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

Posted by simoniker on from the year-plus-plus dept.

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.

9 of 331 comments (clear)

  1. expressions I hate by renehollan · · Score: 3, Interesting
    "for all intensive purposes" - It's "for all intents and purposes", dipwad.

    "quote... unquote". There is no such thing as "unquote" -- it's "end quote". Using "quote unquote" as a prefix to the purported quote is doubly irritating.

    "It's like this...." I don't give a blinking fuck what it's like, I want to know what it is.

    People who mess up the meanings of precision and accuracy tick me off. 165.04452 +/= 50 is precise, but not very accurate. Abuse of significant digits is another irritant.

    --
    You could've hired me.
    1. Re:expressions I hate by jrockway · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I agree with you, especially with the "intensive purposes". I think people say that because they can see a purpose as being intensive, while they cannot see intents and purposes. Actually, they probably have never read anything other than an online forum, so they haven't picked up any language idioms. I often read my friends' papers and they read like an online forum... if you're in an online forum, write like it (like I'm doing now) but otherwise, DON'T! I'm worried that good writing will be shunned by my generation (like dude, whoa, that's a big word. is that on the SAT?).

      --
      My other car is first.
    2. Re:expressions I hate by LinuxHam · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I wonder if that came from Spanish slang. After 7 years of learning Spanish in the classroom, I once used "donde esta Cecilia?" to ask one of my sisters where the other one was, and the sister I asked (who lived in Oklahoma) corrected me with, "its adonde, not donde." I was like, "that's funny, none of my teachers, professors, or books have said that.. ever." She was like, "well, that's how native Spanish speakers speak.

      So, there you go.. its not, "where is she?" Instead, its "where's she at?" (technically, "at where is she?") according to Spanish slang.

      --
      Intelligent Life on Earth
    3. Re:expressions I hate by Varitek · · Score: 2, Interesting
      There is no such thing as "unquote" -- it's "end quote".

      Tell you what I hate, it's people who believe that only their knowledge and experiences are valid. "Quote Unquote" is perfectly valid in the UK, at least. There's even a BBC radio show called that.
  2. You idiots. by YOU+LIKEWISE+FAIL+IT · · Score: 2, Interesting
    X-files, Xtreme, Windows XP and X-Box are all part of this PR-powered phenomenon," said John Casnig of Kingston, Ontario.

    The X-Files debuted in 1993, well ahead of the "PR-powered phenomonon" ( Phenomenon - now there's an overused word ) of using X in product branding. The X in "X-Games", "X-Box", "X-Wife" refers to 'extreme' ( which, yes, is a trite marketing cliche ). The X in "X-Files" is supposed to connote ideas of mystery or of an unknown quantity.

    And of course, there's the following explanation, given in Season 5's Travelers:

    Dales: X-Files?
    Dorothy: Yes. Unsolved cases. I file them under 'X'.
    Dales: Why don't you file them under 'U'... for Unsolved?
    Dorothy: That's what I did until I ran out of room. Plenty of room in the 'X's.

    Plenty of room in the 'X's indeed. Happy new year everyone.

    YLFI
    --
    One god, one market, one truth, one consumer.
  3. Banned Word Nomination by ewhac · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Normally, bad grammar and malformed words just roll off me. But for some reason this one really gets my back up:

    "Incentivize"

    The verb form of "incentive", presumably intended to mean, "to provide incentives for," which is another way of saying 'encourage' or 'influence'.

    ...Except that "incentive" is itself the noun form of the verb "incent", which means to encourage or influence. So you could use an actual word, save five letters, and not look like a pretentious twit.

    Don't get me started...

    Schwab

    --
    Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
  4. "I could care less." by chocolatetrumpet · · Score: 2, Interesting

    My aunt is a professional attorney and she says, "I could care less" when she really means, "I couldn't care less."

    Hooray for legalese?

    --
    Spoon not. Fork, or fork not. There is no spoon.
  5. Re:But that's the way language develops by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Language doesn't evolve to get more useful in the narrow sense, it usually evolves to express belonging to a particular social group. Hence the fact that there are many different words for roughly the same thing - if you want to identify with one culture you say "bling bling", if you want to identify with another, you say something else. Language has always been like this, it's not getting worse.

  6. The Out/In List by PizzaFace · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It's not the new year without the Washington Posts's annual list of what's out and what's in for 2004.