If The Bird, Bird, Bird, The Bird's The Word...Then Why Can't We Tweet?"

There's probably nothing quite as reassuring as those who are in this world to protect us from ourselves.

The latest do-gooder is the standards editor from The New York Times.

(CNN) -- To anyone who uses Twitter, the word "tweet" is as natural as, well, a bird. But don't expect to see it in The New York Times.

"Someday, 'tweet' may be as common as 'e-mail,' " wrote Phil Corbett, the Times' standards editor, in a memo this week, according to The Awl. But, for now, Corbett has nixed further use of the word -- "outside of ornithological contexts," he wrote.

The Times will stop using the word because "tweet" isn't standard English, "and standard English is what we should use in news articles," Corbett said.

Corbett noted that not everyone uses the micro-blogging site and therefore may not be familiar with what a "tweet" is.

After all, The New York Times always uses words people are familiar with, like "louche" and "shibboleths."

So what will The New York Times be calling these Twitter updates now?

" 'Tweet' may be acceptable occasionally for special effect," Corbett said in the memo.

"But let's look for deft, English alternatives: use Twitter, post to or on Twitter, write on Twitter, a Twitter message, a Twitter update. Or, once you've established that Twitter is the medium, simply use 'say' or 'write.' "

I don't know about you but the first thing that popped into my mind as I was reading this story was that scene in the movie "The Paper" where Michael Keaton interviews for a job with the "big guys", the newspaper whose bow tied, suspendered, stick up the butt editor smugly reminds Keaton that "we cover the world".

The second thing that popped into my mind was my high school senior year journalism teacher, Mrs. Kiern.

And not because she had a stick up her butt, quite the contrary actually, but because I remember that she managed to teach us the fundamentals of good journalism while not coming off like a strident parent with, well, a stick up her butt. No easy task in the freewheeling days of the late 1960's as you might imagine.

I suspect two things about this guy with The NYT.

He didn't have a journalism teacher half as hip as Mary Kiern.

And I bet you my paycheck against yours that he wears either a bow tie or suspenders or both.

That said, it's probably only fair to give him the benefit of one doubt.

He is, however lamely the effort appears, trying to do his small part to stem the flow of the dumbing down of America.

Boy, you've chosen to tilt at quite a sizeable windmill, there, Phil.

In the spirit of good old American work togetherism, though, I'm ready to pitch in and offer up a few words/phrases that I think should be thrown on the bullshit bonfire on which word boy has thrown the troublesome term "tweet". Words and/or phrases that do nothing to either enlighten or inform us in any substantive way.

As for phrases...

At the end of the day.

Think outside the box.

Like.

Whatever.

You know.

My two cents.

Awesome.

My bad.

I could care less. (I once did a fun interview with Bill Cosby and he and I instantly shared a laugh about this one, because it's not only overused, but it's overused incorrectly. If what you mean is you could care less, what you REALLY mean is you COULDN'T care less...)

It is what it is.

As for words which neither enlighten or inform...

Congress.

Politician.

And, in tribute to Mary Kiern's teachings that brevity is no excuse for laziness...

LOL

LMAO

ROFL

Etc....

I imagine there's going to be a lot of snickering around the water coolers at The New York Times for a few days.

And probably rightly so because, I mean come on, Phil, loosen the bow tie and live a little.

But I do appreciate the spirit of your intent.

After all, it's a herculean task, trying to keep the bar of literacy from hitting the ground in this culture.

So, nice try, dude.

Oh...forgot to include one word, probably the most useless of all.

Kardashian.

I Bet Leno Won't Try to Steal HIS Show...

It was only a matter of time.

Envelope pushing in this life is a lot like drugs or booze, et al.

The more you do, the more you want, or even have, to do in order to achieve the same effect.

In this instance, the desired effect is rattling people's cages.

Ladies and gentlemen....the comedy stylings of...

Jesus.

That paragon of conservative values, Comedy Central, is working with some folks on an animated series about everybody's favorite Savior (well, everybody except those who embrace any of the world's umpteen other recognized religions and, of course, that one group that seems unable to express the beliefs in any other way than flying innocent passenger filled airliners into innocent office worker filled skyscrapers).

Here's the link to the the scoop, if you're interested and, ergo, likely a heathen, a Democrat or a seven year old.

http://marquee.blogs.cnn.com/2010/05/07/show-about-jesus-is-just-a-maybe-for-comedy-central/?hpt=Sbin

I've never had a problem with satire.

I'm one of those people who think that our sense of humor is legitmately one of the tiles that God uses when he puts together the mosaic that is our being.

Humor is, like almost everything else though, a subjective thing.

I, for example, appreciate what the gang at Monty Python has done through the years while, truth be told, honestly remember only ever laughing out loud at something they did a couple of times...including the first time I saw the Dead Parrot Sketch.

And despite the tendancy to romanticize all of it a brilliant, hilarious, cutting edge comedy, my instincts are that if you took every single bit that SNL has done in almost forty years of on air work, the acutal belly laughs would take up less than twenty minutes total, give or take.

You don't have to be one of the flock, though, to see what's coming if this series makes it to the weekly roster.

Cries of foul from every single being on the planet with a fish on the back of their Camry.

Personally, my problem with the idea isn't so much about the Lord. (Although, Lord knows, it probably should be...)

It's about the Lazy.

For a long time, the path of least creative energy effort has been T&A.

When you can't think of anything sincerely funny or clever or witty, you can pretty much get people's attention with boobs and butts.

And, of course, anything and everything scatalogical comes right out of that same folder.

Admittedly, at least from a dollars and cents point of view, there's no arguing with the success of that approach.

Fess up....take the high gloss shine of "quality actors" like Jon Cryer and Charlie Sheen out of the equation and isn't the ragingly successful "Two and Half Men" just a twenty three minute weekly potpourri of T&A/fart jokes?

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

It's just lazy.

And it's lazy of us to laugh at it.

Because that kind of humor requires no thought, no education, no sophistication, no finely honed and/or tuned sense of wit or wisdom to agitate and fire off the funny bone.

And, fair being fair, who wants to do all that brain work after a hard day at the nine to five anyway?

But, let's not fool ourselves, either.

It's nothing more, or less, than the middle aged equivalent of the kid in the back of the class who always got us to laugh when he made fart noises with his armpit.

When we were six.

Given that this project is coming from the same network that brings us the one show I'm pretty sure has never showed up on the Sarah Palin family flat screen, South Park, I think it's not a stretch to assume that the show won't be offering weekly lessons and morals of the story in the spirit of say "Highway To Heaven" or "Touched By An Angel", for example.

It will most likely be more of that kid in the back of the class making fart noises with his armpit.

Only the kid will be wearing a long robe and bear a striking resemblance to an animated version of Barry Gibb of the Bee Gees. (I've always wondered why the touchy type Christian faithful haven't raised more Hell about that very common depiction...)

And the inevitable result will be that heathens, Democrats and seven year olds (of all ages) will laugh and laugh and laugh.

Ratings will zoom and "JC" will be around just long enough to put all of us in increased danger of looking around one Tuesday prime time evening to find that we've been "left behind"

The thing we seem to forget, as we grow older, is that laughing at that kid in the back of the class didn't result in better, wittier, funnier material being offered us.

It just encouraged the kid to keep flapping that arm and abusing that pit.

It isn't in my character, flawed or un, to be offended by much of what TV spews out.

That's always seemed like giving in to their desire to rattle me.

So, view and let view, I'd say.

On the other hand, if , just once, I stumble across a clip of little, stocky folks scurrying across the animated screen yelling "they've KILLED Jesus", I'm gonna reconsider my no letters to the FCC policy.

My fear is that, given the apparent taste of the general viewing public, the show will not only succeed, but flourish, resulting in a cottage industry, T Shirts and all.

Even a bumper sticker hyping the next week's show.

WWJDNW

What WILL Jesus Do Next Week?

As for me, I've already got a plan.

Continuing, while "JC" is airing, to be safely tuned to USA to enjoy back to back to back to back episodes of NCIS.

While tightly gripping the shirt tail of any sincerely devoted Christian who might be in the room at the time.

Just in case.