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Most publications maintain a list of unprintable words
or phrases. The offending terms may be replaced by
euphemisms, as in the N-word.
You may see a generic
replacement, as in [expletive deleted].
Sometimes
hyphens are used to replace vowels, as in d-mn it all to
h-ll.
(One can thereby presume that vowels are the offenders, an inference that was confirmed by a friend with a knowledge of Hebrew. He said there are no vowels in that language, and neither are there any obscene words.)
The list of words that seldom appear in print or
broadcasts has been shrinking over the years, and generally
that's a good thing -- there was a time when health
officials worried about getting vital information to the
public because newspapers refused to print words like
syphilis
and gonorrhea.
That was when the word rape
was also forbidden
and assault
was used instead, leading to absurd
sentences like She testified that he hit her several
times, pushed her down the stairs, kicked her and then
assaulted her.
But perhaps it's time to start expanding the list of words that shouldn't be allowed into civilized public discourse -- not in the interest of prudery, but in the interest of honest communication.
As you might have suspected, I have some candidates:
· Event, as in the movie event of the
summer,
political event
or There is a 60
percent chance of a thunderstorm event this
afternoon.
What is the difference between a movie event
and
a movie?
Between a political event
and a
rally
or campaign speech?
Or between a
storm event
and a storm?
Movie event
sounds more memorable and important
than a mere movie,
and so one might understand why
Hollywood publicists -- the same people who contrive
imaginary movie reviewers to generate favorable buzz for
their turkeys before the viewing public learns the truth --
would use the phrase.
But why would weather forecasters predict a storm
event
rather than a storm?
They're not trying
to sell tickets, are they? Does anyone say Want to
drive up to Fort Collins this afternoon because they're
having a storm event, and Castle Rock is just having a
storm?
· System, as in sleeping system
and the
like. We bought a new mattress a while ago, or at least we
thought it was just a mattress and box springs. But the
brochure said it was a complete sleeping system.
Refrigerators are now food cooling systems,
and
file folders are now components of office organizing
systems.
During the 1960s, it was fashionable to hate
the system,
and now a system
is a fashionable
marketing term.
Granted, there are times when system
means
something like connected mechanisms that operate
together,
as in computer system
or ignition
system,
and it's an appropriate term. Then again, it
can lead to oxymorons like Microsoft operating
system.
· Inappropriate, as in it would be
inappropriate for me to comment at this time.
To my knowledge, there is no International Tribunal Concerning the Appropriateness of Statements that issues rulings about when it is and isn't appropriate to comment.
What this really means is I don't want to talk about
it now
or my attorney told me to keep my mouth shut,
and since I'm paying a lot for her advice, I should follow
it.
There's nothing wrong with either statement, so why not
just tell the truth instead of hiding behind
inappropriate?
· Interesting, as in that's quite
interesting.
I am a major offender here, in that I
live in a town that has a lot of artists, and some of them
will put their works before me and then request an
opinion.
Not wishing to hurt their feelings, but lacking the
instant art-connoisseur vocabulary to come up with bold
use of non-traditional color and the innovative stroking on
the lines adds a definitive dimension to a complex metaphor
about the hectic pace of modern life as opposed to the
pastoral myth of Arcadia,
I fall back on
interesting,
and attempt to turn the conversation
elsewhere.
I just hope I've had enough sense not to use this in print; it's bad enough in conversation.
These are just a start on the list of words that should
be banned from newspapers, magazines, web sites, TV and
radio broadcasts, public places, etc. Other candidates for
exclusion include incident,
especially as a
euphemism for homicide
in Boulder; diversity,
since no one can define it; and help,
as in We
can help you at Register 3,
when they really mean We
can take your money at Register 3.
But what should the reporter or editor do when an exact
quote is involved, and one of these locutions appears? The
electronic folks have bleeps. The rest of us could use
[Banality Deleted],
even though there might be times
when it would dominate the piece -- like an account of a
presidential press conference.
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