Watch Your Words

Wordsmiths unite.

Some of your favorite words have officially been banned from the English language in 2012 by Lake Superior State University. The annual exile list includes words and phrases deemed by the university as misused, overused and generally useless. Nominations for words and phrases to be banished came from global submissions.

Stop!

First of all, I want to know who recognizes this university located in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan as the legitimate institution to ban anything so commonplace as words and phrases associated with the English language? I mean c’mon – such a list from a city few know how to correctly pronounce.  It’s pronounced as “Soo-Saint-Marie” and more commonly referred to simply as “the Soo”. There’s a “Soo-Saint-Marie, Michigan and a “Soo-Saint-Marie”, Ontario located across the St. Mary’s River and Canadian border. Same name, two different cities.

Included on the banished list for 2012 that was released on Friday, December 30 are: baby bump, shared sacrifice, occupy, man cave, amazing and the new normal. It was the 37^th such end-of-year word and word-phrase exile list issued by Lake Superior State.

I can say that while there are some words I simply wish would go away – like “awesome” – as a lifelong wordsmith I could not and would not advocate the banishment of any words and phrases from the English language. I mean, many people already find they can be “at a loss for words” often and without warning, so why limit someone’s options and vocabulary?

A university spokesman said compiling the list at the end of each year (since 1976) simply is a tongue-in-cheek exercise, in part, to get people to think about how they express themselves. So in that spirit alone, why would anyone – let alone a little university – want to limit how a person might choose to express themselves in the use of the English language? I say of the exiled word and phrase list: “that dog doesn’t hunt”.