Aaron Ewer

Funny how we were just talking about this the other night and then yesterday I come across a story in the daily newspaper about the very same thing: concocted words.

I hear words in everyday conversations that drive me nuts because there is not such word. For example: conversate. I’ve never heard a white person use this word in a sentence but I hear it more and more and it gets under my skin so bad I want to slap the person using it and put a “stupid sign” around their neck.

The press is guilty of a lot of this concoction. Words like “Brangelina” and “Baby Bump” are ridiculous and yet these smiling talking boobs toss them about in all the celebrity gossip shows and columns. I’m so sick of it!

Read these forum comments from the Chicago Tribune site for other concocted words. You will be surprised at the hundreds of responses to their question, “What made-up word drives you nuts?”

Bad news for people in the news business. This past week a lot of the big publishers have fired or laid off a big chunk of their staffs.

The USA Today organization announced that they were eliminating 1,500 jobs. The Chicago Tribune let go 600 people, and The Tennessean laid off around 500 people.

Not only are they slashing payroll and passing other expenses on to their vendors and independent contractors, now they are raising the price of the daily newspapers, too. The daily Tennessean has cost 50 cents for years and it’s much cheaper if you subscribe. However, next month the single copy price will increase to 75 cents. I wonder if these changes will chase away more readers and actually contribute to their demise?

For all the doomsayers I don’t think this hurricane season has been any where near as bad as they were predicting. Here it is almost August and they are only up to the letter “D” for Dolly, which is threatening the southern Texas and Mexicans shores of the Gulf of Mexico.

Don’t take me wrong - I’m all for a low impact hurricane season. What I’m saying is I’m sick of these so called experts being sought out to grandiousely pronounce that we’re going to have major weather-related tragedies. Surely there are experts that were also saying that this season will not be very bad, but that’s just not sensational enough to make the news.

I’m sick of the news media channeling my thoughts and concerns with all the doom and gloom. They need to focus on what is actually happening and report the facts - not opinions and not advice.

A story in today’s Chicago Tribune reports that Sonic will be entering the Chicagoland market this year with 4 new drive-in restaurants. That’s great news! What took them so long?

Sonic is headquartered in Oklahoma and is the country’s largest operator of drive-in restaurants, with over 3,000 drive-ins nationwide. SONIC enjoys the highest customer frequency rate in the quick-service restaurant industry.

In 1953, SONIC was founded by Troy Smith and was originally named Top Hat Drive-In, and the name was changed to SONIC in 1959. The prototype of the first SONIC Drive-In opened in Shawnee, Oklahoma and the unique use of curbside speakers to allow customers to place food orders without leaving their cars, was the basis for their slogan of “SONIC, Service with the Speed of Sound.”

They have a special offer of milkshakes for 99 cents - that makes it awfully hard to drive past one without stopping for a different milkshake flavor every day at a bargain price!

While surfing various sites today I’ve come across an unusual word three times, all in totally different topics and arenas. I don’t know if I just noticed this one particular word today and with increased awareness I am noticing it more, or is today just a day when this word comes across my screen several times? It’s very weird. If this was numbers instead of a word, I’d taken them to the convenience store and buy a lottery ticket.

The word is “robust,” which is a powerfully descriptive word and I really like it. I should use it more. I first noticed it used in a comment ties to an article in the New York Times on how flip flops are allegedly harmful to feet. I suspect that study was underwritten by the manufactures of athletic shoes and disagree totally with their conclusions. Nonetheless, a fellow commenter used the word robust and I thought it was well used there.

Then a press release from Mozilla and article on Yahoo News calls the new version of Firefox to be released tomorrow, “robust.” Well, I am a Firefox fan and am very much looking forward to the new “robust” version of Firefox.

And last, there is an article on the BBC website abut the advances in medical lasers that will help the biomedical field. The new lasers reportedly have a robustness:

Dr Graeme Malcolm, of M-Squared Lasers Ltd, added: “A step change improvement in the cost, size and robustness of ultrafast lasers is needed before they can benefit biomedical applications fully.”

I’m not sure what a step change is - perhaps a steep change? Or is step change a British expression?

Anyway, the word of the day award goes to “robust.” Now we should all try to use it in a sentence during a conversation with someone tonight!