an addendum to the previous post

I feel I should add this:

Celebrating Valentine's Day could mean getting to spend an entire weekend with Rodgers. As I don't get to see him often [though it is often in comparison with last year], anything that means I can spend a weekend with him is a good thing!

I guess what I'm saying is that I don't love Valentine's Day, but I do love Rodgers, and that's what's important.

Geez, now I feel all sappy...that's why I was vomiting yesterday.

blehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh [that's the sound of vomit]

So, here it is:

Valentine's is a little over 2 weeks away. If you know me very well, you'll know that this is a day that I really despise. I have shared on my blogs about how much I really hate it (and why) before. I have also shared that I really had no intention of celebrating the day, even in the unlikely chance that I actually had a Valentine some day.

I had no Valentine until I was 24, and then, we were 14 time zones apart - FOURTEEN TIME ZONES!! It's like an eternity. I can admit that, basically, I hate Valentine's Day because I've never had a happy one. I've had some happy times on days that happened to be February 14, but never a happy Valentine's Day.

Rodgers is trying to convince me that I'll enjoy the day if I just have one happy Valentine's day. I'm not totally sure I believe him yet. But I have realized that it would be quite selfish of me to refuse to celebrate the day with him just because I don't like it. So I guess I will give it a try.

The problem remaining is that I don't know what to do on Valentine's Day. In the past, I have spent the day watching violent movies - the more people dying the better. I will have to research this. And that's what the Internet is for.

not to worry

I found the original list, and archives of these lists going back to 1976.
http://www.lssu.edu/banished/current.php
http://www.lssu.edu/banished/archived_lists.php

"Awesome" was banished in 1984 and 2007. That's a pretty wide spread. Also "whatever" was banished twice, about twenty years between banishings. Most words or phrases banished twice were in consecutive years, but "awesome" and "whatever" have crossed generations. Amazing.

an article after my own heart

Wordsmiths, avoid these words..
By Andrew Stern

CHICAGO (Reuters) - A "surge" of overused words and phrases formed a "perfect storm" of "post-9/11" cliches in 2007, according to a U.S. university's annual list of words and phrases that deserve to be banned.

Choosing from among 2,000 submissions, the public relations department at Michigan's Lake Superior State University in Sault Ste. Marie targeted 19 affronts to the English language in its well-known jab at the worlds of media, sports, advertising and politics.

The contributors gave first prize to the phrase "a perfect storm," saying it was numbingly applied to virtually any notable coincidence.

"Webinar" made the list as a tiresome non-word combining Web and seminar that a contributor said "belongs in the same school of non-thought that brought us e-anything and i-anything."

Similarly, the list-makers complained about the absurd comparisons commonly phrased "x is the new y," as in "(age) 70 is the new 50" or "chocolate is the new sex." "Fallacy is the new truth," commented one contributor.

Some words and phrases sagged under the weight of overuse, contributors said, citing the application of "organic" to everything from computer software to dog food.

In the same vein, decorators offering to add "pop" with a touch of color need new words, the list-makers said.

Such phrases as "post 9/11" and "surge" have also outlived their usefulness, they said. Surge emerged in reference to adding U.S. troops in Iraq but has come to explain the expansion of anything.

Other contributors took umbrage at the phrase to "give back" as applied to charitable gestures, usually by celebrities.

"The notion has arisen that as one's life progresses, one accumulates a sort of deficit balance with society which must be neutralized by charitable works or financial outlays," one said.

"Back in the day" raised hackles for being applied to recent trends rather than historical events.

Other teenage linguistic indiscretions such as the often meaningless use of "random" and "sweet" raised the ire of list-makers, as did the pointless "it is what it is."

Reporters were chided for skipping out on detail by describing an event or parting as "emotional," and for misapplying "decimate" when they mean annihilate or destroy, not the word's true meaning of to lose a fraction.

Sports announcers were urged to drop "throw under the bus" when assigning blame to a player. "It is a call for the media to start issuing a thesaurus to everyone in front of a camera," a contributor said.

And finally, any self-respecting writer would groan at being labeled a "wordsmith" who engages in "wordsmithing," the list-makers said.

(Editing by Stuart Grudgings)