BANISHED!
WooHoo! Wild Word Friday!
I’m doing something a little different today for Wild Word Friday. We ‘re going to talk about the business of banishing words. Say what?
Since 1976, Lake Superior State University, a little college located on the eastern tip of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, has been banishing words. The brainchild of PR genius Bill Rabe, LSSU’s “Annual List Of Words Banished from the Queen’s English for Mis-Use, Over-Use and General Uselessness” has garnered enough fame to become an annual feature on Fox Network’s national morning news, and is picked up by UPI and Reuters and other news networks around the world. What better way to give a very small (3,000-5,000 students) university a little notice? Over the years, LSSU has banished about 1,000 words.
This year’s list includes “epic”, “viral” (as far as its use regarding the Internet and computers), “wow factor”, “refudiate”, and phrases like “I’m just sayin’.” All year long the University takes nominations from the public for words to banish. When I had the privilege of working as Bill Rabe’s assistant – way back in the 80’s – we usually received about 400 nominations along with the reasons people wanted the word or words they nominated to be banished. Lots of fun, lots of laughs!
Read the entire list at www.lssu.edu/banished
Q4U: What words would you banish from the Queen’s English?
Blessings! Sue
I always look forward to seeing the LSSU Banished Words list!! Of course, I knew Bill Rabe back (waaay back!!) when I worked at LSSC – so I know the personality behind the idea 🙂 I think it’s cool that it has made National status!!
If I catch myself using the words after I see the list, I always feel like I’m being a ‘cliche’ or outdated and remind myself to try to stop using them – lol …..And usually there is at least one word that I think should be on it that doesn’t make the list!
Yes, and I always think some words shouldn’t make the list. (Especially some word that I USE all the time!!)