Breakfast Links: Word of the Year II, Returning Kids & CommandShift3
Ok, Merriam-Webster has just announced it’s word of the year. w00t. The reason for this is that it was voted online. Compare and contrast to locavore, the word of the year for the New Oxford American Dictionary. Not voted for online. My favourite is the quote from m-w’s president:
“People look for self-evident numeral-letter substitutions: 0 for O; 3 for E; 7 for T; and 4 for A,” he said. “This is simply a different and more efficient way of representing the alphabetical character.”
Ahhh… efficiency, that’s why the kidz do it. Because it is way more efficient to press 0 and O. It has made it’s way into the online Open Dictionary but has yet to get into the printed edition. Who knows. Yayw00t!
You know, people joke about returning kids all the time. Apparently you have to be a Dutch diplomat to actually do it. This couple adopted a Korean girl when she was 4 months old, now at 7 years they’ve decided she doesn’t fit in with their lifestyle and took her back to the store, of course a different store - Hong Kong instead of Korea and left her with the social workers there. Their claim? She was struggling to adapt to their culture including food. Ahhh.. right, because kids are genetically used to eating the food of their ancestors - they adopted her when she was 4. months. old.
The diplomat told reporters, who agreed to his anonymity, that his family was struggling to cope with their decision and said his wife was having therapy.
Where by therapy he means, spa treatments.
Ugh. Anyways…. if you’re bored today and feel like checking out hottt sites, hit CommandShift3. “It’s like Hot or Not for web design.” The site itself is pretty and easy to use and what not. The only problem? It’s filled with tons of mediocre sites, it was pretty hard for me to really decide which one was better than the other most of the time. Still it’s interesting to see a variety of sites. And checking out the best list, it isn’t overly surprising that Khoi Vinh’s site hits the apex. And on the flip side it’s funny to see NY1’s site so low…
December 12th, 2007 at 9:48 am
I have had 17 kids so far and I was able to teach not a one how to properly brew a batch of beer. I didn’t know you could return them though, I was just throwing them out. Is that bad? Should I be recycling?
December 12th, 2007 at 10:26 am
You gotta be green man… soylent green! recycle! ;)
Eew, sorry.
The more I think about this the more pissed off I get. I mean, what kind of unbelievably self-centered parents do you need to be to even consider that? That kids going to be messed up for life being rejected at age 7 after being adopted once? And what about their remaining kids? How’s it going to be for them knowing if they don’t fit into their folks swingin’ lifestyle they could be returned at any moment? Grrrrr.
December 12th, 2007 at 10:32 am
And just to name names, I found this forum where they linked to the dutch piece (in dutch, unfortunately) that’s got the 411. The diplomat’s name is apparently Raymond Poeteray.
December 12th, 2007 at 4:24 pm
OMG. That makes me sick when it’s people with pets–a child is so hideous I can’t believe it (and you know how maternal I’m not.) Ugh.
December 12th, 2007 at 10:37 pm
It really, honestly is ridiculous. I’m still pissed about it. Grrrr…