Sunday, March 18, 2007

The Vulgarity Of Blog

[Posted by reader_iam]

The "garish" word "blog" apparently offends Anna*** Wintour's personal sense of style so much that she has banned its use from the soon-to-be expanded Vogue website and ordered her staff to come up with a more tasteful term.

Here are some synonyms for "garish" and its family and friends:
absurd, arrant, arresting, arrestive, bad, bald, barefaced, base, bizarre, blah, blaring, blatant, bogus, bold, brash, brassy, brazen, brummagem, catchpenny, celebrated, cheap, cheesy, chintzy, clear, commanding, common, commonplace, conspicuous, costly, crappy, crazy, cruddy, crying, distinguished, dud, eminent, exaggerated, excessive, extortionate, extreme, fanciful, fantastic, famed, flagrant, flamboyant, flashy, flaunting, flirtatious, foolish, forward, garbage, garish, gaudy, gewgaw, gimcrack, glaring, glittering, glitzy, grandiose, grating, gross, gussied up, hard, harsh, illustrious, immoderate, implausible, improvident, imprudent, impudent, influential, inordinate, insolent, jarring, jazzy, junky, kitschy, lavish, loud, loudmouthed, lousy, ludicrous, mangy, mean, mediocre, meretricious, naked, no bargain, no good, noisy, nonsensical, notable, notorious, obtrusive, ordinary, ornate, ostentatious, outrageous, outright, outstanding, overbold, overdone, overt, overwrought, paltry, pert, piercing, poor, plain, pointed, preposterous, pretentious, prodigal, profligate, prominent, pronounced, protrusive, raffish, rank, ratty, raunchy, reckless, remarkable, renowned, ridiculous, rinky-dink, rotten, rubbishy, rude, salient, saucy, screaming, second-rate, shameless, sheer, shoddy, showy, shrill, silly, sleazy, small-time, snazzy, splashy, strident, striking, tasteless, tawdry, terrible, tinsel, trashy, trumpery, two-bit, unabashed, unbalanced, unblushing, unconscionable, unmitigated, unreasonable, unrestrained, vulgar, and wasteful.
Sure sounds like the blogosphere to me. If the shoe fits, I say wear it proudly--and "good taste" be damned.

Update: ***Oh, for crying out loud. I do know the lady's name--I've followed her career for years because I find her compelling, even if I find myself annoyed as often as admiring. Out, out damned typos!

(And maybe I really should institute a rule that if I can't finish up a post sooner than 2 minutes before I head out the door to go someplace, I should just wait to publish it. Or, at a bare minimum, read my own post the minute I get back online, rather than going directly to others' and starting something new.

Except I'd be, more likely than not, just adding another rule to break. If I had to blog, which is a personal and informal thing to/for me, the way I work, which is a professional and formal thing, I wouldn't bother blogging at all.)