Oprah winds down, for good and for ill.

[theoldwolf]

Oprah Winfrey has announced - or will announce formally tonight - that her show will be ending in 2011. There's no question the woman has been very influential, and has used her pulpit to raise the human condition.

One advantage of the show's ending is that the legion of hucksters, crap-peddlers and snake-oil salesmen will no longer be able to trumpet "Seen on Oprah!" in their deluge of spam. Not that I expect the flood to abate in the slightest... as long as there's a Silver Jeff to be made by ripping people off, the scumbags and drones will be looking for ways to do it. Tragically, "Social Proof" will always be a part of the disreputable marketing scene.

I think I shall rant some more about marketing in general later.

*Snarl*

Comments

[ccdesan.livejournal.com]

Wartime slang: 25¢, according to Wentworth and Flexner's Dictionary of American Slang. The original entry stated "Because Thomas Jefferson appears on an American Quarter." I wrote in to posit that the term originated with the Jefferson nickels of 1942-1945, when the nickel content, required for the war, was replaced by silver, and to mention that Jefferson never appeared on a quarter - they took note and updated the definition to include nickels, but left the 25¢ part in.

I am surprised that Google gives no hits at all. Still, the fact that a term finds its way into a lexicon does not mean that it enjoyed wide currency. It could have been of very limited usage. Still, I've always remembered it.

[deckardcanine.livejournal.com]

Well, to be honest, I rarely venture past the first page of Google results. But Wentworth and Flexner sound very sloppy.

[ccdesan.livejournal.com]

I would agree, but for the longest time they were the only available compilation of American slang terminology.