Grant Barrett & Catchphrases in N.Y. Times

[Grant Barrett]

Thanks, Fred. They hacked the heck out of it (as usual) and the
accompanying article by Randy Kennedy, about rating the success of
words, makes no mention of Allan Metcalf's book, "Predicting New
Words," which--even collegial politeness and generosity aside--is a
ridiculous oversight so typical of the Times. It also says wrong
things about "mash-up."

The accompanying graphic includes words that I cut from my list and
do not appear in any of accompanying articles (at least online).

Among much other explanatory information they cut without asking
(which is fine--my copy is not golden), they did explain they were
cutting my gloss of "fobbit" as "rear-echelon motherfucker" or "REMF"
because it was not appropriate and they refused to include the word
"crotchfruit" 'children; a child' (think "fruit of one's loins")
because they considered it vulgar.

Which is all fine, I guess. Leaves me a lot of words that will appear
only in my ADS WOTY nominations.

Grant

On Dec 25, 2005, at 07:44, Fred Shapiro wrote:

> Today's New York Times devotes over a page and a half to discussion of
> catch phrases of 2005.  Included is a glossary by Grant Barrett.
> Congratulations to Grant!
>
> Fred Shapiro
>
>
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> Fred R. Shapiro                             Editor
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