Banned Words of 2010

Never understood the appeal of using Czar as a leadership role, since we Americans were all taught negative connotations with that title. Isn’t it a Russian term? Why do we have a drug czar?

I’m all for the abolition of “chillaxin’” and “bromance” for the rest of eternity.

My list of words I wish would go away:
Sammich
Fail
Pwn/owned
Plox
DIAF
zomg
Phrases I wish would go away:
“Cool Story Bro”
“What is this I don’t even”
Fads I wish would go away:
Zombies (brains)
Bacon
Social networking bs.

Aw, I like transparent and transparency.

“Going forward” always makes me barf.

2009 was probably the worst year for coined terms ever. I’d like to kick the guy who thought it was a good idea to add staycation to Websters dictionary.

Language isn’t static, nor should it be. New words arise to fit speakers’ changing needs. They get sorted out by natural selection, according to whether they stay useful once the novelty wears off. I doubt that “staycation” will be around long; I’ve never heard anyone say it without some kind of acknowledgment of its strangeness. I suspect that “friend,” used as a verb, will have a pretty long life though, as social media on the Web seem to be here to stay.

@Dervid: I’d always been taught that “cities comprise neighborhoods,” and not the other way around, but Merriam-Webster, at least, lists both uses and says the “neighborhoods comprise cities” sense has been in use at least since the 18th century.

>Language isn’t static, nor should it be. New words arise to fit speakers’ changing needs.

Language isn’t static and we all know it. It’s exactly for that reason that some want to prevent the encroachment of slang that they see as bringing down the language, or why some people are sensitive about punctuation. I’m of two minds on the subject, since “usefulness” might be why things stick around, but it doesn’t always mean “clarity of expression.” Words like “like” might be useful to replace mumbling “umm,” but they also make expressions even less clear than throwing some “umms” around would. This is the same reason that they’d like to see “its” and “it’s” used correctly. Language isn’t static, and if we justify sitting idly by out of an argument against prescriptivism, the language can lose a lot, as other languages have in the past.

I vote to ban the word literally.

Literally, everyone uses this word to describe literally every event that’s ever literally happened in their life. Literally.

Sick of it!

Swagger

I don’t hear it much in everyday speech but seems to be the buzzword of football analysts this year. Drives me crazy. Especially since it was often used to describe my team right before they went on a losing streak.

“Awesome”. Enough of that word already!!!

“It is what it is.” You know what it truly is? Annoying!

YOU CANT BAN WORDS OR THOUGHTS! WELL STILL SAY THEM. WHOLL ENFORCE IT, HUH? THE THOUGHT POLICE?

Can we also add synergy? Or was that already banned from previous years?

IT’S NOT THE WORDS WE HAVE SUCH DISTASTE FOR, MANY OF THEM ARE QUITE CLEAVER. IT’S THE WAY UNORIGINAL PEOPLE SPEW THEM LIKE WORD VOMIT, TRYING TO IMPLY WITT, THAT MAKES THEIR FLAVOR SEEM STALE.