News Roundup for 11/15/10

The dictionary will now make you dumber

-Headline of the Day-
"Palin's 'Refudiate' Wins 2010 Word Of The Year."

Sarah Palin has been working hard to make the world a little more stupid place and it's finally paid off. "Refudiate" is now a real, live word that you can use in a game of Scrabble. The New Oxford American Dictionary has declared it the word of the year, so it's going in the dictionary and you can't laugh at anyone who says it anymore, because it's a perfectly cromnulent word.

"refudiate: verb used loosely to mean "reject": she called on them to refudiate the proposal to build a mosque. ([origin -- blend of refute and repudiate]," NOAD now reads.

"From a strictly lexical interpretation of the different contexts in which Palin has used 'refudiate,' we have concluded that neither 'refute' nor 'repudiate' seems consistently precise, and that 'refudiate' more or less stands on its own, suggesting a general sense of 'reject,'" the editors say in defense of their position.

I hereby "refudiate" the New Oxford American Dictionary. When someone says something idiotic, you don't just go "fix" the language for them. (Talking Points Memo)


-Seriously?-
The ACLU is helping a group of middle schoolers sue a Pennsylvania school district over their band of bracelets that raise money to fight breast cancer. The problem: the wording on the bracelets.

"I am writing from in-school suspension for wearing an 'I love Boobies' bracelet," Brianna Hawk wrote in a recent letter to the local Easton paper. "Even though I am only 13 years old, I am well aware of breast cancer and the effects it has on women."

You know what I find weirdest about this? Only kids call them "boobies" anyway, because adults -- being more mature -- prefer to use "bazongas." Still, no "boobie" bracelets, because apparently that's a bad word that kids shouldn't know.

I think the cat's already out of the bag on that one. Apparently, the rubber wristbands have been banned all over the country. Seriously, don't we have anything more important to worry about? Because it seems to me that just about anything would be more important. (Associated Press)


-Bonus HotD-
"Please stop asking Newt Gingrich if he'll run for president."

He never answers and you're just encouraging him. So knock it off. (War Room)