BANISHED FOR GENERAL USELESSNESS

It's hard to argue with that.

Key quote from the list: “Maybe it’s something that would be stuck in my toilet.”

(Happy 2005!)

Comments

[julietine]

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYBODY!!!!

[Tom]

The one that gets me is the "solution", or is this a UK phenomenon?

"Meal solutions" = meals
"office space solutions" = offices
"child entertainment solutions" = toys

Arrrggh!

Anyway, Happy New Year.

[Guin]

The blithering phrase "Weather Event" should also be sent to Language Purgatory. It's either rain, snow, or sun, folks.

[Guin]

Kenlyn, that would be "for all INTENTS and PURPOSES."

[Kenlyn]

...for all intensive purposes..

what does that really mean?

... I also hate..

My bad - unless you are still in diapers..

[Jenn]

Kenlyn - I think it's for "all intents and purposes"

Happy 2005, Everyblogy!

[Kenlyn]

my bad

[Karlota]

"Dave Barry's Journal" or "Dave Barry's Diary" just wouldn't have the same ring to it.

[San]

How is uber better than over, or super? Or, for that matter, "greatly"?

[lakedog]

Happy New year Judi! Anyone else got the grill fired up in this warm weather? Or should that
be whether?

[San]

...very, even.

How about "But wait... there's MORE!"

[Leetie]

We're grilling some ribs right now!

Fo'shizzle!

[D'Artagnan]

By continuing to lead in the essential areas of humor blogs, bloginess, and bloggedibopity, Mr. Barry leverages the combined power of his bloglit base and related electronic assets to maximize opportunities for well-defined goofiness, in a cost-effective manner that translates to increased risibility, greater monitor spewage, and a significantly squarer buttom line.

All this, in a dynamically changing environment that leaves little room for error.

[insomniac]

karlota- also Dave Barry's Diary or Journal (interesting how the word Nazis want us to use 'journal but not 'journey') would be written by Dave and not by you,me, Leetie, D'Artagnan, and more!

[insomniac]

*blogology*

[Eleanor]

This is Jon Stewart's pet peeve in this area, as he told Matt Lauer on the Today Show - Paraphrase: "you guys say coming up next, the sinking of the Titantic (or some such thing), BUT FIRST blah, blah, - it's always, But First!!!

*wonders if this makes sense to anyone but myself*

[D'Artagnan]

But first, roo roo!

[Eleanor]

*slinks away quietly into corner*
*first time feelings hurt in 2005*

[Karlota]

Insomniac--That is very true, and very, very sad. Uber-sad, even.

[Uncle Omar]

Eleanor/Lily --

Makes perfect sense to me. I've complained about that phenomena for YEARS ... !!!

Otherwise, Happy New Year to all.

I'm back ... from Kona ... too busy having fun over there to catch up ... so that leaves me with a bunch upon which to catch.

Missed you guys!

(But the dolphins and whales were calling my name, so I hadda go take pix of them ... )

[Eleanor]

Welcome back, Uncle O - Happy New Year! Glad you had a good time!!
But first.....!

[Uncle Omar]

Eleanor --

I absolutely HAD to read the drinking blog ... and then comment ... before I checked back here ...

Hence, the delay and gap in communications ...

AND, coming up NEXT, improved efforts at staying more current with the blog ...

First, however ...

(Is that better than, "BUTT FIRST ... " ?

[sandy beach]

Here's my nominee: "addressing issues." This expression is very popular on home improvement shows. The roof leaking is an issue to be addressed. Painting is how you address the boring wall color issue. I just addressed my hunger issue by eating a sandwich.

[Eleanor]

I love The Donald - wanna make something of it????

[D'Artagnan]

Speaking of ducks, I've not heard from The Federal One around these parts recently. Quack's up?

[Uncle Omar]

Good question, D'art -- I'm glad you asked it.

Where IS the Duck?

Mebbe that was him I saw dragged off by the dolphins off Kona ... ?

[mudstuffin]

How about "empowered" or "empowerment" and the Queen Mother of useless words "disenfranchised".

[Li]

Great, I JUST find out about this Dave Barry about two years ago (hey, I haven't lived that long, mmkaaay?) and he leaves! HE LEAVES! Rawr, anyways, I'll miss your columns, Mr. Barry! Have fun with your family and...uh, stuff. *shifty ninja eyes* Happy New Years, all!

[Peri]

"We're uber-serious about this list," said committee organizer Tom Pink, referring to the German prefix meaning "over" or "super" that increasingly finds its way into English.

And then über made it onto 'the list'. How can you be critical of word overusage and then say that? The only über I recognize is "überwinky" (and kudos to those who knew that that is Federal Duck, who has been away for far too long).

[Corn]

Certain video-game terms the kids are saying now should be banished forever -- like "owned." As in, if a player is killed or beaten by another player, he got "owned."

I had a Dilbert moment a couple of weeks ago when my boss actually said, "We need to set up a triage group to do a gap analysis on this." Translation: "Tell me what this new product can do that the old one can't, and vice versa."

I'd also like to banish all political analysts from ever saying "The fact of the matter is..." again, before launching into long-winded BS that has about as little to do with actual facts as Anna Nicole Smith's marriage to that 89-year-old had to do with actual love.

Oh, and "Stormwatch." Every time we get the least little freakin' bit of wet weather around here, all the news stations go into "Stormwatch" mode, as if a few inches of rain is the end of the world!

[kat]

And those items they sell on TV for $19.95 plus shipping which they always add in their comments; "but WAIT, that's not all!"

[judi]

check the column page for dave's "final for now" column, which should be arriving on the web site about 3 a.m., and the slide show of photos through the years that accompanies it. for those who are local: it's running on 1A in the print version.

[aye]

"impact" as a verb.

okay = "quite an impact that crowbar had on your skull, eh?"

not okay = "oh dear, the crowbar impacted your skull again!"

also okay = "the x-ray is showing some kind of impaction up there... is that a crowbar?"

[sandy beach]

thanks for the heads up, judi!

[Trystan Shout]

Peri, love, I think it was meant as irony . . .

[AlanBoss]

Corn beat me to "Stormwatch." Is that a SoCal thing, or do they do it everywhere? And speaking of SoCal (that's annoying, too. But easier to type than Southern California,) Could we stop refering to Orange County as "The OC?" Noone calls Orange County "The OC." That was invented by television. (I've lived in California for over 20 years and have never heard the California Highway Patrol called "CHiPs.")
As for "Blog" and it's variations, I move that, rather than banning the word, we assign exclusive use of it to Dave Barry and those associated with him.

[AlanBoss]

Oh, and while I was ranting I forgot to say, "Happy New Year everyone!"

[Guin]

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! Good-bye, Dave!

*sniff* Somehow it all looks so FINAL in print.

[BetterThanNothing]

Sorry that you're (not your) finally leaving us, Dave, but...uh...before your (not you're) return, see what you can do about those retro sideburns.

[BetterThanNothing]

Sorry that you're (not your) finally leaving us, Dave, but...uh...before your (not you're) return, see what you can do about those retro sideburns.

[just Ken]

Kat-
"But wait, there's more" is just the preface to the REALLY annoying "a $40 value!" If it's a $40 value, why can't they get $40 for it? If it were really worth $40, they wouldn't have to sell it for...oh, God, my head hurts.

[Eleanor]

The slide show is terrific - and I re-read his column re Sophie's soccer team which, IMHO is one of his best ever -
Bye Dave.... But first....

[Eleanor]

AlanBoss - if you're (not your) still here -

I live in so.ca and I love Stormwatch (aka It's drizzling) - I think because we hardly ever get rain, the local news people (and especially the weather person) just get so excited, that they make a big deal of it - and they always add "Team coverage" and go to areas where they have reporters holding umbrellas over their head, saying, "well, it was raining here just a minute ago"-
and y ou're right that no one has EVER called Orange County O.C. - actually no one really hasa ever referred to Orange County at all until the TV show!

p.s. On the news this a.m. they said, "New storm arriving later today, we'll have Team Coverage"!

[Uncle Omar]

AlanBoss,

Sorry about prior misspellings of your name. Din't notice 'til now.

Good to see you back. (What does your front look like? ... to coin a "weather" phrase ...)

Nah, it wasn't THAT funny, I know (not no).

Hi, El, and good morning to you.

Nah, I think "stormwatch" is a creation of the Weather Channel folks.

Whatever.

talk@ulater

U.O.

[Jeff Meyerson]

And those items they sell on TV for $19.95 plus shipping which they always add in their comments; "but WAIT, that's not all!"

kat, that's something that was probably started by the king of tv selling, Mr. Ronco himself, Ron Popeil. You'll notice that no matter what he's offering and how fabulous (sic) the deal, he always adds "But wait, there's more!"

[Jeff Meyerson]

aye, you are correctamundo. I HATE that! Fans of Rex Stout will remember that Nero Wolfe used to say "Contact is not a verb." When told that is was indeed in the dictionary he say "It is not a verb in THIS house!" But "impact" as a verb is much much worse.

[Eleanor]

U.O. - check other MB for message...

[insomniac]

our local station has 'breaking news' alerts (usually traffic accidents),but what's worse is the ads for the 'breaking news' where they re-play old alerts!
also, isn't a 'meal solution' the same as what we used to call 'drinking your breakfast'?

[Jack DeLand]

"Meme" and "vet."
Has he been vetted? I don't know, what's the meme? The current meme is... Have you memed the vet? Have you vetted the meme?
Please. A vet is made of steel and fiberglass, preferabley circa 1967.

[kat]

just Ken,
The ad that originated with Mr.'Ronco,'the TV impressario, became a 'never-ending' purgative.
No one,to date, has been able stop this phenomena.

Thanks, Jeff,
for the historical information.

*what happened to 'truth' in advertising?*

[geewits]

"Disrespect" as a verb makes my skin crawl.

[Avon]

Who knows if anyone will read this, posted more than 12 hours after the last prior post, but it's one I've been crusading about for years:

"attendee" was never published in any dictionary (and I hope it never is) back around 1996 when MicroSoft's so-called spell checker began to tell people that "attender" isn't a word and must be 'corrected' to "attendee".

If "attendee" were a word, it would have to mean the event that the attender attended. To insist upon a non-existent word is bad enough, but to do so using a non-existent word that's gotta mean the opposite of what you say it means is idiotic, vandalistic, and infuriating. Infuriating if you've got the semi-mandatory influence on people that Bill Gates' software has, that is.

It's particularly a shame to let techno-geeks try to teach English to the rest of us, seeing as they've invented such vivid and accurately descriptive word usage for technical stuff like "software", "mouse", "icon", etc.

As to certain other nominees above, I'd say:

The abuse of legal usages doesn't bother me as much. They're merely misfits in common conversation. The fact that they continue to sound ill-fitting, even after folks forgot that they originated as legal terms, just proves that they never should've been picked up in the first place. "Intents and purposes", "addressing issues", "the fact of the matter is", etc are all very useful in their specific legal settings of origin. (As to my own pick, "in any way, shape or form", I'm not so sure. Hardly anything can ever be done in a "shape" or in a "form" if it can be done in a "way", in or out of the legal field. Truly redundant, at the very least.)

[Mike Weasel]

George Carlin would have a field day with this post.

[Uncle Omar]

well, I'm back, 'cuz Avon & Mike Weasel showed up ...

TNX muchly, Avon, you done good here ... many of my sentiments, esp. r.e. Bill Gates & gang ...

Mike W. --- well, that sorta goes without saying ... but then, you said it ... tnx 4 that ...

Avon, I'm sorry, but I gotta ask. I know it's rude and intrusive and prolly in bad taste, and a bunch of other stuff, but I can't stand it any longer ...

I gotta ask ...

Does anyone ever call you "Ding Dong"?

I'm SORRY. Sorry, sorry, sorry. I hadda ask. NO PERSONAL DISRESPECT INTENDED. JUST CURIOUSITY ...

[Susan]

Nearly 3 days after the last post, but post I shall, because I am running so far behind.

At a number of the school board meetings I have to attend, when they have reports and so on, they have to "disaggregate" the information. I get so sick of hearing that. Not even sure how to spell that, I never see it, just hear it. A lot.

[Marvin]

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