Banned Words List Carries Its First Emoticon

DynaSoar writes "Lake Superior State University in Michigan's Upper Peninsula ('The land of four seasons: June, July, August and Winter') has just published its 34th annual List of Words to Be Banished from the Queen's English for Mis-use, Over-use and General Uselessness. Besides such unsurprising inclusions such as 'green' corporations being 'game changing' due to concern with their 'carbon foot print,' this year's list contains an emoticon for the first time — not a smiley face or variant, but the 'heart' symbol made from the characters 'less than' and 'three.' It's perhaps a sign of the evolution of language, or at least of this volunteer linguistic watchdog group, that a symbol compounded of two characters, neither of them a letter, is considered not only a word, but a particularly egregious one."

A cause for celebration

Let's celebrate.

\o/

Re:A cause for celebration

Is that a devil fist or a woman laying on her back?

Re:A cause for celebration

Man
   \0/
    |
  _/`\_

Woman
   \0/
    |
  _/^\_

Re:A cause for celebration

Oh god, help me! Half of my cock is severed underneath my feet!

Re:A cause for celebration

Well it looks like shit and feels broken. Can we PLEASE have the old /. back?

Link to the list

http://www.lssu.edu/banished/current.php [lssu.edu] They appear to either hate political discourse or the sound-bite products of political discourse.

...but they 3 irony

They appear to either hate political discourse or the sound-bite products of political discourse.

They clearly love irony though. A US university trying to ban words from the Queen's English?

wtf

<3  is supposed to be a heart!?  And all this time
I thought it was mammaries or butt-cheeks, depending
on the context.

Re:wtf

( . )( . ) = Boobies
( O )( O ) = Boobies with big nipples
[ . ][ . ] = Robot boobies
( : )( . ) = Triple Nipple Boobies
( % )( % ) = Pierced Boobies
( @ )( @ ) = Epic Boobies
( ^ )( ^ ) = Perky Boobies
( , )( ' ) = Lop-sided Boobies
( U )( U ) = Long nipple Boobies
\ . /\ . / = Saggy Boobies
| . | . | = Man Chested
( . )( . )( . ) = Total Recall


There are inevitably more. Add to the list.
This has been a public service announcement.

Re:wtf

my fav:

( . Y . )

Re:wtf

Boobies, nah, I'm an (_!_) man.

Re:wtf

You kids and your fancy computer characters! Back in my day, we could only use numbers and calculators. It was 51358008 and we liked it. Now get off my lawn!

Re:wtf

You kids and your fancy computer characters! Back in my day, we could only use numbers and calculators. It was 51358008 and we liked it. Now get off my lawn!

In my day we'd say "what's 44125687 + 11252321 ? It's what your girlfriend is! 55378008 Get it? Turn your calculator upside down!" Of course it was 4th grade, so they pretty much all were, except Fat Jason. Just don't call him that, 'cause he'll sit on you.

Re:wtf

The first time I saw it I thought it was an emoticon for teabagging. Looks a lot more like a sac than a heart, imho.

I thought it would have been this:

8====D

Re:I thought it would have been this:

That's one big smiley face!

Re:I thought it would have been this:

That's one big smiley face!

... or are you just glad to see me?

Wait I thought....

And all along I thought it <3 stood for Boobs on a cone.

But...

I <3 monkeys and have set up a green organization so to achieve our directive and maintain a low carbon footprint, along with my wife to protect them. My wife is a bit of a Maverick and is trying to run for president but I am ok with being First Dude.

Language evolves - deal with it

Americans leave out the "u" in colour, armour, neighbour, etc. We no longer pronounce "night" as [ni:xt] or [ni:t] (IPA [wikipedia.org]). We could come up with a huge number of examples, but why bother? Language evolves over time, words lose or gain meaning. It's a natural process. You'd think an academic institution would understand this simple concept, but I guess grabbing headlines is more important than practicing proper academia.

Emoticons are just an evolution of a new language. It's actually quite extraordinary. We have now created symbols that can represent simple meanings cross-culturally and cross-linguistically, and these symbols are popularized in large part by the youth of the world. They are creating a whole new language right before our eyes. I wouldn't be surprised if we would soon be able to communicate simple messages between different cultures that speak different languages via symbols (some would argue we already can). It's a shame that institutions such as this one and the "get off my damn lawn" crowd are ridiculing such an extraordinary example of the human ability to adapt and break down communicative barriers.

Re:Language evolves - deal with it

We have now created symbols that can represent simple meanings cross-culturally and cross-linguistically

We had these thousands of years ago, on the walls of caves.

Why the hate, LSSU?

Me: LSSU! <3
LSSU: </3
Me: :(
LSSU: ( ^_^ )
LSSU: <(^_^<)
LSSU: (>^_^)>
LSSU: (o^_^)O
LSSU: O(^_^o)
Me: :D
LSSU: (>O<)
Me: D:

The opposite of <3.

For some time now I've been using >=3 as an emoticon for "hate". Rarely do people seem to get it, though.

Pity they didn't include "loosers"

Or maybe ban the losers who constantly spell lose as loose.

Re:a flashback to the 90's

The KJV is in Early Modern English, not Old English. Old English is incomprehensible to modern speakers. u scealt witan over æm e u segest ær u spricst.