Banned Words List Carries Its First Emoticon 333
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 flashback to the 90's (Score:0, Interesting)
If they really wanted to preserve English, they'd still be using "thou" and whatnot. Don't get me started on why the Bible is usually still in Old English... Most people don't even realize that it's already a badly translated mix of Aramaic and such. Thankfully, it's been retranslated finally into the "new international version".
Oh great, now I'm ranting. I should get university backing and publish an official list of pet peeves too.
Re:a flashback to the 90's (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Language evolves - deal with it (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Language evolves - deal with it (Score:2, Interesting)
It's not that they don't recognize that it has meaning or that it's a word: Far from it. (By including it on the list they are explicitly acknowledging that it is a word, in fact.)
They are saying that it, like the rest of the words on this list, has been over-used and misused to the point of uselessness, where any meaning it once had is now worthless.
It's not that they disagree that it is a word. It is that they think it had a meaning and lost it, because people use it to mean anything they want.
Re:A cause for celebration (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:a flashback to the 90's (Score:3, Interesting)
Interesting - that appears to be closer to modern German (my native language) than modern English.
It's cause we stole it from you long ago. Most of English's "base" is German derived. It's just we're also very loose about adding words stolen from other languages. Making a faux pas at a rodeo is strictly verboten - you say this to an English speaker, and most of us will know what you're talking about, even though "faux pas", "rodeo", and "verboten" have all entered the English lexicon in the past 150 years or less. German, plus this stuff, plus 1300 years, equals modern English.
This is, consequently, why I think English has ended up being a global language - because it's so absurdly flexible. When's the last time French decided it was ok to add a word? I hear all the time about cultural purists in France being against adding simple words that the rest of us have been using for years, just because "that's English, so we don't want it" or whatever.
~X
Re:wtf (Score:1, Interesting)
Is this a new Slashdot low?
This is more "News for Male Teens, Boobs and Stuff".
Re:3 is the emoticon (Score:4, Interesting)
Yeah, and how long until...
8===D
Gets the boot?