A rare roundtable or meeting of minds took place last week among the "foreign" editors at China Daily to discuss whether or not netizen was a word that should be banned forthwith, or else come to terms with.

Like a flock of vultures pecking at linguistic meat to expose the bare bones of the argument, we wondered why, if netizens are people, we don't refer to them as such? Or, do we live in changed times and netizens represent public opinion, like focus groups or polls?

The proposal was initially tabled by "LH", from China Daily's website, who has been a King Canute type of figure (to my mind) resisting the tide of public opinion and a flood of journalistic copy that gleefully quotes netizens at every opportunity.