Jun 13 2008
A Perfect Storm of Organic Truthiness: The Webinar
I’ve been doing a little research in preparation for my last day, tomorrow, in Michigan. I discovered a list of Banished Words from Lake Superior State University, the smallest and most Canadian-friendly public university in Michigan. It’s located on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, which is where I’m headed in the morning.
LSSU has been creating annual lists of Banished Words since 1976. Many times imitated, they claim to be the first and, heck, I believe them. I like the LSSU Banished Word site as an amateur linguist and you might, too, as you can add your comments to the list of words.
Among this year’s banished words is “organic.” John Gomila, New Orleans, Louisiana, for instance, writes that “The possibility of a food item being inorganic, i.e., not being composed of carbon atoms, is nil.” Amen; it’s like the difference between “all natural” and “man made,” as if humans weren’t natural.
Another is “sweet” as an exclamation of approval or concord; way over used and, I admit, I’m guilty. Shall I banish myself to Canada?
“Decimate” makes the 2008 list, as well it should. It’s never used correctly; in the vernacular usage, people say “decimate” when they mean “total destruction.” But a quick scan of the word’s formation clearly reveals that it means “one in ten.” To destroy one in ten of something is not “total.” Sweet. Let truthiness in semantics reign supreme.
I was delighted to see “webinar” on the list, as I’m constantly bombarded with emailed offers to take expensive webinars that promise to teach me all sorts of little niche aspects of Web marketing. Thing is, this is a self-perpetuating marketing scheme and what I’ve learned from webinars is that if you want to make money on the Web, you should offer webinars.
Check out the LSSU Banished Word list here.
I am a huge fan of “organic” being banished, at least in the context mentioned above.
Brian — not to mention “surreal” — an overused word about which you’ve written a good essay. I also find that people are now destroying “exacerbate” with a pronunciation issue.