12.30.2011

You know you're losing it…

Lake Superior State University :: Banished Words List

…when certain words or phrases are declared out and you didn't know they were ever in. 

If I get any more out of touch I might have to vote Republican.

Still, allow me to take issue with one Mike Cloran of Cincinnati, Ohio, and the whole gaggle of happy word Nazis at Lake Superior State University over banishing "Thanks in Advance." Nobody at Lake Superior State, I'm pretty sure, is old enough to remember those ancient days when network bandwith was so scarce and network time so expensive that sending an email for the sole purpose of saying thank you–for a favor done, a question answered, a service rendered–was seen as an outrageous waste. So "Thanks in Advance" (read, TIA) was a promise to not say thank you later, and (I seem to remember paying $6 an hour to use a service called CompuServe at 300bps) welcome.

So, have a heart, Lake Superior State University. The writer of TIA might just be some old clueless geezer trying to be nice.

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