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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
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.
(_)_)/////////////////////D OMG I got Filter error: Please use fewer 'junk' characters. I cant use fewer characters, then it wouldnt be to scale...
For some time now I've been using >=3 as an emoticon for "hate". Rarely do people seem to get it, though.
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?