Friday, August 03, 2007

Bogusity of Beckham Bender exposed: only in America...

I've long given up getting snippy at what Americans do to the English language…but my hackles did rise slightly today when I spotted a newly made-up word in a news report from California...

Officials in Los Angeles have been dealing with a crank who made a series of calls pretending to be David Beckham.

The LA Times reported that the imposter telephoned LA’s Department of Children and Family Services inviting underprivileged kids to a practice session of Los Angeles Galaxy, Beckham's new team.

Officials realized the calls were a hoax after quizzing the caller.

County Chief Executive William T. Fujioka claimed they were never really duped. We're not country bumpkins, he said.

While department spokeswoman Louise Grasmehr added: It just smacked of bogusity,

I wonder how long it will be before bogusity graces the pages of the Oxford Dictionary…

8 comments:

Dave Pearson said...

Sounds like an (understandable) variation on a theme of the word bogosity, which has been in use (albeit more for amusing effect than anything else) in computing circles for a long time.

What's really amusing is that, as seen from here, via google.com, your blog now turns up as the third hit if one searches for "bogusity".

fairdealphil said...

Thanks Dave. I'm sure your comment is well researched and does not smack of, er, bogusity or even bogosity...

Dave Pearson said...

Try it yourself.

fairdealphil said...

i did.

3rd eh?

a podium position...

sounds flattering...until you look at whose first and second...

Dave Pearson said...

York Uni CS department's first from here. No shame in being behind such a fine establishment, in in the UK's best city, in the UK's premier county, ;-)

fairdealphil said...

afraid i didn't get past the title...Safety-Critical Mailing List Archive 2002: PRAs and bogusity...

York?

Yeah nice city, nice county.

But from here, tops has to be Lincoln and Lincs...!

Anonymous said...

I tried it out on google.

Phil is now first.

Leader of the pack.

Where to next?

Dave Pearson said...

So, what you're saying is, if you go to Google, type in "Bogusity", hit the "I'm Feeling Lucky" button, you get Phil as the prime example of Bogusity.

Oh dear! :-D