Can we please nominate the word 'motorcade' as un-word of 2005? I shudder every time I hear it.
Hey, "motorcade" is in my dictionary...what's wrong with it?
But then again "crapometer" "snarkolicious" and "nitwittery" are too.
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I hate things labelled as 'unwords'. What fun is a world where a new word can't be invented every so often?
I like motorcade. It has a nice ring to it.
Check this out:
http://www.lssu.edu/banished/submit_word.php
How would people disguise their stupidity if they didn't have unwords to hide behind? If the words "utilize", "empowerment", and "downsize" were banned, whole mega-corporations would collapse.
True, darby, but I DO wish people would realize that "athon" does not mean "a very long thing in time and/or space". Or at least, it didn't when Marathon was just a place in Greece.
My pet peeve: it's erudite, not eriudite!
How about all our spiffy new politcal euphemisms:
Free speech zone (didn't this used to be the whole country?)
Extraordinary Rendition (this sounds like a well-played piece of chamber music, not an outsourcing of torture)
terrorist (anyone with whom the President disagrees)
p.s. Carter--I am with you on utilize. May I also add "reference" and "impact" as verbs? Corporate America needs them.
I guess I'm coming from an environment of people whose native tongue is not English, so I'm happy when people just use of and if correctly, or denote a plural with an s at the end of a word.
Motorcades are common where I'm at. What would we call them if they weren't motorcades?
This blog is a Snark-a-thon!
I love the ban word linkage!
I submitted the word that makes me reach for Grandfather Snark's blunderbuss over the fireplace.
I love the ban word linkage! I'd love to unban the word to and add it to the preceding sentence. * snicker * Miss Snark made a booboo.
Yes, yes! Linkage! I hates it. Hates it bad. I hates linkage and outage and lossage as much as I hates sewage.
My unword is 'minded', as in: 'I am minded to pick up those Tories and throw them across the room'. Tony Blair went through a long and painful stage of being 'minded' to do everything - what's wrong with 'I'm thinking about...'?
Enemy combatants, hanging gestures, interpersonal skills...
http://www.weaselwords.com.au/
Read it and weep.
Verbage.
A client referred to my work as verbage. I was going to break the bitch's face before I realized that she was simply trying to use a big word to describe copy.
I thought verbiage was a legitimate word! Verbage, maybe not, but don't tell all these people.
I'll never complain about those -age words. Linkage, chewage (our bulldog's favorite activity), viewage, etc. I give them all lots of usage. And abusage.
Ok, complaining about unwords is fun. But I love them. How could I write realistic dialogue for a Silicon Valley exec without "downsize", "utilize", or "empowerment", not to mention "paradigm" and "outsource"? All those language quirks that have made their way into the spoken language are so rich in material for giving characters their own voices. If I didn't use them, a high-school dropout who's heard long words and is trying to sound more educated than he is and a well-read, college-educated professional would sound exactly the same. And that makes my ears hurt. :)
Linda
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