The sideways smileys, frownies and other text expressions of emotion or feeling have been around for 25 years. Great! Or, perhaps I should say, :D.
But others aren’t so thrilled with emoticons’ staying power. See, for instance, What’s the emoticon for ‘meh’?
Alumni Futures‘ Andy Shaindlin points to a Reuters report about the most annoying words in the blogosphere (blogosphere is among them) and wonder what the most annoying words in the advancement business might be. His two nominees — “friendraiser” and “funraiser” — have got to be pretty annoying for an alumni guy. (I’d never heard of alumni staff being referred to as “funraisers,” but I have heard the term “the punch and cookies people” applied to them, and boy would that honk me off.)
From my perspective as a PR and marketing guy, the word I most disdain is “spin.” It boils my blood when people refer to me or our staff as “spin doctors” or “spinners,” and refer to our work as “spin.”
Most annoying phrase I hear (though thankfully, not so much anymore): “best-kept secret.” As in, “UMR is the best-kept secret in higher education.” The implication is usually that it’s the PR or marketing shop’s fault, because we aren’t “spinning” about our campus enough.
Sometimes, the word “advancement” annoys me, too. I’m not sure why. It just does.
How about you? What words most annoy you? leave a comment here or on Andy’s original post.
Andrew Careaga 