Date:    Thu, 26 Mar 1998 14:52:46 -0500
<br>From:    Larry Horn  laurence.horn[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]YALE.EDU 
<br>Subject: Re: "beard"
<br>
<br>At 1:16 PM -0500 3/26/98, Gregory {Greg} Downing wrote:
<br> At 01:07 PM 3/26/98 -0500, Mark Mandel wrote:
<br>  A usage new to me appears in today's _Wall Street Journal_, p.1, column 4.
<br>  
<br>  "For many of these post-college spring revelers, golf is the beard --
<br>  that is,
<br>  ostensibly the main attraction, and a convenient excuse to spouses and
<br>  significant others left at home.
<br>  
<br> 
<br> I've heard "beard" since the early 80's in the sense of a gay male's female
<br> escort or wife. I.e., beard = something used as a disguise or "cover." For
<br> example, I recalling hearing it used disparagingly of Elton John's wife when
<br> he got married, briefly, in about 1986 if I recall.
<br> 
<br> Gregory {Greg} Do
<br>======================================================================
<br>
<br>From: Automatic digest processor (3/26/98)
<br>To: Recipients of ADS-L digests
<br>
<br>         ADS-L Digest - 24 Mar 1998 to 25 Mar 1998             98-03-26 00:00:01
<br>There are 17 messages totalling 539 lines in this issue.
<br>
<br>Topics of the day:
<br>
<br>  1. Banning words in class (5)
<br>  2. Footbag or Hacky Sack?
<br>  3. Taping tel. conv. (2)
<br>  4. Banned wds (4)
<br>  5. "divide and conquer"
<br>  6. the limited universality de Esperanto
<br>  7. Suck eggs and die!
<br>  8. Call for articles: Sociolinguistics of names
<br>  9. Teaching freshman comp
<br>
<br>----------------------------------------------------------------------
<br>
<br>Date:    Tue, 24 Mar 1998 23:02:47 +0000
<br>From:    Lynne Murphy  M_Lynne_Murphy[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]BAYLOR.EDU 
<br>Subject: Re: Banning words in class
<br>
<br>Albert E. Krahn wrote:
<br> 
<br>  So "like" is banned. So what's new?
<br>  I ban words in class all the time, benevolent dictator that I am. The words
<br>  "opinion" (for its misuse as "feeling") and "as" (for its ambiguity) are
<br>  banned regularly. Also, students are issued one exclamation point per
<br>  semester, which they can use or not use, as they wish. It cuts down on
<br>  comic strip-style writing.
<br>  akra
<br>
<br>
<br>what's new is that they're trying to regulate speech, rather than
<br>writing (but we all know that that's been done before too.  i remember
<br>the nuns telling us all the time "'ain't' isn't a word because it isn't
<br>in the dictionary."  then i grew up and realized they gave us defective
<br>dictionaries in order to make their point).
<br>
<br>in my classes, the word "society" is banned.  (i'd make exceptions if
<br>anyone in my classes ever had a reason to use the word, but they don't.)
<br>i'm considering instituting corporal punishment for anyone who writes
<br>the phrase "in today's society".  they're also not allowed to begin any
<br>sentence with "the dictionary defines X as".
<br>
<br>a colleague and i are trying to come up with a good list of banned
<br>words/phrases for undergraduate papers, so i'd like to hear what others
<br>have banned.  if this is too far off topic for the list, please respond
<br>to me directly.
<br>
<br>
<br>lynne
<br>
<br>--
<br>
<br>M. Lynne Murphy
<br>Assistant Professor in Linguistics
<br>Department of English
<br>Baylor University
<br>PO Box 97404
<br>Waco, TX 76798
<br>