To celebrate my promotion this morning from Journeyman and my reception as Member (I feel like Tamino after having passed though the ordeals by earth, air, fire & water and being received in the court of wisdom and benevolence), I want to address what I perceive as a significant trend, at least in these parts.

We all have our eye out for neologisms and are all ready to either pounce on them and devour their perpetrators, or to put them in the cyberstocks and hold them up to public ridicule (or as public as this site gets). It seems to me that the chief villains are radio/TV newscasters, and especially those who cover politics. And I'm not referring to lowbrow types, but those you hear on National Public Radio (for the benefit of outlanders, a highbrow radio service catering to the elite, or the effete snobs, or the pointy-headed intellectuals, or whatever you consider them) or better-than-average TV shows. In the last 24 hours, I have heard: a) "A number of Congressional committee chairmen have been termlimited and will be replaced"; b) "While both the Clintons will continue to have a strong presence in Washington, Al Gore has been de-looped." This doesn't count what may be mere misspeakings, such as the commentator I heard yesterday who used causality when he should have used cause. The news boys (the women don't seem to do it) appear to love an opportunity to coin a new and colorful word. While I love an apposite original expression as well as the next linguaphile, I shall continue to invigilate the airwaves and issue alarums. Trust you all will too.