So Gay

I am super happy to hear that the Ad Council, which brought us public service slogans such as "Friends don't let friends drink and drive" and "This is your brain on drugs," is now partnering with the Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network to increase awareness about GLBT language. The example they give in this article is "That's so gay!" Uggh, I hate that phrase! I never let my students say that without challenging them on it. My other trigger phrase is getting "raped" when raping has nothing to do with the context. For example, a customer told me that oil companies are "raping us" with gas prices. They might be exploiting you, but they are not degrading or violating you in an extremely personal way. Paying a lot for gas (which we don't really pay that much relatively, let's be honest) is nothing like being raped. Anyway, I digress. I'm just really hopeful that they will come up with something good.