In the Sunday Times today is a short opinion article by John Humphries; it’s a relatively pedestrian essay about how we shouldn’t make AK-47s any more, etc etc. Not really worthy of note, other than the fact that its title, ‘AK-47s are weapons of mass destruction too’ is quite obviously ripped off from Michigan’s Lake Superior State University 2003 Banned Words list, which includes (surprise surprise) Weapons of Mass Destruction.
‘A bit of a tenuous connection,’ you might be thinking. Well, included in the list’s commentary for the WMD entry is:
…in danger of becoming a push-button buzzword. Many nominators point out that any weapon, used effectively, does a lot of destruction. “A few thousand machetes in the hands of an army in Africa can lead to mass genocide,” writes Howard Stacy of Atlanta, Georgia
Bloody op/ed writers can’t even think of their own titles any more… grumble. I’m still annoyed with The Times for indirectly talking about my First Words competition without having the good grace to actually provide a URL.
