog -- why do people hate the word so and yet, as Bill says, not have anything better. Lots of web-tech people and journalists I work with hate it too, but they can't think of anything better either.
I don't think it matters, as it has become so embedded in the language as well as in google caches that how could you ever excise it?
Someone will think of a great word for whatever blogs evolve into, and then usage will take over. (It was not all that long ago that we at Nature solemnly decided that "World Wide Web" would be official journal house style....)