New taboo term

Laurence Horn laurence.horn at YALE.EDU
Mon Feb 25 17:59:33 UTC 2013


On Feb 25, 2013, at 12:46 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:

> CNN has been reporting on the Oscars for many hours now, and I've not once
> heard them use the offensive, banned, obsolete phrase "Academy Awards."

In this morning's Times coverage, we learn that it's not only obsolete and offensive, but even worse:  musty.


http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/25/movies/awardsseason/best-picture-for-argo-in-varied-oscar-field.html

Honoring a wide variety of pictures is a hallmark of the Golden Globes and the producers of Sunday’s telecast, Neil Meron and Craig Zadan, also worked to give their ceremony a more laid-back atmosphere, hoping to emulate the festiveness of the Globes. Mr. Meron said last Tuesday that the words “Academy Awards,” for instance, had been dropped from the show’s title (“The Oscars”) because they sounded “musty.”

========

Will "musty" replace "moist" as the mother(f…) of all taboo M-words?  Stay tuned.

LH


>
> Too many syllables to remember and then, later, enunciate.  "Academy,"
> moreover, implies elitism and "award" means you're beholden to somebody to
> get one. You can't just take it for yourself like a real American.
>
> Never say again. Bad.
>
> http://movies.msn.com/academy-awards/its-just-the-oscars/story/
>
>
> JL
> --
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org



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