100 Words, Kids, Media, Uncategorized, Words

Potentiality

41 Comments

My brain knows that English is a flexible language and I know that all the words we use today were at some point made up. But when I saw the above banner, I don’t know what upset me more – that there is a banner with a made-up word hanging on the side of a school or that it was going from down to up!

Anything outraging you today?

41 thoughts on “Potentiality”

  2. Not only is it a made up word, but it’s followed by a period. All the young copywriters seem to think that if you make a bland statement but follow every word with a full stop, that makes it assertive and memorable. I think it makes them incompetent and their client unimaginative.

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    1. When the flag is hung upside down, that signals distress. Maybe by hanging the banner upside down the school is signalling its distress at its lack of “potentiality”.

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  3. It’s not an outrage, but I was walking through the store the other day and I noticed in a cooler a non-dairy milk product I hadn’t seen before.
    Its name on the label was in some semi-legible font. I couldn’t quite make out if the product was called Ripple, which is already the name of a beverage product and not an association, I would think, you would strive to cultivate, or else it was called Nipple, an equally unfortunate name for a milk, dairy or otherwise.

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  5. It is Friday, i have some ideas for blg posts I intend to write this weekend, and I only work until 10 today. My outrage meter is pretty low today.

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  6. Well, I am miffed that our local newspaper will no longer have paper carriers and will have the daily paper delivered by the Postie instead. That means no more paper with my morning coffee. I eon’t get the paper untill the mail arrives after lunch.

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    1. Our post office is chronically understaffed due to the oil boom. Those who work there aren’t the most eager beavers, and sometimes don’t deliver the mail because they just don’t feel like it and they go for coffee instead. I am not kidding. One of the carriers is a non-English speaking Asian person who really tries her best but who often can’t read the addresses on the mail she is to deliver. It is perplexing that the local newspaper thinks that the papers will be delivered on the day they are published under these circumstances.

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    2. We started receiving our morning paper by post a few months ago too, Renee. I”m with you, it sucks to have to find something else to occupy my mind during breakfast. I’ve taken to doing crossword puzzles every day. Used to save the NYT Sunday Crossword for Monday morning, but now I do “easy” puzzles from a book. I could read books but don’t like the idea of spilling cereal or eggs on the book pages.

      God forbid I watch TV news in the morning as my wife does! Yeesh, nothing worse than a bunch of faux-cheery banter about all the latest doom-and-gloom headlines. If aliens only monitored TV news programs they’d think we are the most f**ked up, miserable species in the Universe . . . except for Steve Hartman’s segment on the Friday CBS Evening News every week. 🙂

      Chris in Owatonna

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      1. My mother is also dedicated to watching news in the morning. So when she visits me it’s really hard because I, like you Chris, cannot abide the morning new shows.

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    3. the new your times offered the best thing yet. $1 a week for online access to the paper for a year.
      i hope by the ed of the year they find this is the magic answer and implemented as an ongoing plan

      get local news from the community that lets the roads go without plowing if the forecast says it might get warm

      maybe you can suggest they allow you to suggest inclusions you read online on other papers before they deliver yours. they can add articles until 9 or 10 am before they print their 500 daily circulation copies. do they leave the bundled papers on the corner for the mail carrier to load while in mid route

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  7. Like Steve, almost everything outrages, or enrages, me today. Or it did yesterday and I’m guessing today will be similar. You better not get me started, either. I almost wrote an email to a friend last night to vent but decided it would be similar to dumping garbage all over him, so decided to wait to write until I had a bit more perspective.

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  8. Not sure why the outrage. There are however plenty of other things to be riled up about. Why do you think it’s a made up word? I think it communicates something positive although the period makes it certain that you read it from the bottom up because “ytilaitnetop” is not a word . My wife is Japanese and she reads vertically from left to right. They drive on the opposite of the road as well.

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    3. who says ytilaitnettop is not a word. i think the newest thing in net tops should be allowed to call itself what ever it wants yti lait is a great new technology

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    4. I guess I’d rather get worked up over a made-up word that I would some of the other issues facing us these days. Something a little light to talk about on a Friday.

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  9. i am no longer outraged. it is humbling to admit i had no idea that the world was as screwed up as it is without my noticing, there are people i was surprised about in the old days to realize that they were idiots but today i realize 40% of the populations should have their input restrained. give them a cookie and tell them to sit down
    i remember the old days when it was suggested that you appeal to the world at large as if the audience was a 15 year old.
    that is correct. gilligans island. the brady bunch, the gop… here we are

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  10. Have you noticed the bar for outrage has moved? I can’t decide if the bar has risen or lowered, but it takes more and more for me to be outraged these days.

    Hi Kids.

    Speaking of papers, our local paper, the Post Bulletin is kind of a joke. They proudly proclaim they’re the “#1 Newspaper in SE MN”.
    Well, each section might be 4 pages. Sometimes 6. Most of it is ads. A page of comics, several pages of sports. No Friday paper, Thursday is cars and real estate.
    There are some good people there; I know they’re doing what they can. I appreciate the ones who are still trying to generate local content and stories.
    Our neighbors get the paper and share it with us. So I may not get the papers for a week. Often what I’m reading about has already been resolved and it’s interesting to see what people were all excited about now that’s its over.
    NPR, the Strib and late night TV are where I get my news these days…

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  11. I am most often outraged by the short-sightedness of a vast number of our lawmakers, the willingness to jump on any bandwagon (EVEN # 45’s) in the hopes of getting re-elected.
    Someone said: “If you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention”.

    And while outrage is maybe too strong a word, I do find myself yelling back at the radio when someone says something like Potentiality… What was wrong with good old Potential?

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  12. I try not to get my knickers in a twist about every little thing, but there’s certainly plenty of opportunity for outrage almost every single day. I’m feeling pretty hopeful and optimistic at the moment, maybe because the sun in shining, so this may be a good time to tackle our taxes. That should have me back to my usual curmudgeonly self in no time. 🙂

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  13. It’s not true that “everything” outrages me. I shrug off the little stuff. My problem is with the flow of intolerable statements and acts. For many folks, and I’m one, the rate of fresh horrors in national politics has exceeded what my good nature and sense of humor can handle. My daughter was here this morning in tears of dismay and terror. The only comfort I could manage was to listen well.

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    2. you can just tell her lifes a bitch then you die

      if you have days that that is not the lead theme you win

      on the trail lifes a bitch then you post. maybe with a smile in your pocket. thats the trick. muddle through with a smile in your pocket

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    2. Interesting. Sherrilee did allow for new word coinage. Still, it seems to me a Frankenword. I would have preferred a banner that said “Possibility” or, if you want to get literary about it, “I Dwell in Possibility”.

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