What's in a Word?

Old words seemed to fail last week, so some U.S. talkers--and their inventive p.r. men--hopefully minted new ones. P: New York's Governor Nelson Rockefeller, having ordered more than 35 special "task forces" to study state problems and prepare legislative proposals, backed down in the face of lawmakers' complaints that he was grabbing all the credit. Soothingly, Rocky announced that his task forces would henceforth be called "legislative cooperating committees." P:Because of "unpleasant connotations" acquired by the term during payola investigations, "disk jockey" was banned from the air by Poughkeepsie, N.Y.'s station WEOK. WEOK's deejays are now to be known as "musicasters." P: Admiral Arleigh Burke, Chief of Naval Operations, announced that he would henceforth spell "Communism" with a "K," just like the Russians. Why? Explained the admiral: Khrushchev in the Kremlin bosses Kommunists everywhere, and his spelling would identify "Kommu-nism for what it is--a foreignism that will never be accepted voluntarily by free people." Prescribed for Admiral Burke by New York's unkonvinced Herald Tribune: "A little cruise at sea with plenty of K-rations."

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