MetaFilter posts tagged with banishedwords and words

"Thrown Under the Bus" is Thrown Under the Bus. Ouch.

wendell — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 11:42:53 -0800

"This year, in a gesture of humanitarian relief, the (Lake Superior State University Banished Words) committee restores "truthiness," banned on last year's list, to formal use. This comes after comedians and late-night hosts were thrown under the bus and rendered speechless by a nationwide professional writers' strike. The silence is deafening."
Of course, "(thrown) under the bus"* is on this year's Banished List, along with "perfect storm", "webinar"*, "waterboarding", "post-9/11", "wordsmith", "back in the day", "surge", "x is the new y", "give back" and other seemingly "random" words and phrases.
*One of the requirements for a Banished Word or Phrase is that it has been used as a title for a Blogspot or Typepad blog. Yes, we've done this before. Consider it a tradition or a bad habit.

Bannination of the Year

wendell — Sun, 31 Dec 2006 13:13:10 -0800

Truthiness Makes the Trifecta! As I predicted, the Classic Colbertism that won two Word of the Year awards has made it onto the 32nd L.S.S.U. List of Words and Phrases Banished from the Queen's English for Mis-Use, Over-Use and General Uselessness.
Other linguistic losers for 2007: "Awesome", "Gitmo", "chipotle", "undocumented alien*", "pwn", "search**" (effectively replaced by Google), "gone missing", "gone bad" (applied to things already bad, i.e. 'drug deal gone bad'), "ask your doctor***", "now playing in theaters" (Dept. of Redundancy Dept.) and "healthy food" (healthful is healthier), as well as shorthand couple names like "TomKat" (Would Bogart and Bacall have been "BogCall"?), "i-anything" (lucky for Apple they didn't get that 'iPhone' trademark), men saying "we're pregnant" and "boasts", as in 'boasts amenities'. (Pre vi ous ly)

Bling Bling, You're Dead

wendell — Wed, 31 Dec 2003 13:41:17 -0800

The Word(s) Is Out. One of my favorite things about New Year's Eve/Day is the annual announcement of the Hall of Shame of Linguistic Incorrectness: The Lake Superior State University List of Banished Words. Metrosexual... bling-bling... embedded journalist... shock and awe... not much to argue with here. Uh, oh, they've banished Smoking Gun. And "LOL"? WTF? (The latest list hasn't hit the U's own website yet, but here's their complete listing of the previously banished, going back to 1976.)

Owen Boswarva — Tue, 01 Jan 2002 05:50:43 -0800

Lake Superior State University has issued its 27th annual 'List of Words Banished from the Queen's English for Mis-Use, Over-Use and General Uselessness', based on submissions from the public. The most contentious inclusion is the term '9-11', which many people felt trivialised the events of 11 September.