{"id":60,"date":"2010-04-29T11:06:49","date_gmt":"2010-04-29T15:06:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/2010\/04\/29\/language-on-the-skids-planet-biscotti-goddess\/"},"modified":"2010-04-29T11:09:36","modified_gmt":"2010-04-29T15:09:36","slug":"language-on-the-skids-planet-biscotti-goddess","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/2010\/04\/29\/language-on-the-skids-planet-biscotti-goddess\/","title":{"rendered":"Language on the Skids: Planet Biscotti Goddess"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/files\/2010\/04\/signifiervssignified.gif\" title=\"signifiervssignified.gif\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/files\/2010\/04\/signifiervssignified.gif\" alt=\"signifiervssignified.gif\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Admittedly, unlike the cartoon (taken from UPenn&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/\">Language Log<\/a> blog) this post is tepid stuff. I find myself, by inclination a descriptivist about propriety in language, vexed by the overuse of &#8220;goddess&#8221; and &#8220;planet&#8221; and even &#8220;club.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Each of these words has been debased and lost some of its grandeur by their use in marketing.<\/p>\n<p>This screed of mine began as I looked across the desk, delaying grading student work, when my eyes lighted on the box of biscotti I&#8217;d picked up at Ellwood Thompson&#8217;s Local Market, my favorite place to shop. The brand, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biscotti-goddess.com\/index.asp\">Biscotti Goddess<\/a>, appears at the local coffee shop and I&#8217;m fond of them.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m not fond of the name. Deities, even heathen ones, or especially those, merit some respect.\u00a0 I&#8217;d say &#8220;Biscotti Diva&#8221; except I&#8217;d be falling into the same trap.<\/p>\n<p>My concern with using such signifiers this way comes from the ability to suck the life from what they signify.\u00a0 If you look up &#8220;weasel word&#8221; in Wikipedia, you&#8217;ll see that the term comes from how an actual weasel empties an egg that still appears intact.<\/p>\n<p>And thus with language. Almost time for Planet Lunch!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Admittedly, unlike the cartoon (taken from UPenn&#8217;s Language Log blog) this post is tepid stuff. I find myself, by inclination a descriptivist about propriety in language, vexed by the overuse of &#8220;goddess&#8221; and &#8220;planet&#8221; and even &#8220;club.&#8221; Each of these words has been debased and lost some of its grandeur by their use in marketing. &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/2010\/04\/29\/language-on-the-skids-planet-biscotti-goddess\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Language on the Skids: Planet Biscotti Goddess<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":589,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-60","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-language"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pcsCNV-Y","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/589"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}