How Do You Feel About Sputum? Take Our Poll!
"[Katie] Couric seems determined not to let anyone see her suffer, but according to several people familiar with the situation, she is privately frustrated. . . . The stress has caused her to blow up at her staff for small infractions on the set. During the tuberculosis story in June, Couric got angry with news editor Jerry Cipriano for using a word she detested -- 'sputum' -- and the staff grew tense when she began slapping him 'over and over and over again' on the arm, according to a source familiar with the scene. It had seemed like a joke at first, but it quickly became clear that she wasn’t kidding.
" 'I sort of slapped him around,' Couric admits. 'I got mad at him and said, "You can’t do this to me. You have to tell me when you’re going to use a word like that." I was aggravated, there’s no question about that.' But she says she has a good relationship with Cipriano. 'We did ban the word sputum from all future broadcasts. It became kind of a joke.' "
" 'I sort of slapped him around,' Couric admits. 'I got mad at him and said, "You can’t do this to me. You have to tell me when you’re going to use a word like that." I was aggravated, there’s no question about that.' But she says she has a good relationship with Cipriano. 'We did ban the word sputum from all future broadcasts. It became kind of a joke.' "
posted by Billy at 10:12 PM
7 Comments:
boo-hoo! sputum is a legitimate medical word. next vagina and penis will be barred because of someone's delicate sensibilities. though it does put me in mind of "dead like me" where the mom despises and has banned the word "moist".
i have a friend who hates the word moist! maybe she knows of that story/film/book or whatever dead like me is. she hates it so much that we exchanged it for the word most in one of hole's lyrics so that it reads: i want to be the girl with the moist cake. i often find ways to bring that line into the conversation :)
That's funny. I also know someone who hates the word "moist." Me, I love it. Mmmm, moist.
I read a book where a character's least favorite word was "ointment."
This reminds me of those "Inside the Actor's Studio" questions from Bernard Pivot. My family once played a game where we each filled out the questionnaire (we added some more questions -- desert island books and music and things like that) and then had to guess who gave which answers.
Okay, Billy, when you start up answering questions again, how about these?
1. What is your favorite word?
2. What is your least favorite word?
3. What turns you on creatively, spiritually or emotionally?
4. What turns you off?
5. What is your favorite curse word?
6. What sound or noise do you love
8. What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?
9. What profession would you not like to do?
10. If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates?
I love the word "sputum" (especially when it comes with unnecessary quotation marks).
And I love the work "ointment" even more. So much so that it was my email address at one point. When people would say "What's the good word?"--and, believe it or not, they were always saying that to me--I would answer: "Ointment."
Moist sputum ointment...please sir, may I have some more?
Not liking the word sputum and ointment and moist seem to me to reflect what Camille Paglia talks about in her book Sexual Personae when she says that the west represses its view of nature, the "chthonian", the moist wet ointment in the bowels of the earth, the nether region DOWN there.
My nether regions are still moist, but the older I get the the more I need ointment and sputum.
Personally, I don't like the word crotch. My mother used to stand outside the dressing room while I tried on pants and she would say very loudly "now squat down. HOW DOES IT FEEL IN THE CROTCH?"
Crotch to me sounds so hard and wooden and devoid of all that is "chthonian" about that space inbetween my legs.
Oh, God, Nell, I have to be honest -- those questions (and answers) from "Inside the Actor's Studio" make me absolutely cringe every time I see that show. I don't know why, but I just can't bear them. I'm sorry!
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