San Rafael Valley, AZ ~~ Photo by Bill Haas

Monday, January 2, 2012

2011 BANISHED WORDS...

from Lake Superior State University, MI's tongue-in-cheek "Annual List of Words Banished from the Queen's English for Misuse, Overuse and General Uselessness"!

Nominations have been invited from across the globe since 1976, and there are now about 900 words in the university's archives.  This year the top of the list ("amazing") received 1500 nominations.  There's even a Facebook page called "Overuse of the Word Amazing"!  One person quoted in the article I read blamed it all on Martha Stewart, who thinks EVERYTHING'S amazing!!!

Here are 2011's winners:
amazing
occupy
baby bump
shared sacrifice
win the future
ginormous
man cave
the new normal
blowback
thank you in advance

Those words join last year's list, which included:
viral
fail
a-ha moment

However, usage of some words, like "viral," stubbornly continue to hang on to this day.

I'll wager *you've* got one or two or five idiotic, useless favorites, right?  Like, you know, the word "like"!?!!