Slashdot Mirror
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."
Let's celebrate.
\o/
http://www.lssu.edu/banished/current.php They appear to either hate political discourse or the sound-bite products of political discourse.
<3 is supposed to be a heart!? And all this time
I thought it was mammaries or butt-cheeks, depending
on the context.
The "cue the foo posts in 3, 2, 1..." posts will commence with no subsequent foo posts in 3, 2, 1...
Or maybe ban the losers who constantly spell lose as loose.
If I had an Ass, I'd call it Fanny Bottom, then I could slap my Ass; Fanny Bottom, on the Arse.
Cue a bunch of humor-impaired Slashdotters exploding in 5...4... Shit, too late.
8====D
Some no-name college makes a list of phrases that they think are stupid and they get on the news.
Someone sees '<3' and nerdgasms. The aftermath is left here on Slashdot.
This is not news, it's spam.
Move along please.
And all along I thought it <3 stood for Boobs on a cone.
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.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Americans leave out the "u" in colour, armour, neighbour, etc. We no longer pronounce "night" as [ni:xt] or [ni:t] (IPA). 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.
Me: LSSU! <3 :( :D
LSSU: </3
Me:
LSSU: ( ^_^ )
LSSU: <(^_^<)
LSSU: (>^_^)>
LSSU: (o^_^)O
LSSU: O(^_^o)
Me:
LSSU: (>O<)
Me: D:
The KJV is in Early Modern English, not Old English. Old English is incomprehensible to modern speakers. u scealt witan over æm e u segest ær u spricst.
My bible is in Hebrew, you insensitive clod!
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.
Palm trees and 8
(_)_)/////////////////////D OMG I got Filter error: Please use fewer 'junk' characters. I cant use fewer characters, then it wouldnt be to scale...
What is the answer to life, the universe, and everything?
2!
Well, you're only half right...
"Hacker" still means what it used to mean, but only among the community of for-fun programmers. So those people who get incensed about it are half-right. They are generally wrong, however, because in the common parlance, it really does truly mean someone who breaks into computers. Context almost always clears up whether it is meant to be used in the common fashion or in the jargon fashion. "I spent all weekend hacking on my Perl module" is clearly positive (well, unless you hate Perl) and would only be used amongst people who know what any of that means anyways.
For some time now I've been using >=3 as an emoticon for "hate". Rarely do people seem to get it, though.
one of them is filtered as insightful +5
You speak London? I speak London very best.
Hah-ha! You've fallen into GP's trap -- he's redefined "old" to mean "early modern." Because languages change over time, and early modern definitions are forced to give way to frobble glorkle prabulax.
$META_SIG_JOKE
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?
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 years or less. German, plus this stuff, plus 1300 years, equals modern English.
This is, consequently, why I think English has ended up being a global language - because it's so absurdly flexible. When's the last time French decided it was ok to add a word? I hear all the time about cultural purists in France being against adding simple words that the rest of us have been using for years, just because "that's English, so we don't want it" or whatever.
~X
sig?
just a really long nose.
You've got to be lying.
Count in base 3 (0, 1, 2). You could never tell anyone what counting system you were using but that just makes working out what you're saying that much more fun!
ummm, lets see.
0000
0001
0010
0011
0100
0101
0110
0111
1000
1001
1010
1011
1100
1101
1110
1111
then keep on continuing from 15, all the way up to infinite
I am not stubborn. I am right!
Yeah, and how long until...
8===D
Gets the boot?