Banned Words List Carries Its First Emoticon

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."

Comments

Re:A cause for celebration

[windsurfer619]

It's a terrorist fist jab.

Re:Language devolves - be concerned

[plasmacutter]

I'm sorry, but emoticons, among other butchery of the english language in instant messaging, R&B, pop, and rap are not legitimate, and are in fact a sign of the devolution of the human species.

I find it interesting that it did not require a civilization shattering catastrophe for a dark age to begin to dawn.

Barbarism should be actively curtailed though.

Re:wtf

[earlymon]

LMAO - I've actually believed that for some time - meaning, until today.

"I am NOT a 3 !!" Explains a lot of tiffs I've had.....