"Welfare deform"

[Mike Salovesh]

Discussion of "home deprovement" alerted me to similar forms -- just
before I read an article on what's been happening to welfare in the
U.S.  See this URL:

http://www.arc.org/C_Lines/CLArchive/story3_3_04.html

Here's a pair of quotes from that article:

> Given the political realities mentioned earlier--pronounced rightward drift, > an increased percentage of people of color on public assistance, and the > public's belief that work is good for self-esteem and welfare reform has > succeeded in putting people back to work--how can we begin to renegotiate the > current welfare "deform" mess?

Next time around, they didn't use scare quotes:

> Race and gender discrimination may not be the most screwed-up thing about > welfare deform, but it is one of the few areas in which legal rights exist.

Question for lexicographers:  At what point does an editorial play on
words enter the lists as a potential dictionary entry?

Incidental comment from Netscape's spell check function:  "Deform" is
accepted without comment, despite its non-standard usage in context;
"deprovement" triggered a call for  . . .  well, deprovement.  The
speller doesn't like it.

-- mike salovesh   <salovesh at niu.edu>   PEACE !!!

P.S.:  I have been asked, off-list, why I don't list an organizational
or academic affiliation in my .sig block.  Simple answer:  Retirement at
my FORMER academic post means you no longer have an office on campus,
you no longer have access to a highspeed fibreoptic connection to the
Internet, and you have to beg for annual renewal of dialup email
privileges.  In exchange, you get the title "Emeritus", a free campus
parking sticker, and the privilege of parking for free in the central
pay lot on campus.  (Active faculty pay something like $80 per year for
the sticker, and $5.00 a day at the pay lot.)

Thirty years after I joined the anthropology department at Northern
Illinois University, they have promoted me to Emeritus and otherwise cut
me off.  Listing them in my signature would give them undeserved
recognition.  I say it's spinach, and I say to hell with it.

After November 18th, I will sign myself "President, Association of
Senior Anthropologists, a Unit of the American Anthropological
Association."