Banished Words for 2021

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 2021 (and forty-sixth annu­al) edi­tion, for your read­ing enjoy­ment on this New Year’s Day:

Enough already with COVID-19!

Peo­ple across the U.S. and around the world let Lake Supe­ri­or State Uni­ver­si­ty know that they’re tired not only of the coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic but also of hear­ing, read­ing, and talk­ing about it—especially when the com­mu­ni­ca­tion is bad or excessive.

COVID-19 ter­mi­nol­o­gy monop­o­lized sub­mis­sions for LSSU’s annu­al Ban­ished Words List this year.

Out of 1,450-plus nom­i­na­tions, upwards of 250 of the words and terms sug­gest­ed for ban­ish­ment for overuse, mis­use, or use­less­ness relate to the coro­n­avirus. In fact, sev­en of the 10 words and terms that LSSU is ban­ish­ing for 2021 are about it. Ranked No. 1 to get rid of is what start­ed of all this: “COVID-19” itself.

“It should sur­prise no one that this year’s list was dom­i­nat­ed by words and terms relat­ed to COVID-19,” said Ban­ished Words List com­mit­tee mem­bers Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor of Eng­lish Mary McMyne, Assis­tant Pro­fes­sor of Eng­lish Julie Bar­bour, and Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor of Eng­lish Dr. Chad Bar­bour. “LSSU’s Ban­ished Words List has reflect­ed signs of the times since debut­ing in the mid-1970s, and the zeit­geist this year is: We’re all in this togeth­er by ban­ish­ing expres­sions like ‘We’re all in this togeth­er.’ To be sure, COVID-19 is unprece­dent­ed in wreak­ing hav­oc and destroy­ing lives. But so is the over­re­liance on ‘unprece­dent­ed’ to frame things, so it has to go, too.”

LSSU has com­piled an annu­al Ban­ished Words List since 1976 to uphold, pro­tect, and sup­port excel­lence in lan­guage by encour­ag­ing avoid­ance of words and terms that are over­worked, redun­dant, oxy­moron­ic, clichéd, illog­i­cal, non­sen­si­cal — and oth­er­wise inef­fec­tive, baf­fling, or irri­tat­ing. Over the decades, LSSU has received tens of thou­sands of nom­i­na­tions for the list, which now totals more than 1,000 entries.

This year, nom­i­na­tions came from most major U.S. cities and many U.S. states, as well as from Aus­tralia, the Czech Repub­lic, Eng­land, and Cana­da. Here are the list of the ban­ished words and terms for 2021 and the rea­sons for their banishment:

#1: COVID-19 (COVID, CORONAVIRUS, RONA) — A large num­ber of nom­i­na­tors are clear­ly resent­ful of the virus and how it has over­tak­en our vocab­u­lary. No mat­ter how nec­es­sary or social­ly and med­ical­ly use­ful these words are, the com­mit­tee can­not help but wish we could ban­ish them along with the virus itself. Coin­ci­den­tal­ly, this list arrives as does a vac­cine — the com­mit­tee hopes this proves a type of dou­ble whammy.

#2: SOCIAL DISTANCING — This phrase is use­ful, as wear­ing a mask and keep­ing your dis­tance have a mas­sive effect on pre­vent­ing the spread of infec­tion. But we’d be lying if we said we weren’t ready for this phrase to become “use­less.” With north of fifty nom­i­na­tions, many oth­ers clear­ly feel the same, and the tone of their rea­son­ing ranged from impa­tient to heartfelt.

#3: WE’RE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER — This phrase was like­ly intend­ed as a way to keep every­one feel­ing safe and calm at the start of the pan­dem­ic. How­ev­er, as the virus made its way across the globe and nation, it became clear that we are all deal­ing with COVID-19 in dif­fer­ent ways and that we con­front some vast­ly dif­fer­ent chal­lenges in cop­ing with it. As with many words that show up on the list, its use­ful­ness has faded.

#4: IN AN ABUNDANCE OF CAUTION (VARIOUS PHRASINGS) — Yes, human­i­ty needs to fol­low safe­guards dur­ing COVID-19. The sta­tis­tics are sober­ing: more than 342,000 deaths and more than 19 mil­lion con­firmed cas­es in the U.S. and more than 1.8 mil­lion deaths and more than 82 mil­lion con­firmed cas­es world­wide. But the phras­ing about how to take pre­ven­ta­tive steps is vague. What is the stan­dard mea­sure­ment for cau­tion, met­ric or U.S. standard?

#5: IN THESE UNCERTAIN TIMES (VARIOUS PHRASINGS) — The com­mit­tee agrees that COVID-19 has upend­ed every­day life and wish­es this weren’t so. But putting things into impre­cise con­text doesn’t help mat­ters. The blur dilutes real­i­ty and, to some, sounds like the begin­ning of a movie trail­er. Keep as wide a berth of trite par­lance as those who don’t wear masks in pub­lic. What exact­ly does it mean for times to be uncer­tain? Look at a clock!

#6: PIVOT — Reporters, com­men­ta­tors, talk­ing heads, and oth­ers from the media ref­er­ence how every­one must adapt to the coro­n­avirus through con­tact­less deliv­ery, vir­tu­al learn­ing, curb­side pick­up, video con­fer­enc­ing, remote work­ing, and oth­er urgent read­just­ments. That’s all true and vital. But bas­ket­ball play­ers piv­ot; let’s keep it that way.

#7: UNPRECEDENTED [RE-BANISHMENT] — It’s unheard of that a word would be repeat­ed on the Ban­ished Words List. Actu­al­ly, it’s not. In the ear­ly years, words wound up repeat­ed, although we try to avoid rep­e­ti­tion nowa­days. Despite the fact that “unprece­dent­ed” was ban­ished in 2002, giv­en that it was nom­i­nat­ed many times this year for mis­use in describ­ing events that do have prece­dent, inclu­sion again seems warranted.

2021 Ban­ished Words and Terms Not About COVID-19:

#8: KAREN — What began as an anti-racist cri­tique of the behav­ior of white women in response to Black and Brown peo­ple has become a misog­y­nist umbrel­la term for cri­tiquing the per­ceived over­e­mo­tion­al behav­ior of women. As one nom­i­na­tor said about rea­sons for its ban­ish­ment, “I would tell you why, but I’d sound like a Karen.” Anoth­er crit­ic observed, “Offen­sive to all nor­mal peo­ple named Karen.”

#9: SUS — It’s a short­ened ver­sion for “sus­pi­cious” in the video game Among Us. No com­mit­tee mem­bers play, but our chil­dren who do explained that this mul­ti­play­er online social game is designed around iden­ti­fy­ing “sus” imposters so they can be “thrown into the lava.” Com­plain­ers a) ask: How much effort does it take to say the entire word; and b) request: If that can’t hap­pen, con­fine the syl­la­ble to the gam­ing world.

#10: I KNOW, RIGHT? — An amus­ing phrase flood­ing social media, “I know, right?” is a rel­a­tive­ly new con­struc­tion to con­vey empa­thy with those who have expressed agree­ment. But as one word­smith put it, if you know, why do you need to ask if it’s cor­rect or seek fur­ther approval? Anoth­er gram­mar­i­an sug­gest­ed that the desire for con­fir­ma­tion con­notes inse­cu­ri­ty. In oth­er words, it’s reit­er­at­ing some­thing already seconded.

“Real-world con­cerns pre­oc­cu­pied word watch­dogs this year, first and fore­most COVID-19, and that makes sense,” said LSSU Pres­i­dent Dr. Rod­ney S. Han­ley. “In a small way, maybe this list will help ‘flat­ten the curve,’ which also was under con­sid­er­a­tion for ban­ish­ment. We trust that your ‘new normal’—another con­tender among nominations—for next year won’t have to include that anymore. ”

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

We’re very glad to see piv­ot and social dis­tanc­ing on the list. We don’t say social dis­tanc­ing at NPI, as we believe in phys­i­cal dis­tanc­ing, not social distancing. 

We dis­agree that COVID-19 and coro­n­avirus should be ban­ished. We need a way to refer to the dis­ease, not just the virus that caus­es it (SARS CoV‑2) and the oth­er names that have been pro­posed for the dis­ease are extreme­ly prob­lem­at­ic or out­right racist. It is for this very rea­son that LSSU’s own 2021 list goes on to repeat “COVID-19” sev­er­al times after its ban­ish­ment entry.

COVID-19 is not a mis­used or use­less word, and not overused either giv­en the pan­dem­ic. There­fore, it and “coro­n­avirus” are not wor­thy of banishment.

(We can get behind ban­ish­ing “Rona”, though!)

It’s cer­tain­ly okay to be unhap­py that those words have entered the com­mon ver­nac­u­lar. The pan­dem­ic sucks, and we’d all like it to be over. But we’re not going to get out of it by wish­ing the dis­ease away. We get rid of COVID-19 by con­fronting it. By wear­ing masks. By prac­tic­ing phys­i­cal dis­tanc­ing. And by get­ting vac­ci­nat­ed when the vac­cine becomes avail­able to each of us.

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

CANCEL CULTURE — This phrase has been embraced by right wing pun­dits and Repub­li­can can­di­dates or elect­ed offi­cials who resent being held account­able for say­ing offen­sive or racist things, but curi­ous­ly have no prob­lem call­ing out behav­ior or speech that they dis­agree with that comes from their polit­i­cal oppo­nents on the left. The term refers to the idea of “with­draw­ing sup­port for (can­cel­ing) pub­lic fig­ures and com­pa­nies after they have done or said some­thing con­sid­ered objec­tion­able or offen­sive,” accord­ing to Dictionary.com. How­ev­er, the point of adver­tis­er boy­cotts and sim­i­lar tac­tics by pro­gres­sive activists is not to get rid of free­dom of speech, but rather to impose con­se­quences for peo­ple who insist on utter­ing hate speech. The right wing’s notion of “can­cel cul­ture” is thus a misnomer.

SELF-MADE BILLIONAIRE — NPI staff heard this phrase used by CNN’s Brooke Bald­win back in 2020 when she was intro­duc­ing a guest. But there is sim­ply no such thing as a “self-made bil­lion­aire”; it’s a total fic­tion. As Eliz­a­beth War­ren and oth­ers have point­ed out, nobody makes it on their own in Amer­i­ca. Every per­son who suc­ceeds in busi­ness makes use of the infra­struc­ture the tax­pay­ers paid for to accu­mu­late their wealth, whether that’s the Inter­net or the inter­state high­way sys­tem or pub­lic air­ports and seaports.

ALL OPTIONS ARE ON THE TABLE — Fre­quent­ly uttered by gov­er­nors or may­ors in response to ques­tions like “What are you going to do about the rapid spread of COVID-19?” or “What are you going to do in response to the protests over the mur­ders of George Floyd, Bre­on­na Tay­lor, Ahmaud Arbery, and so many more like them?” We would rather hear elect­ed offi­cials admit to being unsure what they’re going to do, or need to think about the prop­er path for­ward, rather than eva­sive­ly claim that “all options are on the table” when in fact that’s not the case.

HUMANING — This atroc­i­ty was cre­at­ed by cor­po­rate mar­keters on the pay­roll of Mon­delez Inter­na­tion­al. “It set off a social-media back­lash when it entered the lex­i­con this month, short­ly after Mon­delez declared that the word cap­tured its approach to mar­ket­ing snack foods around the world,” the New York Times’ Tiffany Hsu and Sap­na Mahesh­wari report­ed last month. And right­ly so: we sim­ply don’t need this pho­ny word in our vocab­u­lary. We’re sub­ject­ed to enough cor­po­rate mum­bo jum­bo as it is, from “syn­er­gy” to “bench­mark­ing” to “par­a­digm shift” to “lead indi­ca­tors”. The afore­men­tioned New York Times arti­cle also lists many oth­er invent­ed words wor­thy of banishment.

I DON’T KNOW WHO NEEDS TO HEAR THIS, BUT — This meme annoy­ing­ly became a very pop­u­lar way to begin a tweet in 2020, as in: “I don’t know who needs to hear this but keep doing you… don’t let the opin­ions of those who can’t or don’t affect you and your dri­ve or jour­ney. Keep push­ing & stay focused. There is a light at the end of the tun­nel. You get one life… make it count!” We don’t know who needs to hear this, but it’s entire­ly unnec­es­sary to begin a tweet with this tired, boil­er­plate filler. Reclaim char­ac­ters for what you real­ly want to say by drop­ping this preposition.

REAL PEOPLE PAID FOR REAL OPINIONS / REAL PEOPLE, NOT PAID ACTORS — These ridicu­lous phras­es have been trot­ted out by adver­tis­ing agen­cies on behalf of big cor­po­ra­tions like Microsoft in an attempt to make their prod­uct mar­ket­ing more cred­i­ble. Regard­less of whether an ad uses pro­fes­sion­al actors or not, it’s still mar­ket­ing, and the peo­ple in the ad are going to be say­ing favor­able things about the prod­uct or ser­vice. By the way, to any­one on Madi­son Avenue who might be read­ing this post, paid actors are just as “real” as peo­ple who don’t work in the per­for­mance arts for a liv­ing. What ulti­mate­ly makes a prod­uct endorse­ment cred­i­ble is whether it is sin­cere­ly meant and felt by the per­son giv­ing it.

Pre­vi­ous­ly ban­ished by NPI:

2020

• We Should­n’t Be Pick­ing Win­ners and Losers
• News Dump
• Style Points
• Cup­cake [in a grid­iron context]
• View­er Dis­cre­tion is Advised
• The Stakes Are Too High

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!