If You Can’t Beat ‘Em, Ban ‘Em

‘Groovy.’  ‘Far out.’ ‘Totally awesome.’  There are certain words and phrases that rightfully have been relegated to the trash heap of clichés so lame their use automatically qualifies you for a handicap parking sticker.  Other expunged examples from the past include ‘excellent,’ ‘…from hell,’ ‘gnarly,’ ‘bogus,’ ‘totally bogus,’ ‘Jon-Benet,’ and ‘Starring Pauly Shore.’

Another one is ‘War on Terror.’  Say what you want about President Obama.  Then move on to the next paragraph.

One thing our current illustrious president, P.BO, has accomplished is the abolition of the phrase ‘War on Terror,’ a phrase coined by our former illustrious president, W. Bush.  ‘War on Terror’ was so overused and religiously chanted by media outlets that it became downright meaningless—as evidenced by the continuing proliferation of terror in our society today, to include zombie movies, Stephen King novels and Nancy Pelosi press conferences. Continue reading

Of All the Words We Should Ban…Really?

So the latest word we can’t use for females is the ‘b’ word.  No, not that ‘b’ word; that one is still okay.  The other one.  ‘Bossy.’  Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg (no relation to Andy Samberg) has started a campaign to ban the word ‘bossy’ from our absurdly language-dependent culture.  She claims that the adjective discourages girls from pursuing leadership rolls wherein they can actually be bossy and tell people what words they can and cannot use.

If you ask me, which nobody does for obvious reasons, this whole thing is kind of like the anti-bullying movement that is bullying us into not bullying or congresspersons staying up all night and burning the midnight oil to tell us to stop using so much energy or Al Gore flying around in his private jet to get us to reduce our carbon emissions or Al Sharpton making $5 million a year by telling us how oppressed he is or….You get the idea: we are being bossed into banning ‘bossy’.

Continue reading