journalists and socialists
I've harped on misuse of the word socialism before, but Newsweek's latest cover story "We Are All Socialists Now" is probably the most egregious example I've seen. (The authors were playing on the Milton Friedman quote "we are all Keynesians now," often misattributed to Richard Nixon, but really--if they don't know what the word means, why are they using it?)
Jillian at Sadly, No! rips the entire journalistic profession a new one over this continued--and deliberate?--refusal to do a few minutes' research to find out what the word "socialism" actually means. Her artful deployment of sarcasm is an inspiration to me:
...nothing that Barack Obama - or, indeed, any Democrat - has proposed in response to our current economic crisis is in any way, shape, or form even the slightest bit "socialist". "Socialism" is a word that actually means something. I know this is hard for you to understand, mostly because the gaps in your education caused by your total functional illiteracy have led you to believe that "socialism" is some sort of diabolical swear word that means something like "baby-raping" or "kitten-eating".[...]
Learn to read. Then when you come back actually able to process basic written information, we'll have a conversation about your total lack of contextual knowledge about the world around you.