Banished Words for 2020

Every year since 1976, Michigan’s Lake Supe­ri­or State Uni­ver­si­ty has released a thought­ful and humor­ous “List of Words Ban­ished from the Queen’s Eng­lish for Mis­use, Overuse and Gen­er­al Use­less­ness”. Here is the 2020 (and forty-fifth annu­al) edi­tion, for your read­ing enjoy­ment on this New Year’s Day:

The Most Nom­i­nat­ed Word or Phrase for 2020

QUID PRO QUO — This phrase received the most nom­i­na­tions this year, with a notice­able spike in Novem­ber (gee, we won­der why…). The pop­u­lar­i­ty of this phrase has the com­mit­tee won­der­ing what it should offer in exchange for next year’s nominations.

Mary Bilyeu, Tole­do, OH; Deb­o­rah Rem­pala, Saint Clair Shores, MI; Julie Janiskee, Petoskey, MI; Dean­na, Sault Ste Marie, MI; Jeff Lewis, Ada, MI; Lisa K Far­rell, Los Ange­les, CA; Tana Bald­win, Petoskey , MI; Trudy Salo, Lib­er­ty Twp, OH; Tom Reil­ly, Bloom­field Twp, MI; Jeff Mal­colm, Paw Paw, MI; Daniel Mul­doon, Coun­cil Bluffs, IA; Kate Ter­Haar, Cedarville, MI; Mary J., Hous­ton, TX; Lori Moore, Kala­ma­zoo, MI; Steve Carr, Mar­quette, MI; R. Osin­s­ki, Clin­ton Twp., MI; Dan Berar­di, Arn­pri­or, Ontario, Canada.

Words that Attempt to Make Some­thing More than It Is

ARTISANAL — One nom­i­na­tor described this word as an “obfus­ca­tion,” describ­ing an “actu­al per­son doing some­thing per­son­al for anoth­er unknown per­son.”  The com­mit­tee agrees this word should be banned for well water… but not for sandwiches.

Nkenge Zola, High­land Park, MI; Bill McCune, Petoskey, MI

CURATED — Like “arti­sanal,” this seems to be anoth­er attempt at mak­ing some­thing more than it is, espe­cial­ly when used in ref­er­ence to social media (or Ban­ished Words Lists). As Barb from Ann Arbor says, “Save it for the museum.”

Barb, Ann Arbor, MI; Nkenge Zola, High­land Park, MI; Jer­ry Pur­dy, Portage, MI; and Samurel Press, Burling­ton, VT

[“Curat­ed” was pre­vi­ous­ly ban­ished in 2015; appar­ent­ly the selec­tion com­mit­tee did­n’t dou­ble check before it pub­lished this year’s list…]

INFLUENCER — Accord­ing to Urban Dic­tio­nary, “A word Insta­gram users use to describe them­selves to make them feel famous and more impor­tant when no one real­ly know who they are or care.”

Sylvia Gurin­sky, Davie, FL; Jeff Lewis, Ada, MI; Paul Bar­tunek, Los Ange­les, CA; Jacque­line Rear­don, Burling­ton, NJ; diva_angel360

Words Ban­ished for Pre­ten­tious­ness or Imprecision

LITERALLY — Sur­pris­ing­ly, this word hasn’t already been ban­ished, but here it is, one of the few words in Eng­lish that has begun to serve as its own antonym. Many of the nom­i­na­tors cite this word’s use for fig­u­ra­tive expres­sions or empha­sis, which is lit­er­al­ly annoying.

Edward, Glen­dale, AZ; Ryan Che­nier, Grand Rapids, MI; Daniel Kirk, San Luis Obis­po, CA; Dale Mar­tin, Novi, MI; Jack Pol­lard, Haslett, MI; Gary Wenger, Delta, BC, Cana­da; Christy Bor­thick, Nashville, TN; Pamela Nay­lor, Dover, DE; Jamie Rankin, Con­nellsville, PA; Mar­garet, Los Ange­les, CA; and Jen­nifer W Berlin, Anthem, AZ

I MEAN — It’s easy to see why this phrase was nom­i­nat­ed, right? I mean…

John Leask, Alpe­na, MI

LIVING MY BEST LIFE — The com­mit­tee very much enjoys exer­cis­ing its author­i­ty in ban­ish­ing words annually–literally the cap­stone of our year–but as Eric says, apart from rein­car­na­tion, are there “options for mul­ti­ple lives”?

Gary Whee­lock, Wixom, MI; Eric Park, Rock Hill, SC

MOUTHFEEL — A word used by food­ies to describe the tex­ture of food or drink in the mouth, which the com­mit­tee feels should be ban­ished entire­ly from food real­i­ty TV shows. As our nom­i­na­tor asks, “Where else, exact­ly, would you like to touch your food or bev­er­age?” This one just doesn’t feel right in the mouth.

Jodi Miller, Gahan­na, OH

Those Darn Millennials!

CHIRP — This one is a new insult for the non-mil­len­ni­als on the com­mit­tee. Before we get chirped for being out of touch, as our nom­i­na­tor sug­gests, why don’t we leave it to the birds?

Abi­gail Ost­man, Sault Ste Marie, MI

JELLY — An abbre­vi­a­tion of “jeal­ous,” the com­mit­tee agrees with the nom­i­na­tor of this word who sug­gest­ed that it’s bet­ter left for toast.

Mike Bas­sarab, Kala­ma­zoo, MI

TOTES — Anoth­er abbre­vi­a­tion, this time of “total­ly.” Totes overused.

Saman­tha Stu­art, Walk­er, MI

VIBE/VIBE CHECK — A new use of the six­ties term, “good vibes.” This one just doesn’t vibe with us any­more, unless the speak­er is actu­al­ly vibrating.

Leah Mock­ridge, Sault Ste Marie, MI and Caris­sa, Sault Ste Marie, MI

OK, BOOMER — This phrase caught on late this year on the Inter­net as a response from mil­len­ni­als to the old­er gen­er­a­tion. Boomers may remem­ber, how­ev­er, that gen­er­a­tional ten­sion is always present. In fact, it was the Boomers who gave us the dec­la­ra­tion: “Don’t trust any­one over thirty!”

Cur­tis McDon­ald, Shel­by Town­ship, MI; Scott Eldridge, Kala­ma­zoo, MI; and Devin Gre­aney, Cor­do­va, TN

Lists for pre­vi­ous years are avail­able on Lake Superior’s site.

We’re very glad to see quid pro quo atop this year’s list, as it sore­ly need­ed ban­ish­ment. Influ­encer and OK, Boomer were also excel­lent choices.

We’d com­plete this year’s list by adding sev­er­al more obnox­ious phras­es that we’d like to see ban­ished for overuse, mis­use and gen­er­al uselessness:

WE SHOULDN’T BE PICKING WINNERS AND LOSERS — This tire­some, non­sen­si­cal phrase (a cousin of “social engi­neer­ing”) has become a sta­ple of speech­es by Repub­li­can office­hold­ers and is also in fre­quent use by the groups that enable them. A quick Bing search for the phrase yield­ed results from Red­State, Bre­it­bart, the Con­ser­v­a­tive Ener­gy Net­work, and the Koch Broth­ers’ Amer­i­cans for Pros­per­i­ty, all right wing sites. It also appears in the Repub­li­can Par­ty plat­form. In real­i­ty, our soci­ety already does pick win­ners and losers and it always has. Amer­i­ca’s tax code and body of laws have nev­er, at any point, been a lev­el play­ing field. Mar­kets are also rigged; there is no such thing as a free mar­ket. As George Lakoff has observed: “All mar­kets are con­struct­ed for some­one’s ben­e­fit… Mar­kets should be con­struct­ed for the broad­est pos­si­ble pros­per­i­ty, and they haven’t been.” It is iron­ic and deeply dis­ap­point­ing that Repub­li­cans often attack attempts to unrig rigged sys­tems as “pick­ing win­ners and losers.”

NEWS DUMP — This annoy­ing phrase dates back to a prac­tice that began some years ago in the White House and the Pen­ta­gon of releas­ing bad news on a Fri­day after­noon or evening in the hopes of min­i­miz­ing or bury­ing it. That was before the Inter­net Age. We now live in a hyper­con­nect­ed, always-on era of social media. Releas­ing bad news on a Fri­day will not pre­vent it from imme­di­ate­ly being dis­cussed and com­ment­ed upon. Time for “news dump” to be retired.

STYLE POINTS — This sil­ly expres­sion comes from the world of sports. Play­ers nowa­days com­pete not only to score points, but to rack up “style points” as well, from sub­jec­tive play callers and announc­ers who desire to be impressed. What exact­ly are “style points”? Urban Dic­tio­nary says they are award­ed for “going above and beyond what is nec­es­sary to demon­strate your pure and utter mas­tery of some­thing.” Hm. Since there is no agreed upon def­i­n­i­tion of what “style points” are or how they can be earned, they are a mean­ing­less con­cept. Time to rel­e­gate this phrase to the dustbin.

CUPCAKE [in a grid­iron or foot­ball con­text] — A cup­cake is a con­fec­tion… a small, sin­gle-serv­ing cake that is usu­al­ly baked in a round con­tain­er. Grid­iron com­men­ta­tors have hijacked this phrase to mock col­lege teams that load their non­con­fer­ence sched­ule with beat­able oppo­nents, as in: “_______ does­n’t deserve a spot in the Col­lege Foot­ball Play­off; three of their games were against cup­cakes.” The “cup­cakes” in this con­text are the oppo­nents that present no chal­lenge to the well known or nation­al­ly ranked team that they are play­ing. A per­son who does­n’t fol­low grid­iron all that close­ly could be for­giv­en for not know­ing what on earth these  com­men­ta­tors are refer­ring to.

VIEWER DISCRETION IS ADVISED — Tele­vi­sion net­works ought to scrap this vague and use­less warn­ing, which often appears right before episodes of tele­vi­sion shows intend­ed for adult audi­ences. It makes lit­tle sense to urge peo­ple to use their dis­cre­tion when that’s what they are already doing by choos­ing to watch tele­vi­sion. A bet­ter, plain­er warn­ing might be some­thing along the lines of Please be aware that the pro­gram we’re about to present con­tains themes and scenes that are intend­ed for adult audi­ences only. 

THE STAKES ARE TOO HIGH — This gam­bling metaphor is overused, espe­cial­ly as a head­line or part of a head­line. It has lost what­ev­er force or impor­tance it may have once con­veyed. For instance: “The stakes are too high for us not to act now on ________” (where ________ is a press­ing nation­al or inter­na­tion­al issue). Some­times “the stakes are too high” is used in con­junc­tion with “the most impor­tant elec­tion of our lives,” a pre­vi­ous­ly-ban­ished phrase. Telling some­one the stakes are incred­i­bly high prob­a­bly isn’t going to moti­vate them to vote or take action con­sid­er­ing they’ve been told that before. Let’s come up with more cre­ative ways to describe the grav­i­ty of events like the 2020 pres­i­den­tial election.

Pre­vi­ous­ly ban­ished by NPI:

2019

• Spe­cial Snowflake
• You Do You
• Back-Break­ing
• We Should Live With­in Our Means
• She Shed
• Please Lis­ten Care­ful­ly As Our Menu Has Changed

2018

• Alter­na­tive Facts
• Thoughts and Prayers
• Zero Sum Game
• Hive Mind
• Woke
• Not/Shouldn’t Be A Par­ti­san Issue

2017

• Make Amer­i­ca Great Again/MAGA
• Alt-Right
• That Being Said
• ____ Porn
• Soft Tar­get

2016

• Net­flix and Chill
• Explo­sive Play
• Chip In
• Yuc­cie
• Active, Flu­id Situation

2015

• Chip­py
• (If You) Work Hard And Play By The Rules
• Inter­net of Things
• Pick Six
• Phys­i­cal­i­ty
• Boots On The Ground
• Send A Message

2014

• Amazeballs/Balls to the Wall
• FOMO (Fear Of Miss­ing Out)
• Presh
• Debt Ceil­ing
• Enti­tle­ments

2013

• Adork­able
• -GEDDON con­truct (e.g. Snowmageddon)
• Lit­er­al­ly
• Mom­my Porn
• Super­storm
• Meh

2012

• Guru
• Some Would Say/Some Say
• Job Cre­ator
• Two-Thirds Major­i­ty
• Let Me Be Per­fect­ly Clear
• Offer Only Avail­able For A Lim­it­ed Time
• Incen­tivize

2011

• Your Call is Impor­tant To Us (an almost iden­ti­cal phrase was ban­ished by Lake Supe­ri­or State Uni­ver­si­ty in 1996)
• Par­tial Zero Emis­sions Vehicle

Are there words you like to see ban­ished that aren’t on this year’s list – or LSSU’s all time list? If so, let us know in the com­ments. And Hap­py New Year!