New Jersey has banned the word 'retarded'

The Governor of New Jersey has today signed a law that prohibits the use of the word 'retarded' to refer to people with mental disabilities in official documents. Therefore, the term 'mentally retarded' is now banned in all official state business.

“This is making sure each citizen in our state is treated with the respect they deserve,” Chris Christie, the Governor who signed the ban into law, said. “It’s their government too.”


“We’d like New Jersey to get to a place where you can’t use the ‘R’ word without it being inflammatory,” noted the leader of a local group which supports any law which seeks to remove the word from casual use within society. 


The bill also bans the use of the words 'handicapped', 'feeble minded' and 'physically defective'. All of these terms currently appear within the legal documents of the state, and will have to be removed as a result of the new ban. 

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New York Times bans the word 'Tweet'

The word 'Tweet' has become as embedded in social media culture as the term "friended", but don't expect to see it in the New York Times.


One of the world's most respected newspapers has put its foot down, complaining of the word's ambiguity.

To tweet, is to send out a small bite sized message 140 characters or less on the social networking site Twitter, which facilitates such literature known as 'micro-blogging'.

The Times, according to CNN, will stop using the word because it claims the word isn't actually standard English. The editorial team of the Times also took time to note that not everybody uses the social networking site, and therefore may not know what is meant by the word.

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David Pogue: The two industries that refer to their customers as users - technology and illegal drugs

In his list of "Tech Terms to Avoid", New York Times technology columnist, and author of Pogue's Posts, David Pogue said, rather wittily, that the only two industries that use the term 'users' to refer to their customers is the technology industry and illegal drugs.

Pogue didn't stop there, however, also adding that the term 'price point' is useless and that 'price' will do just fine. "What are you paid by the word?"

'Content', 'display', 'WiFi'? Forget them! says Pogue - who calls them irrelevant and unnecessary, when there are other perfectly good normal, everyday words to replace them.


To see Pogue's full list of tech tautology, click the link below.

Read the full list here.

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