WordLo

Cablogrammi.Gli “embassy cables” o “diplomatic cables” sono rapporti ufficiali scritti da funzionari e ambasciatori facenti capo al dipartimento di Stato americano, aventi come oggetto le interazioni tra funzionari americani o tra questi e ambasciatori o funzionari di governi stranieri.
Ogni rapporto contiene un riassunto iniziale e poi i dettagli su determinati eventi o incontri. Fanno il giro delle agenzie governative, delle ambasciate e dei ministeri, ciascun documento secondo il suo livello di riservatezza, e servono a informare l’apparato diplomatico americano a Washington e in giro per il mondo sull’evoluzione degli scenari politici globali. Ogni rapporto è contrassegnato da una sigla che indica il grado di riservatezza. Sul sito di Wikileaks è possibile scorrere i file secondo il loro grado di riservatezza, il loro paese d’origine, il loro argomento, eccetera. 15 mila sono “segreti”, 101 mila “confidenziali” e 133 mila “non riservati”. Il paese più trattato – con oltre 15 mila d…

The Telegraph thinks that bunga bunga is either the punchline of a bawdy joke beloved of Berlusconi, or an 'erotic ritual' that the Libyan leader Colonel Gadaffi told the Italian PM about. The Irish Examiner says that a bunga-bunga is 'an after-dinner game for one naked man and a bevy of naked young women'.There are only five words beginning 'bunga-' in the OED, but bunga bunga, nor indeed, bunga, isn't one of them. Perhaps there is something about the combination of letters 'bung' that makes this a good start for slang words. There are 52 entries in the OED that begin 'bung' but there are 72 entries in Jonathon Green's Dictionary of Slang that begin with these four letters. Several of the slang entries relate to the sense of bung as a slang word for 'anus' (not mentioned in the OED), several others to things to do with drinking, since a bung is a brewer or publican (the OED has 'bung-ho', a drinking toast) and yet others…

For more than 30 years, headline writers have relied on -gate to flag up controversial stories. This summer, a replacement emerged:

published on: Guardian




On the use of suffix -gate to flag up controversial stories

published on: Johnson

I'VE quickly become slack about maintaining my blacklist of tired phrases used by lazy journalists. (Seems this journalist is too lazy even to look for tired phrases.) But hooray! Someone has now starting doing it for me. A new web tool called Listiki lets people create lists of things and manage them collaboratively, and one Alison Gow ("Journalist, skier, biker. Usually in Liverpool, always over-caffenated") has created a list of journalistic clichés, to which 16 people have already contributed. Among them:

http://listiki.com/journalism-cliches-i-most-dislike

Outpouring (of grief/support/etc)

Grisly murders. Or brutal ones.

"Plummeted" meaning "was down a bit"

In scenes of reminiscent of (insert film/TV show here)

Only time will tell (I haven't a clue)

Yes, indeed. Will Listiki take off, and will this list turn into a comprehensive encyclopaedia of journalistic mediocrity? Only time will tell.