Holy Kow pointed to the 2010 Banished Words List over at Lake Superior State University.
The University does this every year and includes reasons for the banishment of words or terms. Their reasoning is often right on.
For example, they want to ban IN THESE ECONOMIC TIMES…. pointing out that no matter what date it is we have THESE ECONOMIC TIMES….
They also suggest FRIEND AS A VERB be nixed, explaining that BEFRIEND is a lovely word.
I doubt they will win on either of these and I’m not at all sure they win when they want to ban TWEET. In my not so humble opinion on the topic they don’t get Twitter.
I was surprised they also want to ban TRANSPARENT/TRANSPARENCY. My solution to these admittedly overused terms would be to pass a law requiring any politician using these terms to actually let us see clearly their finances, and any other deal they make in any matter whatsoever.
I doubt I’ll win on that one.
Write well and often,
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{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
“Utilize.” There is virtually no situation in which “use” is not the better choice!
good one
btw, shoal also means shallow… you don’t want to put your boat up on the shoal… you might get grounded.
First, I’d ban all verbing of nouns and adjectives retroactively, with heavy fines for violators.
http://www.ourlocalstyle.com/images/uploadImages/2006/05/03/cnhVerbingWeirdsLanguage.gif
Next, there are barbarisms like “irregardless” and “preventative.” That list goes on and on unendlessly.
And, finally, word-of-the-decade overuse. Every sophomoric fool now thinks he simply must use “paradigm” at least ten times in every article, whether it serves any real purpose or not. Years back, it was “dichotomy.”
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Firstly, I’d ban all management speak – making sentences like ‘moving forward to develop synergy with stakeholders’ redundant, and how wonderful that would be.
I don’t really mind most of the terms in that banned list, strangely enough, I see them as being part of modern-day vernacular. One day when they’ve turned into archaisms it’ll give social historians a lot to work with
What I would love to see consigned to the dustbin of history is the ridiculous habit the media have (certainly here, anyway, but I presume other countries do it too) of referring to any scandal, political or otherwise, with the suffix ‘-gate’. We get it. Watergate. It’s not clever, it’s not funny, it’s just annoying.
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