potato slur

[Matthew Gordon]

What a great illustration of the Standard Language Ideology!
It shows the belief that (a) the presence of a word/phrase in a dictionary
(especially the OED) legitimizes it, and (b) removing a word/phrase from a
dictionary would actually affect usage.


On 6/21/05 7:45 AM, "Jonathan Lighter" <wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM> wrote:

> BREAKING NEWS  FROM FOX
>
> In London today, potato farmers marched on Parliament to demand that the term
> "couch potato" be removed from the prestigious _Oxford English Dictionary_.
>
> The protesting farmers claim that the term demeans the potato and is
> offensive.
>
> They demand it be stricken from the language and replaced with the term "couch
> slouch."
>
> Source: _Fox & Friends_, 3 minutes ago.
>
> We report, you deride.
>
> JL
>
>
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