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NYT Bans the Word 'Tweet,' LBW Bans the Word 'Glee'

By Bruce Carton

The Awl reports that Phil Corbett, The New York Times' "standards editor," issued a memorandum yesterday attempting to ban NYT writers' use of the word "tweet." For those of you who have just emerged from a 12-month-long trial, "tweet" has become a popular term to describe the act of posting something on Twitter. In his memo, Corbett half-jokes that "outside of ornithological contexts, 'tweet' has not yet achieved the status of standard English," which is apparently what the NYT likes to use. He adds that "tweet" is a rare, triple-threat word that manages to be a colloquialism, neologism and jargon simultaneously -- three more things that the NYT doesn't like. As the standards editor* for Legal Blog Watch, I, too, would like to ban a word, if only to keep up with the NYT. It is important that the word I ban be used regularly by my co-author, Eric Lipman, but not by me, so that the disruption caused by the ban affects Eric only. After careful consideration, I hereby issue an immediate ban of the word "glee," as there is no reason Eric should have this in his active vocabulary as a synonym for "happy," and absolutely no reason...

Full post as published by Legal Blog Watch on June 10, 2010 (boomark / email).