They missed what is, for me, the canonical example of how the NYT gets slang: the "Grunge Speak" episode of 1992. A gullible NYT reporter extracted bogus slan

They missed what is, for me, the canonical example of how the NYT gets slang: the "Grunge Speak" episode of 1992. A gullible NYT reporter extracted bogus slang terms from a Seattle scenester who must have barely been able to smother her laughter: http://www.thebaffler.com/salvos/harsh-realm-mr-sulzberger http://www.thebaffler.com/salvos/harsh-realm-mr-sulzberger (the original article, with Baffler attitude from its original editor, Thomas Frank, later the author of What's the Matter with Kansas) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grunge_speak http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grunge_speak (drier summary)