SHOVEL-READY

“Apparently, the generally accepted definition of this phrase is to imply that a project has been completely designed and all that is left to do is to implement it…however, when something dies, it, too, is shovel-ready for burial and so I get confused about the meaning. I would suggest that we just say the project is ready to implement.” – Jerry Redington, Keosauqua, Iowa.

“Stick a shovel in it. It’s done.” – Joe Grimm, Bloomfield Hills, Mich.

I’d like to take a shovel upside the head of the person who coined this obnoxious phrase.

TRANSPARENT/TRANSPARENCY

“In the lexicon of the political arena, this word is supposed to mean obvious or easily understood. In reality, political transparency is more invisible than obvious!” — Deb Larson, Bellaire, Mich.

Someone throw a blanket over “transparent”.

CZAR

Long used by the media as a metaphor for positions of high authority, including “baseball czar” Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, appointed by team owners as commissioner-for-life in 1919. U.S. president Woodrow Wilson had an “industry czar” during World War I. Lesser-known “czar” roles in government during the last 100 years include: censorship, housing and oil czars in 1941; rubber czar in 1942; patronage czar (1945); clean-up (1952); missile (1954); inflation (1971); e-commerce (1998); bioethics, faith-based and reading czars (2001); bird flu (2004); democracy (2005); abstinence and birth control czars (2006); and weatherization czar (2008).

I thought the Russians took care of “czars” in 1917.

TWEET

And all of its variations…tweetaholic, retweet, twitterhea, twitterature, twittersphere….

Jay Brazier of Williamston, Mich. says she supposes that tweeters might be “twits.”

Personally, I’d go for “twats”, myself.

APP

“Must we b sbjct to yt another abrv? Why does the English language have to fit on a two-inch screen? I hate the sound of it. I think I’ll listen to a symph on the rad.” — Edward R. Bolt, Grand Rapids, Mich.

Put “cr” in front of “app” and you get crapp!

SEXTING

Sending sexually explicit pictures and text messages through the cell phone.

“Any dangerous new trend that also happens to have a clever mash-up of words, involves teens, and gets television talk show hosts interested must be banished.” – Ishmael Daro, Saskatoon, Sask., Canada.

A “word” spoken by those who aren’t getting the real thing.

FRIEND AS A VERB

Came into popularity through social networking websites. You add someone to your network by “friending” them, or remove them by “unfriending” them.

“‘Befriend’ is much more pleasant to the human ear and a perfectly useful word in the dictionary.” – Kevin K., Morris, Okla.

I pretty much hate any noun that is made into a verb and vice versa.

TEACHABLE MOMENT

What might otherwise be known as ‘a lesson.’

“It’s a condescending substitute for ‘opportunity to make a point,’” says Eric Rosenquist of College Station, Tex.

So, portions of time are now capable of being taught, hmm?

IN THESE ECONOMIC TIMES….

“Overused and redundant. Aren’t ALL times ‘these economic times’?” — Barb Stutesman, Three Rivers, Mich.

I think this stuffy phrase has outlived its fifteen minutes of overuse.

STIMULUS

“Everything in the news is about the stimulus packages…it is no longer a grant, it’s stimulus money, stimulus checks, etc. I think it is just being over-used.” Teri Heikkila, Rudyard, Mich.

I’ve got your “stimulus package” right here!

TOXIC ASSETS

“Whatever happened to simply ‘bad stocks,’ ‘debts,’ or ‘loans’?” — Monty Heidenreich, Homewood, Ill.

This list wouldn’t be complete without an oxymoron.

TOO BIG TO FAIL

“Just for the record, nothing’s too big to fail unless the government lets it.” Claire Shefchik, Brooklyn, NY.

Tell this to the owners of the Titanic!.

BROMANCE

“I am sick of combined words the media creates to make them sound catchier. Frenemies? Bromances? Blogorrhea? I’m going to scream!” – Kaylynn, Alberta, Canada.

I’ve been lucky to have never heard this one before.

CHILLAXIN’

“Heard everywhere from MTV to ESPN to CNN. A bothersome term that seeks to combine chillin’ with relaxin’ makes me want to be ‘axin’ this word.” – Tammy, Sault Ste. Marie, Mich.

What? Does this mean to put an axe into the refrigerator?

OBAMA-prefix or roots?

The LSSU Word Banishment Committee held out hope that folks would want to Obama-ban Obama-structions, but were surprised that no one Obama-nominated any, such as these compiled by the Oxford Dictionary in 2009: Obamanomics, Obamanation, Obamafication, Obamacare, Obamalicious, Obamaland….We say Obamanough already.

Let’s bomb all the Obama coinages.

My personal contribution to this year’s list would be:

FAIL used as a noun.

For example, a football team loses big in a game and it’s dubbed “an epic fail”. This one made me grind my teeth the first time I heard it. It may be an “epic failure”, but it’s NOT an “epic fail”.

The offense of the day is:

“Alot”

This spelling abomination is used by people to mean “a lot”. It’s a mistake I didn’t see years ago, even by people with generally atrocious spelling and grammar. It apparently is a fairly “new” mistake, that I’m seeing more and more. And what makes “alot” different from other language errors, is that I’m seeing it used more often by people who generally don’t make frequent spelling and grammar mistakes.

I’ve often wondered why people in increasing numbers have started to run the two words “a lot” together. First, let’s look at the definition of the phrase “a lot”.

A lot

Very many, a large number; also, very much. For example, A lot of people think the economy is declining, or Sad movies always made her cry a lot. It is sometimes put as a whole lot for greater emphasis, as in I learned a whole lot in his class. It may also emphasize a comparative indication of amount, as in We need a whole lot more pizza to feed everyone, or Mary had a lot less nerve than I expected. [Colloquial; early 1800s]

The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer.
Copyright © 1997. Published by Houghton Mifflin.

Is it that they don’t understand what a word “lot” means? Here’s a couple of definitions of the word “lot” that relate to the phrase “a lot”:

Lot

a piece of land having the use specified by the attributive noun or adjective: a parking lot; a used-car lot.

a distinct portion or parcel of anything, as of merchandise: The furniture was to be auctioned off in 20 lots.

a number of things or persons collectively: There’s one more, and that’s the lot.

Often, lots. a great many or a great deal: a lot of books; lots of money.

I’m guessing that they’re confusing “a lot” with the bona fide word, “allot”, which is a verb that has an entirely different meaning from “a lot”:

Allot

to divide or distribute by share or portion; distribute or parcel out; apportion: to allot the available farmland among the settlers.

to appropriate for a special purpose: to allot money for a park.

to assign as a portion; set apart; dedicate.

Personally, I think the rise of “alot” has quite a bit to do with the fact that increasingly fewer people read regularly, so they are spelling “by ear”, rather than imitating what they’ve seen in print.

So ends the spelling lesson of the day.

I’ve been hearing different ads lately that talk about “that guy”.   “That guy” is usually a bumbling, figure of universal scorn; someone who isn’t quite all man, somehow.  Naturally, use of the product being advertised will save the men from the shame of being “that guy”.

For instance, there’s a radio spot for STP oil treatment with Richard Petty telling us not to be “that guy”.  In this instance, “that guy” doesn’t know a thing about cars, barely knows how to raise the hood of the car, calls parts of the engine “doohickeys” and “thingamajigs”, and so on.  You get the picture.

The next buzz word I’m hearing, though not limited exclusively to the realm of actual commercials is “rebrand”.   From what I can gather from context, “rebrand” means to change one’s image, usually used in the context of changing a corporate image.

The mental images I take away from this, however, are skittish already-branded cows running awy from psychotic cowboys holding red-hot branding irons who want to brand them again.

Another trend I’ve noticed is a fascination with Tuscany region of Italy.  Restaurants all over have popped up with Tuscan style dishes of various kinds, I see travel agency ads promoting trips there, I see ads promoting Tuscan style home decorating, and so on.

What’s the sudden appeal of Tuscany, I wonder?   Twenty years ago, I never saw references to this part of Italy.   I imagine it’s a temporary thing until the next foreign flavor of the month takes its place, as Tuscany has apparently supplanted the chipotle mania of a few years ago.

/rant over

This image represents one word.  Post your guess in the comment box below.

Re-home

This expression, used most often in reference to pets, means to find it a new home when its current owners can or will no longer care for it.

Though not yet listed as a bona-fide word (I checked), it follows a trend now common in our era of textspeak and passion of ever-increasing brevity.  Like other words and expressions of this ilk, it accomplished brevity at the sacrifice of language fluidity.  In other words, it’s jarring and awkward.

“Re-home” follows a tradition of coining neologisms using the prefix “re”.  It follows such clunkers as “re-login” (used by Earthlink) and the older “relocate”, used the place of the simpler, more direct, “move”.

But it’s also pretentious, as it makes a verb out of a noun, in the same annoying spirit as many people use the word “impact” these days.

For those who can’t bear to simply say that they are looking for a new home for a pet because it’s not fast enough for them, there is a solution that uses a bona-fide verb: re-adopt.