Banned Words Digest

Having been off the women-doing-things beat for awhile, I am still getting up to speed, here. I thought I might check in on a few of our Banned Words on Google News to see how they're doing lately.

The results were edifying. I shall have to do this more often.

Things that are feisty: Canadian football teams, Joe Biden, otters, Pixar's protagonist-shaped mass of red hair (ya think?), Yvette Nicole Brown, and oh my God you have to read this story from the Belfast Telegraph about a Tory MP yelling at the Prime Minister.

An excerpt from that last one:

Nobody could make head nor tail of it as she screamed louder and louder to make her voice heard over the din of the Commons.

The blood pressure rose, her face became redder and redder - rhubarb, tomato, beetroot - up the colour chart it went. Her arm - the one in the sling - started gesticulating widely.

Veteran MP James Gray sat back as far as he could, conscious no doubt of taking one in the eye at any moment.

As the kids on the Tubes say: GPOY.

But back to business! Things that are sassy: E!, Britney Spears, celebrity journalistrixes, Bachelorette Emily Meynard's minidress, Pink's new single.

Things that are plucky: the Oakland A's, faithful dogs, Aussie footballers, tennis player Laura Robson, wee schoolchildren, death-defying seals, the Pittsburgh Pirates.

I sense an opportunity for Science here. There ought to be a more long-term study, with pretty charts breaking down the relative frequencies for each word. (Categories: Women, sports teams, animals, Irishmen, the celebrity-industrial complex.)

Not That Word Again

Can somebody please read today's Globe's Women Do Stuff story for me? Looks like it's about women rocking out at the Bank of America pavilion. I can't get past the title without urping.

"Kickin' Sass."

Oh yes. They did.

UPDATE:

Okay, fine, I read it. Here's my favorite part:

Q. I know you don’t think of rock in terms of gender, but are you finding other people are framing this as a female rock tour?

A. No, no one has said that to me.

Q. Good. Maybe we’ve moved beyond thinking in those terms.

Hi, this is the Globe! OK if we ask you a few questions? So how long have you been beating your wife? Oh, you haven't? Of course you haven't! That's ridiculous! Can you believe anybody would print that in the newspaper? Jeez, some people.

The P-Word

To be added to the list of banned words: "plucky." How much of Mesopotamia do you have to reign over before they quit calling you that?

Girl, You So Feisty!

Fine column by Gail Collins in the NYT, serving up a tasty dollop of context to Lilly Ledbetter's huge victory today. In it, she pays homage to the women who have battled to strike down laws upholding sex discrimination, thereby embettering other people's lives without thought for their own personal gain. (As is their wont.)

And then she has to go and drop an F-bomb in the penultimate paragraph. Why, Gail, why? I swear to God, if a vag-bearing person single-handedly saved the White House from an attack of killer warthogs dripping with SARS, armed only with her God-given courage and a ballpoint pen, they'd call her "feisty." If Chesley B. Sullenberger III had been a woman, the headline would have read "Sassy Pilot Just Doing Her Job," and the reporter would have made a note of her footwear.

I beg. No more. No more "feisty," no more "sassy," no more "you go, girl." I believe it is time to begin compiling the Banned Words List. Submissions, anyone?

(Excuse me. The thought of Chesley B. Sullenberger III being female is making me a little weak in the knees. I must go lie down now.)