Top Searches of 2003, A Dave Odyssey, Banned Words for 2004

Shockmaster writes "Yahoo! has released their top searches of 2003. Google also has a year-end Zeitgeist wrap-up for popular search queries." Elsewhere, TheFairElf writes "The Miami Herald has Dave Barry's annual roundup of the year's main events titled 2003: A Dave Odyssey. The most significant events include the release of the fifth Harry Potter book 'Harry Potter Reaches Puberty and Starts Taking Really Long Showers' and the discovery of large quantities of sugar in Iraq which the CIA claimed 'is a leading cause of tooth decay'." Finally, wideangle writes "'Calling all metrosexuals: Get rid of that bling-bling - or at least find another word for it. In its annual compilation of language irritants, Lake Superior State University singled out 17 words and phrases that it says ought to be banned as overused, trite, euphemistic or just plain inaccurate." LOL, we wish everyone an Xtreme New Year from Slashdot, OMG.

Comments

OMFG ROFLMAO

[jrockway]

Actually, I don't think lol is such a bad expression. To me, it means something like "heh" or more like breathing out and saying "is that right?"* in real life. Since you can't express those emotions in words, we made one for use online. OTOH, people misuse lol and say it after everything. That in and of itself is not bad, if there's a funny conversation it seems right to use lol instead of a smiley. I liked smileys back when they weren't turned into gay (sorry, that's a word that needs to go) yellow things. So lol stays as text and works out better.

In summary, replace "LOL" with "gay" as an adjective. That would be better.

Also, anyone who says "bling-bling" is going to be shot by me. And anyone who writes in the passive voice.

Wow, the first time a grammar nazi-like post has been on topic. I'll go now :) [lol, heh, rofl]

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* Actually, 'lol ok' == 'is that right?' IMO. My friends and I have shortened that to lok, which is more efficient (save on bandwidth, my friends) than 'is that right?'