Paul Sassone

Scotus.

I don’t know what that means. Do you?

Nevertheless, I started seeing the word “scotus” in TV news reports.

I figured out it must be something important. Why else would it be on the news?

And I felt like such a dummy because I didn’t know what “scotus” meant.

Then it finally dawned on me that it wasn’t “scotus,” but “SCOTUS,” all in capital letters. And the news reports were always about the law and courts … courts!

And then the lightbulb flickered on: SCOTUS stood for the Supreme Court of the United States.

Why couldn’t they just say Supreme Court of the United States? Or, if that took too much breath, just say the Supreme Court.

I felt the same humiliating ignorance the first time or two I heard and saw the word “brexit.” I wasn’t quite so stupid this time.

Having learned from SCOTUS it took me less time to reason out that brexit really was a smooshed together way of referring to Britain’s exit from the European Union.

BREXIT.

Why does everything in the news have to have some kind of snappy moniker attached to it?

BREXIT.

Deflategate.

But beyond the silly nomenclature, I confess I am concerned about BREXIT.

Pundits tell us that BREXIT is a bad thing. I hope it doesn’t mean the British won’t let us watch Masterpiece Theatre any more. Or that there will be a tariff on the novels of Charles Dickens.

But, if BREXIT is bad, then like most bad things, it will spread.

What, or who, will be the next group to leave — or exit — from something?

I have a hunch it might sprout right here in USOA (United States of America in TV news talk).

Ever since the end of our Civil War the South has been against just about everything the rest of the country does or believes — universal health care, minority voting rights, Social Security, aid to the poor, to name just a few.

The South tried once before to exit from the United States. That didn’t work.

Maybe BREXIT will inspire the South to try again to exit the USOA.

Who knows?

If the South does try, I’m sure TV news will be ready with a name for the attempt by the South to exit.

Call it SEXIT.

–What’s with all the  snappy monikers?–