Lake Superior State University in Michigan publishes a list of words each year they think should be eliminated because of overuse, mis-use or general uselessness. http://www.lssu.edu/banished/current.php
This year’s list includes:
- “shovel-ready”
- “transparent/transparency”
- “czar”
- “friend” as a verb
- “teachable moment”
- “in these economic times”
- “stimulus”
- “toxic assets”
- “to big to fail”
- “app”
- Combination of words like “sexting”, “bromance”, and “chiaxin”
- All versions of “tweets”, “tweetaholic”, “retweet” “twitterature” & “twittersphere”
2009’s list included:
- Green
- Bailout
- Icon or iconic
- Game changer
- Not so much
- It’s that time of year
2008’’s list included:
- Perfect storm
- Organic
- Webinar
- Wordsmith
- Surge
- Decimated
- Under the bus
While we may not agree with their lists, we must all be aware that words change and lose their meaning over time. This is one of the reasons why we must occasionally review things we publish to see if they still have clarity or have lost impact or meaning.
It is also why we need to record and listen to ourselves periodically, to see if we are using words that no longer have meaning or clarity. Just because something is technically correct, does not mean it has clarity or impact on the listener.
