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.
