Tag Archives: language

Jon Stewart says the word “teabagger” was funny “for maybe a day” and that the left should stop using it. Never!

Rocky Horror star Susan Sarandon thinks the controversy over Glee’s usage of the word “tranny” is overblown. Susan Sarandon has no patience for the P.C. brigade – or TV. “Glee” recently took on her 1975 cult hit “The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” only to come under fire from GLAAD for using the word “tranny.” When we caught up with Sarandon, …

(Via – Andrew Sullivan)

Second City has some fun with Rahm Emanuel’s infamous penchant for strong language. Totally totally NSFFW. (The extra “F” is for “fucking.”)

The Advocate wonders if Sarah Palin’s blow-up at Vanity Fair over their hit piece on her wasn’t deliberately loaded with words meant to attack the sexuality of its author. Is Sarah Palin using code words to slam gay journalist Michael Joseph Gross, a frequent Advocate contributor who wrote the much-buzzed-about profile of the former vice presidential nominee in this month’s …

While in Las Vegas last month, I noted the local controversy over the pronunciation of the state’s name. The kerfuffle has now reached the state legislature. Outgoing Assemblyman Harry Mortenson is proposing more tolerance. The Las Vegas Democrat is working on a resolution for the 2011 legislative session to make the ”Ne-VAH-da” pronunciation equally acceptable to the one with the …

The BBC is running a series of shorts that uses mnemonics as spelling helpers. Mildly interesting, I suppose, but ultimately a wasted effort in the Google age. (Although I did recently use HOMES when trying to remember all the Great Lakes.) What mnemonics did you or do you use?

Here am I in Montreal, not speaking a single word of French. Boo me. What languages do you speak? Which are you learning?

Twice yesterday my pronunciation of Nevada was corrected by a local. They’s touchy about that here. T-shirts and bumper stickers on that issue abound.

“It seems to us that this panel of three judges walked into the courtroom with their minds already made up and with kind of a chip on their shoulder about the whole enforcement regime of the Federal Communications Commission and that they did not look at the facts of the case objectively. “The judges basically overturned the will of the …

Saying it could have a “chilling effect” on freedom of speech, today a federal appeals court struck down the FCC’s policies about language indecency. Interestingly, the ruling came not in a case involving Howard Stern or other radio shock jocks. The ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit in New York arose from a case over …

Today the above headline tops an article on Deadspin, the sports site owned by Gawker Media. According to author Drew Magary, NBA free agent LeBron James is a “goddamn cocksucker” for playing all the teams against each other in his bid to get the best deal. Homophobic language in sports is not surprising, but it IS a shocker coming from …

Cue the outraged Christians….

Daily Mail columnist Matthew Engel is sick and tired of American expressions worming their way into the Queen’s English. After an essay on the issue last week, today he posts the Americanisms that most annoy his readers. Top of the long hate-list was probably ‘Can I get a coffee?’ (and these days it probably would be an overpriced, overmarketed American …

“The gay and lesbian community has plenty of Uncle Toms trying to blow us up from inside, but what we don’t have is our own word or phrase to identify them. Some call them ‘closet cases,’ but there is a difference between someone who is unwilling to live openly and honestly, and someone who takes that a step further and …

Some folks say there’s no difference between the outer borough accents of NYC, but this audio guide seems to prove otherwise. They all sound dead-on to ME. (Via – Gothamist)

From the New York Times‘ Paul Schmidtberger: If there were any truth to the idea that a particular name can guarantee a particular character trait for the child — or vice versa — most people would be named Vaguely Dissatisfied. Or Kinda Bitter. In my case, my parents could’ve just named me Unemployed and saved everybody a lot of trouble. …