Susanna J. Sturgis   Martha's Vineyard writer and editor
writer editor born-again horse girl

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Buzzword Bingo

June 07, 2006

This morning I appended this to a post to Copyediting-L (CE-L or CEL to its initiates), the copyediting e-list that absorbs a helluva lot of my online time but reciprocates by allowing me to pass for omniscient among my various clients:

On my recent travels I heard some doozies while eavesdropping on cell-phone conversations in various airports. My favorite was the guy who asked the fellow on the other end "Do you have availability to pick me up at La Guardia?"

To which CELmate Dick Margulis replied:

I can just see a gate agent with a sense of humor passing out Buzzword Bingo game cards to the passengers, with a coupon for a free onboard drink to the winner of each round. No cheating. You can only mark a square if you actually hear someone say the phrase into their cellphone.  I'll bet Southwest would do it.

Buzzword Bingo? It was love at first sight. Dick graciously gave me permission to reprint his idea here, but now it's up to y'all. A bingo card has 25 squares, right? So we need 25 buzzies for card #1. Bizspeak, govspeak, geekspeak, psychobabble -- anything goes.

I just looked at a Buzzword Bingo template: http://isd.usc.edu/~karl/Bingo/. Maybe I'll go through tomorrow's Martha's Vineyard Times and make a Vineyard version. Maybe I don't even need to look at the paper: "affordable housing," "anti-business," "supportive," and "the character of the island" come immediately to mind.

Dick blogs regularly and informatively on writing, editing, and publishing at Ampers & Virgule: http://ampersandvirgule.blogspot.com/. Anyone interested in self-publishing is especially urged to check it out: his counsel can save you a lot of research and a lot of grief.

I haven't given contact info for Copyediting-L lately, so here 'tis: http://www.copyediting-l.info/. Highly recommended for editors of all kinds, and any word wizard who doesn't mind a pretty high volume but very well organized list.

 

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