Banished Words for 2022

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 2022 (and forty-sev­enth annu­al) edi­tion, for your read­ing enjoy­ment on this New Year’s Day:

Mass com­mu­ni­ca­tion? Miscommunication!

If you’re going to turn to the ver­nac­u­lar to make your­self known, be sure you’re accu­rate and concise.

Avoid error in and exploita­tion of every­day lan­guage. In short, do the oppo­site of what the pub­lic and the media did this year.

The irked and the amused from around the coun­try and across the world sent that mock-seri­ous mes­sage in their entries for Lake Supe­ri­or State University’s annu­al tongue-in-cheek Ban­ished Words List. LSSU announces the results of the year­ly com­pendi­um on Dec. 31 to start the New Year on the right foot, er, tongue.

Com­mon par­lance dom­i­nat­ed sub­mis­sions for the past 12 months. More than 1,000 of the 1,250-plus nom­i­na­tions of words and terms for ban­ish­ment for mis­use, overuse, and use­less­ness for 2022 were colloquial.

The No. 1 offend­er: “Wait, what?” These two four-let­ter words should not go togeth­er under any cir­cum­stances, accord­ing to many nom­i­na­tors and the con­test judges from the LSSU Eng­lish Depart­ment, because the two-part halt­ing inter­rog­a­tive is disin­gen­u­ous, diver­gent, deflec­tive, and oth­er damn­ing words that begin with the let­ter d.

“Most peo­ple speak through infor­mal dis­course. Most peo­ple shouldn’t mis­s­peak through infor­mal dis­course. That’s the dis­tinc­tion nom­i­na­tors far and wide made, and our judges agreed with them,” said Peter Szat­mary, exec­u­tive direc­tor of mar­ket­ing and com­mu­ni­ca­tions at LSSU.

“Also, sev­en of the 10 words and terms that LSSU ban­ished last year reflect­ed real-world con­cerns about COVID-19, while three could be cat­e­go­rized as quo­tid­i­an. This year, as the glob­al pan­dem­ic per­sists along with adap­ta­tions to it, the inverse occurred. Sev­en of the 10 words and terms to be ban­ished are more con­ver­sa­tion­al-based, with the oth­er three apply­ing to the coro­n­avirus,” he added. “One pos­si­ble take­away from all this about the act and art and sci­ence of dis­clos­ing some­thing is the more things change, the more things stay the same. At the very least, it’s complicated.”

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. Exam­ples of the win­ners (or should that be losers?) to make the year­ly com­pi­la­tion: “detente,” “sure­ly,” “clas­sic,” “bro­mance,” and “COVID-19,” plus “wrap my head around,” “user friend­ly,” “at this point in time,” “not so much,” and “viable alter­na­tive.” The Ban­ished Words List has become such a cul­tur­al phe­nom­e­non that come­di­an George Car­lin sub­mit­ted an entry that made the annals in 1994: “badd­a­boom, baddabing.”

This year, nom­i­na­tions came from most major U.S. cities and many U.S. states, on top of Nor­way, Bel­gium, Eng­land, Scot­land, Aus­tralia, and numer­ous provinces in Cana­da. Here are the list of the ban­ished words and terms for 2022 and the rea­sons for their banishment:

1. WAIT, WHAT? — Most fre­quent­ly found in text or on social media, this ubiq­ui­tous imper­a­tive ques­tion is a failed “response to a state­ment to express aston­ish­ment, mis­un­der­stand­ing, or dis­be­lief,” explained a word­smith. “I hate it,” added anoth­er, because the com­mand query is an inex­act method to con­vey the utterer’s uncer­tain­ty or sur­prise. “I don’t want to wait,” either, con­tin­ued the sec­ond impas­sioned nom­i­na­tor. Mis­use and overuse.

2. NO WORRIES — Nom­i­nat­ed by writ­ers nation­wide for mis­use and overuse, this phrase incor­rect­ly sub­sti­tutes for “You’re wel­come” when some­one says “Thank you.” A fur­ther bungling relates to insen­si­tiv­i­ty. “If I’m not wor­ried, I don’t want any­one telling me not to wor­ry,” a con­trib­u­tor expli­cat­ed. “If I am upset, I want to dis­cuss being upset.” Despite its mean­ing­less­ness, the term is rec­om­mend­ed to email­ers by Google Assistant.

3. AT THE END OF THE DAY [RE-BANISHED] — Twen­ty-plus years after orig­i­nal ban­ish­ment of this phrase in 1999, the day still isn’t over for this mis­used, overused, and use­less expres­sion. “Many times things don’t end at the end of the day—or even the ram­i­fi­ca­tions of what­ev­er is hap­pen­ing,” observed a sage. Oth­ers con­sid­er “day” an impre­cise mea­sure. Today? Present times? Ban­ish­ment in 1999: overused syn­op­sis of a con­ver­sa­tion or debate, often by politi­cians and pundits.

4. THAT BEING SAID — Nom­i­na­tors cit­ed this phrase as ver­bal filler, redun­dant jus­ti­fi­ca­tion, and pompous pos­tur­ing. For instance, “how­ev­er” or “but — even “that said” — does the job as a tran­si­tion instead of the wordi­ness. “Go ahead and say what you want already!” demand­ed one entrant. That being said, its use­ful­ness is cer­tain­ly in doubt. As a com­men­ta­tor phi­los­o­phized, “At the end of the day, if you will, it already has been.”

5. ASKING FOR A FRIEND — Mis­use and overuse through deceit—because the friend is a ruse. This cutesy phrase, often deployed in social media posts in a coy attempt to deter self-iden­ti­fi­ca­tion, isn’t fool­ing any­one. Para­phras­ing one sage, “Once used to avoid embar­rass­ment, as in, ‘Do you know a good proc­tol­o­gist? I’m ask­ing for a friend.’ Some­times an occa­sion­al sit­com joke. Now an overused tag with absolute­ly no rela­tion­ship to its antecedent.”

6. CIRCLE BACK — Treats col­lo­quy like an ice skat­ing rink, as if we must cir­cle back to our pre­vi­ous loca­tion to return to a pri­or sub­ject. Let’s cir­cle back about why to ban­ish this jar­gon. It’s a con­ver­sa­tion, not the Win­ter Olympics. Opined a gram­mar­i­an, “The most overused phrase in busi­ness, gov­ern­ment, or oth­er orga­ni­za­tion since ‘synergy’”—which we ban­ished in 2002 as eva­sive blan­ket ter­mi­nol­o­gy and smar­ty-pants puffery.

7. DEEP DIVE — “The only time to dive into some­thing is when enter­ing a body of water, not going more in-depth into a par­tic­u­lar sub­ject or book,” admon­ished a peti­tion­er. Anoth­er stip­u­lat­ed that peo­ple who float the phrase aren’t near pool, lake, ocean, or sea; thus, rather than dive deeply, they floun­der shal­low­ly. An edit­ing whiz won­dered, “Do we need ‘deep’? I mean, does any­one dive into the shal­low end?”

2022 Ban­ished Words and Terms Deriv­ing from COVID-19 Matters:

8. NEW NORMAL [RE-BANISHED] — Overused catchall for ways COVID-19 affects humankind—and ban­ish­ment final­ist last year for sim­i­lar rea­sons. “Those clam­or­ing for the days of old, cir­ca 2019, use this to sig­nal unin­ten­tion­al­ly that they haven’t come to terms with what ‘nor­mal’ means,” a mon­i­tor elu­ci­dat­ed. “After a cou­ple of years, is any of this real­ly ‘new’?” anoth­er spec­u­lat­ed. Ban­ished in 2012 for impru­dence, defeatism, and apa­thy stem­ming from soci­etal missteps.

9. YOU’RE ON MUTE — Peo­ple switched from in-per­son exchanges to vir­tu­al meet­ings to fol­low the social dis­tanc­ing pro­to­col of COVID-19, and the unwit­ting deaf­en­ing silence hap­pens on both sides of the cam­era. Overuse and use­less­ness, then, due to inep­ti­tude. A dis­cern­ing sub­mit­ter encap­su­lat­ed the issue: “We’re two years into remote work­ing and vis­it­ing. It’s time for every­one to fig­ure out where the mute but­ton is.” Or as a quip­ster sum­ma­rized, “Hel­lo? Hello?”

10. SUPPLY CHAIN — Word-watch­ers noticed the fre­quent, unfor­tu­nate appear­ance of this phrase toward the end of this year as the coro­n­avirus per­sist­ed. “It’s become auto­mat­i­cal­ly includ­ed in report­ing of con­sumer goods short­ages or per­ceived short­ages. In oth­er words, a buzz­word,” con­clud­ed one ana­lyst. “Sup­ply chain issues have become the scape­goat of every­thing that doesn’t hap­pen or arrive on time and of every short­age,” noticed anoth­er. The adverse result: overuse ad nauseam.

“Say what you mean and mean what you say. Can’t get any eas­i­er, or hard­er, than that,” said LSSU Pres­i­dent Dr. Rod­ney S. Han­ley. “Every year sub­mit­ters play hard at sug­gest­ing what words and terms to ban­ish by pay­ing close atten­tion to what human­i­ty utters and writes. Tak­ing a deep dive at the end of the day and then cir­cling back make per­fect sense. Wait, what?”

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

Ask­ing for a friend and sup­ply chain were good choic­es by LSSU! 

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:

LET’S GO BRANDON — This minced oath has rapid­ly become obnox­ious thanks to its near con­stant rep­e­ti­tion by the cult that adores Don­ald Trump. The phrase entered the lex­i­con on Octo­ber 2nd, when NBC Sports reporter Kel­li Stavast was inter­view­ing NASCAR dri­ver Bran­don Brown at the Tal­lade­ga Super­speed­way in Alaba­ma. Dur­ing the inter­view, atten­dees of the Sparks 300 race could be heard chant­i­ng (Exple­tive) Joe Biden, prompt­ing Stavast to com­ment “You can hear the chants from the crowd: ‘Let’s go, Bran­don!’ ” Delight­ed Trump fans have since cre­at­ed flags and mer­chan­dise bear­ing the slo­gan, while Repub­li­can office­hold­ers seek­ing to cur­ry favor with Trump vot­ers have been utter­ing it every chance they get. Today marks the begin­ning of a new year. It’s the per­fect time for Let’s go Bran­don to go get banished.

CHEUGY — An annoy­ing made up word defined by the Urban Dic­tio­nary as “the oppo­site of trendy. Styl­ish in mid­dle school and high school but no longer in style. Used when some­one still fol­lows these out of date trends.” Also fit­ting­ly described as “an ugly sound­ing fake word that has zero basis in lit­er­ary or lin­guis­tic root” by one Seat­tle Times read­er, who added: “While I agree that all the things [Gen­er­a­tion] Z has deemed dat­ed are in fact ugly, uncool, and old; because my gen­er­a­tion (X) defined ennui, but that doesn’t mean we need to invent utter­ly stu­pid new words to demean those things.”

NOT GONNA LIE / I’M NOT GOING TO LIE — Nom­i­nat­ed for ban­ish­ment last year by long­time Cas­ca­dia Advo­cate read­er Mike Bar­er, this idiom is unnec­es­sary, off-putting filler that can too often be found in front of state­ments, dec­la­ra­tions, or admis­sions. One col­lege pro­fes­sor who’d had enough of it a decade ago wrote a blog post com­ment­ing on its use­less­ness: “Why inform me of the fact that you’re not going to lie? Because here’s what that does: It leads me to assume that, in oth­er cas­es, you have lied.”

HOW IT STARTED, HOW IT’S GOING — A social net­work­ing meme that was fun for a week in 2020 and then start­ed to get tire­some, espe­cial­ly after being enthu­si­as­ti­cal­ly adopt­ed by cor­po­rate mar­ket­ing accounts. It usu­al­ly con­sists of two images post­ed side by side on Twit­ter, with the cap­tion “How it start­ed // How it’s going” or “How it start­ed // How it end­ed.” Fast Com­pa­ny dubbed it “the all pur­pose meme” of 2020. It has def­i­nite­ly now run its course.

SNACKABLE CONTENT — Anoth­er unnec­es­sary made up cor­po­rate mar­ket­ing phrase. It means pret­ty much all posts on any social net­work­ing plat­form, like tweets or Tik­Tok videos, which are short by design. “Snack­able con­tent is a col­lec­tive term for web con­tent that can be con­sumed quick­ly, with­out much effort,” Ionos help­ful­ly explains. “This includes videos, pic­tures, memes, short posts, tweets, and audio files, among oth­er forms. Most of this kind of con­tent is found on social net­works such as Insta­gram and Facebook.”

PHYGITAL — An invent­ed buzz­word that is sup­posed to mean “blend­ing dig­i­tal expe­ri­ences with phys­i­cal ones.” There’s a whole arti­cle on Forbes that attempts to explain the five con­cepts asso­ci­at­ed with this sil­ly made up word. Why not just say phys­i­cal plus dig­i­tal? Nei­ther of those words are par­tic­u­lar­ly long or dif­fi­cult to say, and speak­ing or writ­ing them in tan­dem will require less expla­na­tion than using a grat­ing mashup.

Pre­vi­ous­ly ban­ished by NPI:

2021

• Can­cel Culture
• Self-Made Bil­lion­aire
• All Options Are On The Table
• Human­ing
• I Don’t Know Who Needs To Hear This, But…
• Real Peo­ple Paid For Real Opin­ions / Real Peo­ple, Not Paid Actors

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!