Word: shorthand
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From the start, the popular shorthand for the safe landing of Flight 1549 has been "the miracle on the Hudson." But that's not the way you see it. Miracle? Absolutely not. It's a catchy, superficial media term. It's almost an insult to Sullenberger: God was not his co-pilot, [First Officer Jeffrey] Skiles was. These were two very competent pilots who did a great job of flying, and they were flying an extremely capable airplane. Sullenberger and Skiles did not in any sense think of this as a miracle. They thought of this as a job they...
...what if Sarkozy has a point? After all, the figure at which he was taking aim - gross domestic product - was never intended to gauge anything other than how much money was changing hands. Yet we routinely use economic growth as shorthand for how well a country is doing. If we're going to use a metric to track our progress, shouldn't we choose something that measures the things we care about? (See pictures of President Sarkozy...
...when does a high-level White House adviser become a czar? No one knows for sure, since the term itself has no formal definition. Essentially it's a media creation - the White House rarely even acknowledges the title - used as a snappy shorthand to identify and describe the array of policy officials swarming the West Wing. And it's hard to blame reporters; unwieldy official titles are often begging for a rebranding (Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, for example, doesn't stand a chance against drug czar). Counts of Obama's czars range from the high...
...team as "nappy-headed hos"). Just as blond has implicit associations with sex appeal and smarts (or lack thereof), black-hair descriptors convey thick layers of meaning but are even more loaded. From long and straight to short and kinky - and, of course, good and bad - these terms become shorthand for desirability, worthiness and even worldview. (See pictures of Michelle Obama's fashion diplomacy...
...also credits Twitter for the resurgence of terms like heigh-ho and hey-ho - exclamations of happiness, disappointment or surprise - that had fallen into disuse. Words popular in e-mail shorthand and text-messaging such as OMG (oh my god) and WTF (what the f___) also made...