A general time horizon for meeting aspirational goals

Good Monday, dear readers. I hope you had a restful and entertaining weekend. Mine, alas, was ruined, as I had to scour the Internet trying to figure out the meaning of the phrase, "a general time horizon for meeting aspirational goals." This is what the White House announced Friday that President Bush would agree to in lieu of a "timetable" or "deadline" for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq. All this time, he was willing to commit, but lacked the semantical finessitude to express himself.

Sequestered in his office for weeks, the President pilfered his libarry [sic], settling on a book of risk management terminology, which included such words as "backwardation," "heteroskedasticity,"swaption," and Peek-a-Boo. Fearing that American citizens would think he made up those words, he went with something a little easier to peddle. You know, like "a general time horizon for meeting aspirational goals."

No more "thought showers" for British bureaucrats

When a town council in southern England instructed its staff to use the phrase "thought showers" instead of the word "brainstorming," the Word Police had about all it could stomach. The Tunbridge Wells Town Council had feared that the word "brainstorming" might offend people with epilepsy, a condition that involves "periodic electrical storms inside the brain." Disgusted by the addition of yet another "management buzzword," the country's Local Government Association said residents are already confused enough about what their elected officials are saying and doing. So the LGA put the bureaucrats on notice with a list of 100 "non-words" they should avoid. On the prohibition list are revenue stream, coterminosity, stakeholder, incentivising and place-shaping.

The LGA's chairman, Sir Simon Milton, said: "The public sector cannot, must not and should not hide behind impenetrable jargon and phrases. Why do we have to have 'coterminous, stakeholder engagement' when we could just 'talk to people' instead?"

The LGA list offers alternatives for the offending words/phrases. For example, in place of "cautiously welcome" the LGA suggested "devil in the detail," while "coterminosity" should be "all singing from the same hymn sheet." Well, THAT clears things right up.

You are cautiously welcome to view the LGA's entire list via this site.

The Anal Probe

The Madam and Mister have returned from their travels. Last night they showed us photos from their trip and gave us exotic treats purchased in far away lands such as Ohio and West Virginia. But most interesting were the strange stories from the road. They saw some very unusual sights on the Interstate, including a herd of horses—an anal mustang, an anal pinto, and an anal bronco. These equines were apparently trying to outrun the anal probe.

Then the M&M explained:

Apparently, humans get bored while driving, and so they invent games to pass the time. I've heard about some of these, including "I Spy", "20 Questions", and "Punchbug." But there's a new game in town. Whenever a car passes, you insert the word "anal" before the name of the model of the car, i.e., the anal Challenger, the anal Alliance and the anal Legend.

I don't drive, but I was dying to play this delightful game. So I surfed on over to wikipedia to find the names of every car ever made by a U.S. manufacturer. Here are a few anal-isms I discovered:

• The Anal Mystique (Mercury)—This is what goes on under the tail of one of my feline roommates, Isabel, who is too fat to reach her bum. Because there's no bidet in our bathroom, the Madam must resort to weekly assisted ass-washing. The task of removal-of-mystery-bits used to fall to the tongue of our departed canine roommate, Watson. Though he was blind, he had no trouble tracking the anal essence of this corpulent calico. When he was alive, Watson was called Doodle Dog, Watson Schmatson and other terms of endearment. I think he deserves a posthumous nickname. We miss you, Anal Explorer (Ford).
• The Anal Arrow (Plymouth) and the Anal Dart (Dodge)—When you sense these projectiles approaching their bulls-eye, it's time to hop in the Anal Escape (Ford) and put the pedal to the metal.
• The Anal Acclaim (Plymouth)—"I'd like to thank my manager, my castmates and the Academy for recognizing my glorious netherlands. It makes me proud to be an Anal Celebrity (Chevy)."
• The Anal Breeze (Plymouth)—Ahhh, that feels nice.
• The Anal Fury (Plymouth)—Hell hath no fury like an anus scorned.
• The Anal Prizm (Chevy)—Even harder to see through than a regular prism.
• The Anal Alliance (Renault)—Sphincters unite!
• The Anal Dynasty (Dodge)—Not as well known as the Ming, due to substandard textbooks.
• The Anal Viking (Dodge)—Reached Constantinople long before the other Norse raiders, who upon arrival exclaimed, "Man, it stinks here."

With thanks to the Annuals (the Anal Snu), for sharing this addictive pastime.

A wordsmith and carb-evangelist I am, a grimalkin I am not

Admitting your powerlessness is the first step to conquering addiction, no? So I confess: I can't stop playing the vocabulary game at FreeRice.com. But on the upside, that means I am ceaselessly donating grains of rice to the poor. If you are a word-lover, do not go to this Web site. Or you will soon require a 12-step program. I can picture the scene: cruciverbalists, redactors, bibliophiles, etymologists, linguists and bards, all loitering around a table of doughnuts and coffee, lamenting their inability to advance beyond Level 47 and struggling against hope not to be architects of language.