End of ADS-L Digest - 2 Jan 1998 to 3 Jan 1998 ********************************************** Subject: ADS-L Digest - 3 Jan 1998 to 4 Jan 1998 There are 6 messages totalling 457 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. 1997 Notable Phrase; Hockey Talk; Furniture Lingo; Net Time 2. Un-subscribe 3. Podunk 4. Sundae; Sundowners; Median; Under the Influence; Two Cents; et al. 5. throwed rolls (2) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 4 Jan 1998 04:24:22 EST From: Bapopik Subject: 1997 Notable Phrase; Hockey Talk; Furniture Lingo; Net Time 1997 NOTABLE PHRASE We collect "new" words, but not "notable" ones. Grammar errors and the like can be included in the latter. This notable phrase of 1997 was in the Toronto Globe and Mail, 30 December 1997, William Houston's 1997 World of Sports, pg. S2, col. 5: Pittsburgh Pirate pitching coach Pete Vuckovich, after being ejected from a game for arguing with an umpire: "I was a victim of circumcision." ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------- HOCKEY TALK In the same article, column 4, is clicheed hockey talk: Readers in 1997 continued to complain about hockey cliches: Gary Breen of Ottawa wrote, "Every morning, various sports announcers inform us that a particular game ended in a tie 'after overtime' (or some variation). As far as I know, it is not possible for a game to end in a tie without an overtime period having been played. By leaving out the word 'overtime,' additional time will be available to sportscasters to describe the latest Leaf loss." Ralph Eastman of Vancouver contributed a couple of comments on usage: "Whenever an athlete makes a key play in a tight situtation, the announcer will invariably note, 'he had the presence of mind' to do whatever. With the possible exception of boxers, it's a safe bet most athletes have the presence of mind. Why not say wits, alertness or composure? In football, we're often told that a player who was injured, but managed to leave the field without help, walked off 'under his own power.' How about 'unassisted' or 'on his own?'" Peter Lloyd of Ottawa wrote, "There's the all-pervasive redundancy 'off of'--as in 'he was knocked off of the puck' or 'the puck deflected in off of his skate.' Here in Ottawa, we are being treated not only to the improving and entertaining Senators, but also a new twist on icing the puck. No longer does a player go back to touch the puck and cause an icing call. On Senator broadcasts, the player 'touches up' the puck." Keith Morrison of Vancouver (not the journalist) listed hockey play-by- play phrases that irritate him: "The teams are at full and even strength." If both teams are at full strength, they must be even. "The puck is in back of the net." Why not simply, "behind the net"? "Smith wristed the shot." A wimpy expression. Danny Gallivan said it better--a player "snapped" a shot or "fired" it. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------- FURNITURE LINGO This is from the Toronto Globe and Mail, 30 December 1997 (it was a good day, and the hotel gave 'em out for free), pg. B10, col. 5: Furniture lingo The latest suggestions for new business terminology come from _Haworth Inc._, a Holland, Mich.-based office furniture manufacturer: .Chunking: Those tilting stacks of paper aren't a mess, they're proof of chunking or "consolidating related subject matter into fewer, but larger, overarching groups of information." .Visual noise: Objects and materials in the work space that distract from rather than support current and important mental tasks. Churning helps reduce visual noise. .Churning: The cyclical activity of purging, absorbing, creating and relocating artifacts such as folders, reports and notes to ensure that what's on top and visible is the current and most important task. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------- NET TIME This is from the Village Voice, 6 January 1998, Machine Age by Austin Bunn, pg. 29, col. 1: Year of Living Digitally Amid the year's avalanche of freshly minted jargon--"blamestorming," "crapplet," and "backhoeing the server farm" (translation, anyone?)--1997's best invention was as much a new philosophy as a neologism: "Net time." In an industry based on change, accelerated "Net time" falls loosely in between dog years and flat-out instantaneous evolution. It gets at the fact that people still working on the Web after three years feel like they have endured a lifetime of hype, spin and "turnkey" "solutions." No surprise for the year that shipped Moore's Law (which posits that processor speed doubles every 18 months) to the recycling bin. Patience and perspective have become the online industry's scarcest resources. But lest the hyperactivity of "Net time" erase history itself, we're due to stop the clock and immortalize the most telling developments, if not always progress, of the past 12 months in a yearbook of human traffic in the Alley...