boo, boo-boo, irate, infidelities.There is more to letters to shareholders than self-publicity. They give a sense of how America’s corporate bigwigs see the world.

There is more to letters to shareholders than self-publicity. They give a sense of how America’s corporate bigwigs see the world. This what they have to say: https://econ.st/447MYX6

Illustration: Brett Ryder

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BofA Woes Put Pressure on Lewis

Bank of America's handling of its Merrill Lynch acquisition has put Kenneth Lewis on the hot seat with irate shareholders.

Elizabeth Edwards: How I Survived John's Affair

By Elizabeth Edwards

In an exclusive excerpt from her new book, Elizabeth Edwards talks about how she coped with her husband's infidelity. 不貞

男/女朋友

You Don't Say

John McIntyre, The Sun's assistant managing editor for the copy desk, looks at issues of language and writing, particularly grammar and usage, as they come up in The Sun's reporting.

Nobody else said boo about it

A colleague was startled by a word he saw in this sentence in the pages of The Sun:
But what happens when two of the most important people in your life — your best friend and your boo — don't agree?
Boo? Our desk dictionary says that boo is a slang term for marijuana. And it is. But the Oxford English Dictionary also lists this meaning:
Esp among teenagers: a girlfriend or boyfriend. Also as a form of address.
And, among others, these citations:
1988 Washington Post 22 Dec. Lionel R. Harris is my boyfriend. Lewis shot my Boo and it was not self-defense.
1994 T. WOODS True to Game Qua, please, please..baby, don't leave me. Don't leave me now! Boo, talk to me!
1998 Time Out N.Y. 2 July Reenacted phone conversations that find Miss Jones dishing stridently to a girlfriend about her man's imagined infidelities, as well as an actual conversation with her boo.
I’ve omitted a citation from 2004, which contains a couple of additional words that we do not permit in the print edition and which I am reluctant to introduce to the electronic edition.
The OED speculates that boo derives from beau, a point with which the electronic Urban Dictionary agrees:
boo is a term that is derived from the French word "beau" meaning beautiful. In 18th century England it meant an admirer, usually male. It made it's way into Afro-Caribean language perhaps through the French colonisation of some Caribean islands.
Now meaning girl or boyfriend
pet name: your hunny,sweety,baby.
The Urban Dictionary is, of course, an uncertain authority, since people are free to post whatever they think a word means. The entry on the origin of boo might have carried a little more weight if the author had spelled Caribbean correctly. But let that pass; the Urban Dictionary is not anal about orthography.
“Thank God John Carroll is no longer here,” my colleague commented. Mr. Carroll, a former editor, had pronounced views about the language published in his newspaper. It took some persuasion for him to permit the features desk to write about Beavis and Butt-head, and he might well have shrunk at boo as well.
It falls to copy editors at newspapers such as The Sun to operate as gatekeepers about language, particularly to question slang and colloquial expressions. Are they going to be obscure to many of our readers? Are they clear in context, or do they require some explanation? Are they of questionable taste? And whose taste is to determine that?
I’m not necessarily happy about policing the language — a grammarian’s lot is not a happy one. But so long as The Sun aims to be intelligible to a wide rather than a specialized audience, and to maintain a flexible but identifiable range of diction, the duty falls to the copy desk. And we gave boo a pass.

Take Google. Add an ``o'' for ... It rhymes with boo, boo, boo -- sort of -- and that's what Google deserves. Boo. It's been six weeks ...


THE FLOWER GIRL [appalled] Oh, what harm is there in my leaving Lisson Grove? It wasnt fit for a pig to live in; and I had to pay four-and-six a week. [ In tears] Oh, boo—hoo—oo—

THE NOTE TAKER. Live where
you like; but stop that noise.
--Bernard Shaw (1856–1950). Pygmalion. 1916.

boo (DISAPPROVAL)
verb [I or T] booing, booed, booed
to make an expression of strong disapproval or disagreement:
People at the back started booing loudly.
Her singing was so bad that she was booed off the stage.



boo
noun [C] plural boos

boo (SURPRISE)
exclamation
an expression, usually shouted, used to surprise and frighten someone who does not know you are near them:
She jumped out of the cupboard and shouted 'Boo!'.


boo-boo 
noun [C] plural boo-boos
1 INFORMAL a mistake:
Oops, I think I made a boo-boo there - I hope she's not too upset.

Talking about the surprising acceptance of ''The Elements of Style,'' he said: ''It's a funny little book, and it keeps going on. Occasionally I get irate letters from people who find a boo-boo in it, but many more from people who find it useful.

2 US CHILD'S WORD a slight injury:
Tess fell down and got a boo-boo on her hand.




not say boo
1 US INFORMAL to say nothing:
You didn't say boo to me about going to your mother's this weekend.

2 US (UK not say boo to a goose) INFORMAL to be very nervous and easily frightened

irate
adj.

1. Extremely angry; enraged. See synonyms at angry.
2. Characterized or occasioned by anger: an irate phone call.

[Latin īrātus, past participle of īrāscī, to be angry, from īra, anger.]

irately i·rate'ly adv.
irateness i·rate'ness n.