According to Reuters, Australian Parliament House staff were recently banned from using the affectionate and egalitarian term "mate" to address members of the public. The staff directive was repealed after a flood of public protest.

"Former Prime Minister Bob Hawke said the attempted ban was 'pomposity gone mad,' while current Prime Minister John Howard described the ban as 'absurd and impractical.'"

http://snipurl.com/h5dh

Attempting to legislate language would be, I think, borrowing from my friend maverick, a lot like herding cats.

At Washington State University, the school's name is abbreviated WSU. In an inadequate attempt to pronounce the abbreviation, students and alumni have called the school Wazzu. This name has appeared on tee-shirts, sweatshirts, gym bags, highball glasses and other artifacts of associational pride. The President of the University has determined that "Wazzu" is not an appropriate nor sufficiently dignified appellation for the school. He has therefore banned its use on all products licensed by the university and forbidden its utterance in publications sponsored by the school. As one might imagine, this move has backfired rather badly on the pres, who now presides over a university where an even greater part of the student body wear un-licensed attire bearing the forbidden word. He learned the error of his ways when he attended an alumni function in Seattle and found the attendees wearing primarily clothing on which Wazzu had been printed by the Cougar Club -- an unofficial arm of the alumni association. Silly president!

Something similar happened when I was an undergrad at George Mason College, now George Mason University. We were one of the colleges of U. Va., where it was a tradition that male students wore coats and ties to classes, and perhaps on campus as well, but definitely to class.

So this Chancellor fellow decided this was a good idea -- most of the men did follow tradition already, but this idiot made it a rule. We actually had people thrown out of class by a couple of professors who were dual-hatted with administration roles. Many of us borrowed from our girlfriends and wore coats and ties and kilts to class.

The newspapers finally embarrassed him enough that he backed down and we went back to tradition. I doubt very much that either U. Va. or GMU have such a tradition today. This was back in 1964 or 1965.