Thursday, March 19, 2009

op ed reject post

Hm, I could post something. I could narrate the experience of not having a car for the first time since highschool, and share some of the experiences this has afforded me (such as the conversation two seats back, which began "Hey, you don't recognize me, do ya?" "From where?" "Walla Walla!").

Instead, I'm irritated by this, and I can't shake it. It's a post on bOINGbOING subjected, "Obama's diplomatic gift to UK leader fubared by DRM". It's about how Obama gave UK's PM a crappy gift, which was even crappier for the fact that it's Region 1 DVDs (and this is our tech-savvy Pres?).

But what gets to me is the misuse in the subject of the word FUBAR. This is a very specific term that portrays a very significant situation elegantly. If ya don't know, it means Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition.

Say you've got troops in a town, anywhere doing anything. Having a meal, reading a book, whatever. And then explosions happen, and it becomes a war scene. That's FUBAR. From having a meal to being at war. That is beyond recognition.

Say you come home from work, and your front door's open and your furniture's gone. The day's gone from normal to fucked up--it can no longer be recognized as a normal day!! That is FUBAR.

This gift was not fucked up by DRM, it was fucked up by being a poorly chosen gift. That's not news; it happened nearly a month ago. And at no point did it pass beyond recognition. I'm sure when Gordon Brown pulled it out of his Region 2 DVD player, it still looked, smelled, felt, tasted and sounded like a disc of cheap plastic with a hole in its center. Also, still like a cheap gift.

Word use is wicked important to me, for some reason. I truly enjoy a well-chosen word, and I bristle at a poorly-chosen word. I know it's about as insignificant as it could possibly be, but reading the word fubar in this sense really, really offended me.

/soapbox