Not only do we have the word of the year, we also have a Banished Word List. Yep, every year on New Year's Day, Lake Superior State University releases the annual "List of Words and Phrases Banished from the Queen's English for Mis-Use, Over-Use and General Uselessness." Among the words for 2006 were the following:
The New Oxford American Dictionary's Word of the Year is (drum roll, please) "carbon neutral."
Being carbon neutral involves calculating your total climate-damaging carbon emissions, reducing them where possible, and then balancing your remaining emissions, often by purchasing a carbon offset: paying to plant new trees or investing in “green” technologies such as solar and wind power.Comments from WorldViews:
I know I have never used the word "carbon neutral." And I cannot recall ever hearing an actual human being using it in conversation. It sounds like the editors of the New Oxford American Dictionary have been watching Al Gore movies and are trying to do their bit for global warming. Linguistics and dictionaries are supposed to be descriptive, scholars keep telling us, rather than prescriptive, but here we are again with lexicographers instructing us as to what is proper.My favorite runners-up were dwarf planet and elbow bump.
These are pictures of baby elephants in the womb, at 4 months and at 12 months. They have been photographed throughout the 22 month pregnancy (wow! We humans should stop complaining!) It's all the subject of a new National Geographic special, Animals in the Womb. Read more about it here.
Though the President traditionally pardons a turkey on Thanksgiving,this year's turkey got chased around by the First Dog beforehand!
Our Father's God to Thee,
author of Liberty,
we thank you for fathers and founding fathers and father figures,
for the Internet if we can figure it out and interactive TV if we can manage it,
for sundaes and Saturdays and TGIF,
for DNA and AZT and CD-ROM,
for a port in the storm and a bridge over trouble,
for cocoa after caroling and dawn after dark,
for healing after hurt and rest after work,
and blessed promise of life after life forevermore.
Today’s Touchstone Tip for Living Well, on pet care.
Our dog, a half-Beagle half-who knows mix (we think Golden Retriever) found looking pathetic at the Humane Society nine years ago, has a habit of slurping your hand as he walks by. He is an amiable dog who seems to think he is offering a sign of affection. I'm sure he'd be pleased if you licked his paw in return.
As he eats deer poop from the woods beside our house and otherwise puts his mouth in places I’d rather he didn’t, being slurped is an experience to be avoided. I’ve learned over the years that he gets a particular expression on his face just before slurping, and seeing him ambling closer with that look on his face, one can avoid being slurped. He’s a reasonably intelligent dog, and I’ve taken to ordering him not to lick, as well as pulling my hands up out of reach, because he is not a particularly obedient dog.
Now for today’s tip: If you have a dog like this, do not, when talking on the telephone to a solemn and dignified older person you do not know personally but with whom you have an amicable professional friendship, say to the dog, out of habit, in a loud, imperative, and indeed threatening voice, without removing the telephone's mouthpiece from its usual position near your mouth, “Lick me, you die!”
You may be surprised at how difficult this is to explain.
While I'm at it, another tip: if late one night you decide to go for a walk, and on the way down your front steps (we have ten of them) decide that it would be fun and a bit of a challenge not only to go down them two at a time but to jump up as high as you can each time, restrain yourself if you are also holding a leash at the end of which is a strong and very excited fifty-pound dog. For a split second you will have the feeling of flying, which is lovely, except that it's immediately succeeded by the feeling of crashing and the overwhelming feeling of stupidity.
We had 2 great days with Little Miss Carolyn (and her parents, who were home some of the time!) Carolyn had her 1st programming lesson (observation only at this stage).
We read Green Eggs and Ham, sang songs, fed the baby, bathed the baby, burped the baby, washed clothes and lots more. 
We think Carolyn knows all the languages of the world, but is trying to figure out which one we speak. Other than the usual vowel sounds (at which she is already quite proficient), 
this weekend we very clearly heard "gula" (which Craig says is Romanian for Grammy.) However, an online dictionary search reveals that "gula" actually means the front part of the throat. 
Welcome to little Peyton James! And congratulations to new mom & dad, Erica & Mark!
And yet, I know that in my darkest and most horrid moments at the hospital, it wasn't the words said that meant the most to me. I couldn't take them in, anyway. I'm sure people said things to me, and they were probably even the right things. But what I remember down to the inmost parts of my heart are things like the comfort of a warm, loving hug from a woman I had known a few hours, a pair of shoes from another new friend, a small bottle of hand lotion from another dear lady, the little boy who brought some small toys to my son's hospital bed, and the presence of that gentleman and his father at just the right time. In all of them, I saw and felt My Father. I hope there are people in your lives who minister such grace to you.
