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.
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...
"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.
Well, all right...
zomg wtf why is this not in idle why did it appear on my home screen i wasted my precious time reading it ill never get that time back slashdot has gone downhill this isnt news for nerds why am i reading it i hate it why cant we just stick to news on my personal minutiae thats what news for nerds should be all about not this humor crap i traded my emotions for efficiency for a reason you insensitive clods stop that laughing one of these days youre going to wind up dead just like your idiot hyena cousins
There. That should do it. Happy to help!
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?
Yeah, and how long until...
8===D
Gets the boot?