AP confuses ADS and ANS

[Benjamin Zimmer]

Language-Logged...

http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/004017.html



On 1/8/07, Benjamin Zimmer <bgzimmer at babel.ling.upenn.edu> wrote:
>
> -----
> http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=2777380
> 'Plutoed' Chosen As '06 Word of the Year
> ANAHEIM, Calif. Jan 7, 2007 (AP)— Pluto is finally getting some
> respect not from astronomers, but from wordsmiths.
> "Plutoed" was chosen 2006's Word of the Year by the American Dialect
> Society at its annual meeting Friday.
> To "pluto" is "to demote or devalue someone or something," much like
> what happened to the former planet last year when the General Assembly
> of the International Astronomical Union decided Pluto didn't meet its
> definition of a planet.
> "Our members believe the great emotional reaction of the public to the
> demotion of Pluto shows the importance of Pluto as a name," said
> society president Cleveland Evans. "We may no longer believe in the
> Roman god Pluto, but we still have a sense of personal connection with
> the former planet."
> [...]
> -----
>
> Looks like the AP reporter misread the ADS press release! The ANS vote
> for "Pluto" as Name of the Year (as opposed to the ADS vote for the
> verb "pluto" as Word of the Year) isn't even mentioned in the article,
> even though the quote from Cleveland Evans is clearly identified in
> the press release as relating to NotY, not WotY.
>
> Perhaps not as big a gaffe as last year's AP article omitting Stephen
> Colbert from the discussion of "truthiness", but sloppy journalism
> nonetheless...

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