Overused cliches, wordy redundancies and hyperbolic phrases -- including "make no mistake about it" from President Bush -- were declared banished Wednesday by the university overseers of an annual list of banned words... more at http://asia.cnn.com/2003/EDUCATION/01/01/banned.bushisms.reut/ Also, in celebration of my country continuing general efforts toward all things opprobrious: Don't "misunderestimate" Dubya. Those verbal Bushisms are beginning to "resignate" with the American people. Maybe they'll even "embetter" the English language. They may have started out as verbal slip-ups but several of President George W. Bush's mangled phrases found their way on Tuesday to a list of the top words of 2002. more at http://www.cnn.com/2003/EDUCATION/01/15/offbeat.bushisms.reut/index.html
Fine by me. I was more concerned when Berkeley (freakin' Berkeley) was censoring the use of Emma Goldman in peace pamphlets.
Make no mistake about it, this is a must-see list. Now more than ever, CNN has proven it got game. Having said that, I am going to read it again... TO THE EXTREME!
From CNN Report: 'But the most frequently used word on the planet, whatever the native language, is still "OK." ' I wonder how they verify this?
Maybe they came to China and saw "OK" on signs all over the place. They just didn't know that with the two characters that come before it, it means "Karaoke".
Personally, I find censorship of any kind to be offensive. Of course college campuses are hotbeds of censorship so why should we be surprised? Bush's speech patterns are a good representation of the way the media and advertisers have cliche-ized the language and a great many ignorant Americans these days tend to speak this way. So basically, he is representative of the people. Just as Clinton's moral foibles made Americans feel it was OK to screw around, Bush lets people know its OK to speak like a 10th grader. We Americans get the President we deserve. Why hide it?
**snort** Before we really start sounding off on how horrible censorship is, let's, you know, read the article. It's a group of college administrators at a tiny, ice-cold Michigan state school releasing a list of the most tiresome cliches of the year as part of an annual tradition. Not censorship. Nothing is banned. Please unjerk your knees now.
Indeed, one typical test of who READS around here...yes, both articles were meant to submit the sadness of the fact that our President's stupidity is becoming "institutionalized," NOT that there was any real censorship issue. ...which you'd know if you read.