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"FAIL" needs to fail
As a marketing and communications professional, I stress simple, straightforward language in my work, however I’m always watching for the evolving lexicon of the market. For growing vocabulary, I recommend these sites: FreeRice.com, UrbanDictionary.com, InvestorWords.com, BusinessDictionary.com, Merriam-Webster Online]
The word for the moment is — FAIL. Maybe it’s me, but when did it become acceptable, even humorous, to denounce a person, comment, organization, government, etc. with a single word verdict?
FAIL as a “thumbs down” from a websphere heckler falls into the same bucket of dismissive, lazy interjections as “whatever” and “sucks”.
Urbandictionary.com has 41 entries for the term FAIL. A quick Google Blogsearch for the exact phrase FAIL yields more than 7 million entries, but that includes the appropriate use of the verb, so it’s hard to sort out how pervasive its use is as a pejorative.
There is even a Failblog.org site which I have to confess has some pretty funny content.
The bigger picture is this: I’d like to believe we’re more evolved than reducing our subjective interpersonal vocabulary to single-word backhands. Let’s bring back intelligent, constructive conversation. Or: “If you can’t think of anything nice to say…”
Mark L. Olson
The word for the moment is — FAIL. Maybe it’s me, but when did it become acceptable, even humorous, to denounce a person, comment, organization, government, etc. with a single word verdict?
FAIL as a “thumbs down” from a websphere heckler falls into the same bucket of dismissive, lazy interjections as “whatever” and “sucks”.
Urbandictionary.com has 41 entries for the term FAIL. A quick Google Blogsearch for the exact phrase FAIL yields more than 7 million entries, but that includes the appropriate use of the verb, so it’s hard to sort out how pervasive its use is as a pejorative.
There is even a Failblog.org site which I have to confess has some pretty funny content.
The bigger picture is this: I’d like to believe we’re more evolved than reducing our subjective interpersonal vocabulary to single-word backhands. Let’s bring back intelligent, constructive conversation. Or: “If you can’t think of anything nice to say…”
Mark L. Olson
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