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 cause for celebration (Score:5, Funny)
Let's celebrate.
\o/
Re:A cause for celebration (Score:5, Funny)
Is that a devil fist or a woman laying on her back?
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=o=
That's supposed to represent the goatse guy.
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CE-LE-BRATE Good times, come on!
(^_^) (o_o)
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<(^^)>
(>^^)>
dance for the <3 of it
Re:A cause for celebration (Score:5, Funny)
\0/
|
_/`\_
Woman
\0/
|
_/^\_
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What your women don't have breasts???
\0/
@|@
|
_/^\_
Re:A cause for celebration (Score:5, Funny)
Oh god, help me! Half of my cock is severed underneath my feet!
Re:A cause for celebration (Score:4, Funny)
You're giving me a 3 on.
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Re:A cause for celebration (Score:4, Insightful)
Seems like they think it's a good idea to gradually turn the rest of Slashdot into "Idle".
Re:A cause for celebration (Score:5, Insightful)
Well it looks like shit and feels broken. Can we PLEASE have the old /. back?
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Link to the list (Score:4, Informative)
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slashdotted. here's the text:
...but they 3 irony (Score:5, Insightful)
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 (Score:5, Funny)
I thought it was mammaries or butt-cheeks, depending
on the context.
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Re:wtf (Score:5, Funny)
( 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
\ .
| . | . | = Man Chested
( . )( . )( . ) = Total Recall
There are inevitably more. Add to the list.
This has been a public service announcement.
Re:wtf (Score:5, Funny)
my fav:
( . Y . )
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mine:
( O Y O )
Re:wtf (Score:5, Funny)
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Prison?
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Re:wtf (Score:5, Funny)
Re:wtf (Score:5, Funny)
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.
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Actually it's an icecream cone.
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<3 Hmm... "Dwarf in a pointy hat mooning you" That was my first of many guesses. It took me a while too before I understood that it is a heart, and I didn't infer it from the context or by looking at it; I had to be told as well. Oh well, maybe I am getting old.
Re:wtf (Score:5, Funny)
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.
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I thought it was 1 or 2 depending on the context. ...maybe even 0 or a negative...lets not get into fractions.
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To me, it looks more like a double ice-cream cone ..
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<3 is supposed to be a heart!? And all this time I thought it was mammaries or butt-cheeks, depending on the context.
It's actually "asshat".
Look! Humor! (Score:2, Insightful)
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Well, all right...
zomg wtf why is this not in idle why did it appear on my home screen i wasted my precious time reading it ill never get that time back slashdot has gone downhill this isnt news for nerds why am i reading it i hate it why cant we just stick to news on my personal minutiae thats what news for nerds should be all about not this humor crap i traded my emotions for efficiency for a reason you insensitive clods stop that laughing one of these days youre going to wind up dead just like your idiot
I thought it would have been this: (Score:5, Insightful)
8====D
Re:I thought it would have been this: (Score:5, Funny)
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Pinocchio? (Score:3, Funny)
just a really long nose.
You've got to be lying.
Re:I thought it would have been this: (Score:5, Funny)
That's one big smiley face!
... or are you just glad to see me?
New Summary (Score:3, Insightful)
Someone sees '<3' and nerdgasms. The aftermath is left here on Slashdot.
This is not news, it's spam.
Move along please.
Wait I thought.... (Score:5, Funny)
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I always thought it meant "teabag"
e.g. I 3 you
means "I teabag you"
But... (Score:5, Funny)
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.
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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.
that list was pretty spot on; you, not so much.
Language evolves - deal with it (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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Sorry, I guess the second-to-last consonant in my second formation of "night" got filtered out. It's supposed to be the IPA symbol for the palatal-velar fricative, if any of you cared/were wondering.
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Get Off My Lawn, Punk (Score:2)
I'm always amused how people -- who will defend to the death the word "hacker" 's right to still today mean what it did for three weeks in 1994, despite over a decade of evolutionary use to the contrary -- insist that emoticons retain any value outside of of a fat-fingered person's text messaging.
There is an art and a skill and a subtlety to the written word, something we developed over thousands of years of evolution. When I see our species reverting to pixelated cave pictographs, it makes me wonder whet
Re:Get Off My Lawn, Punk (Score:4, Insightful)
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The only message saying Kawaii to people sends is that you're a basement dwelling asshole that does shit like this [youtube.com].
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.
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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.
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The "u" was removed by Noah Webster. There were some other intentional changes, like "aluminium" -> "aluminum". The purpose was, among other things, to differentiate the language from British. Of course, this all happened at a time when spelling wasn't fully standardized, so neither British nor the Americans were had the "correct" spelling for the other side to bastardize.
As for language evolution: its sole purpose is not to progress in a positive direction, but to progress in such a way that the spea
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Butchery...or an evolution for more effective communication over a limited channel? As for rap and R&B, there's no butchery there at all, it's just based on a different dialect of English.
I don't understand where these "decline of civilization" people come from and how they so ironically prove the point they are making by being complete and utter idiots who make groundless and ignorant claims without any qualification whatsoever.
Why the hate, LSSU? (Score:5, Funny)
Me: LSSU! <3 :( :D
LSSU: </3
Me:
LSSU: ( ^_^ )
LSSU: <(^_^<)
LSSU: (>^_^)>
LSSU: (o^_^)O
LSSU: O(^_^o)
Me:
LSSU: (>O<)
Me: D:
Re:Why the hate, LSSU? (Score:4, Funny)
My favorite, but absent (Score:2)
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(O)
Here ... (Score:2)
=O=
(I wonder if he makes the list next time ?)
OMG my junk has just been censored by /. (Score:4, Funny)
Is this the one? 3 (Score:2)
How about 3? Or maybe 3{.
My personal favorite ..!.
The opposite of <3. (Score:5, Funny)
For some time now I've been using >=3 as an emoticon for "hate". Rarely do people seem to get it, though.
Re:The opposite of 3. (Score:2)
Already taken, unfortunately, because ... (Score:2)
It's a lion - quick, get in the car !
>:3
I for one refrain from reading any comment until.. (Score:2, Funny)
Less than three music are going to be disappointed (Score:2)
Are these word monkeys serious (Score:2)
Won't they have to tear up the declaration of independence (I think perhaps that should be in capitals:-) )
Even Her Majesty's own subjects don't speak whatever the Queen's English is. Just listen to the now invisible glottal stop in estuary English (cue Amy Winehouse album) "To'al" or the south's strange pronounciation of Wednesday as Wendsday.
If Michigan wants to rescue the Queen's English, I suggest they email an apology to Our Lizzie at B
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How can anything in Michigan be removed from the Queen's English?
Oh, come on, everyone knows that upper Michigan has been part of Canada for years.
Broken hearted? (Score:2)
Seriously? Someone decided that an emoticon for the heart should be banned altogether?
Sounds to me like someone got dumped for the umpteenth time in a row, can't even get his mother to go to lunch with him, and is still carrying a grudge that the Valentine he made with crayons, construction paper, and glue and gave to his second grade teacher ended up in her trash basket by the end of the school day folded around a gray wad of chewed DoubleMint gum.
speaking of obscene emoticons (Score:2)
There's a Russian joke about emoticons (I'm sure totally made up).
During his first orbit, Yuri Gagarin was asked if he was enjoying the view, to which he responded "the view is three equals eight."
3=8 ("zayebis!" or rough equivalent of "fucking awesome!")
You kinda have to have you mind in the gutter to see this one (but I'm sure most slashdotters will do just fine ;)).
Pity they didn't include "loosers" (Score:5, Insightful)
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Or maybe ban the losers who constantly spell lose as loose.
It's gotten to the point that I involuntarily flinch every time I see the word 'looser', even in the correct context.
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Or maybe ban the losers who constantly spell lose as loose.
It's gotten to the point that I involuntarily flinch every time I see the word 'looser', even in the correct context.
I will become rich and famous when I invent a way to make loosers flinch over the internet.
Re:Pity they didn't include "loosers" (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:a flashback to the 90's (Score:5, Interesting)
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Your "ae" ligatures appear to have come out correctly (on IE 6 on XP - I'm at work and can't install Firefox). Were there other Old English characters that should have been in there that got filtered out? I doubt Slashdot would handle thorn, eth, yogh, or long S characters properly.
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That's what he WANTS you to say (Score:3, Funny)
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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 year
Re:a flashback to the 90's (Score:4, Informative)
Actually, if you are referring to the bibles that the Gideon society leaves in hotel rooms, that is in modern English. You can tell it is in modern English because, as a native English speaker, you have little difficulty reading it. Also, "wife" is not spelled "wyf," as it would be in middle English, and it does not read like German or contain any "ash" (æ) characters, at it would if it were actually old English.
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Confusing. Yes the original composition of the Bible is a bit of a mix, with a pinch of Aramaic (although mostly Hebrew and Greek), but what do you mean it's "already [...] badly translated"? I've met people who think that the oldest Biblical manuscripts (such as Codex Vaticanus) are themselves translations of some lost original. There's no evidence for this view, and I think it's a silly notion.
The main objection is that there would be no need to t
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Simply use "one, one, one..."
Same method as "ten, ten, ten, ten, ten, ten, ten..."
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2 = 4/2 (Score:3, Insightful)
2!
Well, you're only half right...
Re:3 is the emoticon (Score:4, Interesting)
Yeah, and how long until...
8===D
Gets the boot?
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Wowza, that makes no sense. x 3 implies x 4 If you really wanted to make a more powerful statement about your love, you should use 2 instead.
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Language is whatever conveys meaning that is mutually understood between the speaker and the listener.
English, in particular, has no governing body that dictates the proper use of the language. I am fairly offended that these people have appointed themselves as some kind quasi-arbiter of our language.
2/3 of human communication is non-verbal. It conveys meaning and is mutually understood to some degree (culturally dependent). It is comprised of kinesics, proxemics and chronemics, and except for thew subest comprised of predetermined signs (sign language) is not language.
As for the rest, do yourself a favor and go look at the section this article is in, and see if you can't head off that impending valium deficiency.