Banned Words

[Cooper]

Once a year the Lake Superior State University in Michigan comes out with their top 12 list of banned words. Here's this year's nominees.

 

— fiscal cliff

 

— kick the can down the road

 

— double down

 

— job creators/creation

 

— passion/passionate

 

— YOLO

 

— spoiler alert

 

— bucket list

 

— trending

 

— superfood

 

— boneless wings

 

Have any others you would like to add to this list?

 

Coop:)

[EZEtoGRU]

What is YOLO? I've never heard it before yet its getting banned. LOL.

[jgoo]

What is YOLO? I've never heard it before yet its getting banned. LOL.

 

You Only Live Once

[EZEtoGRU]

You Only Live Once

thanks jgoo. I would have never guessed it.

[+ purplekow]

Enzyte

 

Snooki

 

The Situation

[KMEM]

Could it depend upon the context and frequency of use for those words/phrases? Used sparingly most any word that accurately means what you intended is perhaps not so trite?

 

Best regards,

KMEM

[+ Cock Eyed Optimist]

OH! I so agree with Purplekow about the word Snooki! Ugh! In that same line of though I will add the word "Kardashian".

[jgoo]

Honey Boo Boo....never saw her show but I've heard about her so many times on talk shows, entertainment news programs, etc that I can't stand it any longer.

[AdamSmith]

Could it depend upon the context and frequency of use for those words/phrases? Used sparingly most any word that accurately means what you intended is perhaps not so trite?

 

Nice point. The other day I read some advice about writing (can't recall who): "Never use a word more than once on the same page."

[JT Brooklyn]

"Awesome"! Enuff already!

[+ azdr0710]

always an excellent list each year they bring it out....here's the full page with others' witty comments attached....and click on "previous lists" over on the left for the annual lists going back to 1976!....

 

http://www.lssu.edu/banished/current.php

[+ deej]

Nice point. The other day I read some advice about writing (can't recall who): "Never use a word more than once on the same page."

 

Presumably meaning a printed page, eh? A web page can hold a whole lot more words.

 

The web and e-readers are wreaking havoc on academia because pagination (and therefore many bibliographic references) goes out the window in most electronic forms.

[jackhammer91406]

Thanks for the list Cooper.

 

To it I would add the word "wicked" when used as a modifier to anything. i.e. He was wicked angry.

[+ Topseed]

Hearing references to "my friend ____" in conversation. It's sloppy and juvenile. What else would these people be? (Enemies?)

[+ deej]

I'd add just about any noun that has been verbed.

 

Recently, I saw live coverage of a high speed freeway chase on an LA TV station when the announcer said "we are efforting to get more information".

 

Efforting? How about trying? Or attempting? You know, real words that already exist and mean what you're trying to say.

 

During coverage of a later chase (yeah, we have a lot of 'em), the helicopter reporter described a PITT maneuver as "well efforted". Argh! It's multiplying.

[+ Charlie]

How about using a noun as an adjective, like "a fun time?" But to be honest, I often enjoy such playing with parts of speech.

[Kevin Slater]

incentivize, or its bastard child, incent. It's motivate, dammit!

 

and "sup?"

 

Kevin Slater

[+ purplekow]

I'd add just about any noun that has been verbed.

 

 

So would than include verbed?

[+ azdr0710]

incentivize, or its bastard child, incent. It's motivate, dammit!

 

Kevin Slater

 

YES!..."incentivize" is the one word I started hearing just a few months ago that has bugged me the most lately....another noun that has been turned into a verb....oh, man....

[AdamSmith]

incentivize, or its bastard child, incent. It's motivate, dammit!

 

The Economist's 'Johnson' columnist had similar thoughts...

 

Neologisms

Incent

 

Jun 28th 2011, 14:27 by R.L.G. | NEW YORK

 

THIS morning I heard a corporate-governance expert ask "what do compensation policies incent managers to do?" It wasn't a fluke; a little later she used incent again. The meaning is clear enough: to give someone an incentive. But where did it come from, and do we like it?

 

The Oxford English Dictionary answers the first clearly enough: incent is "apparently a back formation". A back-formation is one of those words invented because they seem to have been at the root of a different word. "Pease" was once the mass noun for a bowlful of little round things that you eat. Many English-speakers over time thought this was a plural count noun, though, and so pea is a back-formation. Many enter the language as successful words. Resurrect is also a back-formation, from resurrection.

 

The OED's first citation for incent is 1977, for those tempted to bemoan modern management speak; incent is almost as old as this blogger. Awkwardly, though, incent has a rival, incentivise. Incentivise is probably older (the first citation is from 1968). Many traditionalists don't like adding -ize or -ise willy-nilly to nouns to make them verbs, but these same types don't like back-formations either. Moreover, these are often the same people (like Strunk & White, or the editor of The Economist's style book) who tell you to omit needless words wherever possible. "To give someone an incentive" is longer than "to incentivize" and "to incent", and "incent" has the virtue of being a bit shorter.

 

All told, incentivise isn't going to be tripping off my tongue too often, but it's more legitimate to me than incent, and its brevity speaks in its favour. But we try to incent commenters to jump in here with little tag-questions at the end of a post, so what do you think? Incent, incentivise or to give an incentive?

 

http://www.economist.com/blogs/johnson/2011/06/neologisms

[AdamSmith]

I'd add just about any noun that has been verbed.

 

Tabled? Wheeled? Cupped? Mouthed? Dicked? Fingered? Closeted? Corseted? Balled? Roped? Clamped? Chained?

 

...The language cupboard might look pretty bare if stripped of verbed nouns.

 

Thinnin' on the above list, it does seem to help if the noun was Anglo-Saxon. Agree that verbing of Latinate nouns ought be punishable by roping, clamping and/or chaining.

[Cooper]

I think "Gangnam Style" should have been on the University's banned list.

[+ Topseed]

One more: "impact" used as a verb....as in, "Such and such impacted his performance." Makes me think of teeth every time. :-)

[tyro]

I think of constipation gone worse. OW!

T

[Samai139]

Not sure if AMAZING has been mentioned yet, but if I never hear it again I shall be fine.

Last year I posted ACTUALLY when a similar thread was begun; I'll plead again that everyone stop using it.

In answer to a question, beginning a response with WELL.

And finally SO LAST YEAR......