Banished Words for 2024

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 2024 (and forty-ninth annu­al) edi­tion, for your read­ing enjoy­ment on this New Year’s Day:

HACK — The term “hack” has increas­ing­ly become a pop­u­lar buzz­word, fre­quent­ly uti­lized to impart an aura of inno­va­tion or sophis­ti­ca­tion to var­i­ous sub­jects. Its wide­spread adop­tion in mul­ti­ple con­texts, extend­ing beyond its ini­tial tech­no­log­i­cal con­text, has the poten­tial to lessen its inher­ent sig­nif­i­cance. Using it every­where, even beyond its tech roots, could make it lose its magic.

IMPACT — Espe­cial­ly as a verb, why use this word when we have a per­fect­ly good word that makes more sense: “affect”? Overus­ing it not only takes away its piz­zazz but also robs oth­er words of their spotlight.

AT THE END OF THE DAY [RE-BANISHED] — Some­times a word needs to be re-ban­ished, and this is one of them. Many com­ments note that it is overused and mean­ing­less, often employed as a rhetor­i­cal device that attempts to encap­su­late the com­plex­i­ties of a sit­u­a­tion sum­mar­i­ly, lack­ing nuance and depth.

RIZZ — Rizz, derived as a short­ened form for “charis­ma,” gained promi­nence as Oxford’s word of the year and has become a famil­iar pres­ence in the realm of social media dis­course. The ubiq­ui­ty of this term prompts con­tem­pla­tion on whether it retains its rel­e­vance. With lan­guage doing the cha-cha of change, we’re won­der­ing if this word still rocks the charis­ma scene or if it’s time for a lan­guage remix.

SLAY — While per­fect­ly accept­able in spe­cif­ic con­texts, “slay” has tran­scend­ed its orig­i­nal mean­ing and infil­trat­ed sit­u­a­tions where its usage no longer aligns with its intend­ed sig­nif­i­cance. Its tran­si­tion from a spe­cial­ized term denot­ing excep­tion­al accom­plish­ment to a com­mon­place expres­sion for any achieve­ment prompts scruti­ny into its mis­ap­pli­ca­tion, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the char­ac­ter­i­za­tion of rou­tine or mun­dane actions. Now, it’s sprin­kled everywhere—from wear­ing a styl­ish out­fit to tack­ling the art of par­al­lel parking.

ICONIC [RE-BANISHED] — This one appeared on the list in 2009, so per­haps it’s time for anoth­er attempt to point out its overuse and lack of mean­ing in most sit­u­a­tions. Despite its ini­tial recog­ni­tion as a word wor­thy of dis­tinc­tion, its repeat­ed appli­ca­tion in con­texts that don’t mer­it such acclaim chal­lenges its gen­uine icon­ic sta­tus. It’s like that one-hit won­der play­ing on loop.

CRINGE-WORTHY — From the com­ments: “The use of this term is cringe-wor­thy.” The irony is served hot, as the very term “cringe-wor­thy” finds itself under the spot­light. It’s like a word caught in its own cringe-wor­thy moment. Now, as we ush­er in the new year, it’s time to decide if this lin­guis­tic dra­ma deserves an encore or if we should bid “cringe-wor­thy” adieu to make room for fresh, less cringe-induc­ing expres­sions in 2024.

OBSESSED — The use of this word for things that are not tru­ly being obsessed over makes it a good can­di­date for rethink­ing how we use the word. The casu­al use of “obsessed” to describe rou­tine inter­ests or pref­er­ences under­scores a poten­tial mis­ap­pro­pri­a­tion of the term, prompt­ing a recon­sid­er­a­tion of its appli­ca­tion. Should one be obsessed with a new kitchen gad­get or a new shade of paint? This year’s con­trib­u­tors think not.

SIDE HUSTLE — The term “side hus­tle” has gained wide­spread use, prompt­ing con­sid­er­a­tions about its impact on how we per­ceive eco­nom­ic chal­lenges. It may be worth reflect­ing on whether its preva­lence inad­ver­tent­ly down­plays the gen­uine real­i­ty of the sit­u­a­tion. While ‘side-hus­tle’ adds flair to our lan­guage, our con­trib­u­tors feel that the only hus­tle is the one need­ed to get to their sec­ond job.

WAIT FOR IT — If we’re watch­ing the video, then we’re already wait­ing for it, right? While “wait for it” is try­ing to be the hype mas­ter, let’s ques­tion if it’s adding extra sparkle or just stat­ing the obvious?

Here is LSSU’s press release announc­ing the list:

Sault Ste. Marie, MI — As the new year inspires us to look ahead to the future, it also gives us time to reflect on the past. Lake Supe­ri­or State Uni­ver­si­ty (LSSU) proud­ly unveils this year’s Ban­ished Words List, a live­ly tra­di­tion that began in 1976.

This tra­di­tion high­lights cer­tain words that are often mis­used, overused, or have lost their mean­ing over the past year. It encour­ages us to laugh at our­selves as we recon­sid­er and reflect on the impor­tance of our vocabulary.

Lan­guage is a dynam­ic, ever-evolv­ing enti­ty. The ban­ished words list rec­og­nizes the rapid changes in expres­sion, encour­ag­ing a reassess­ment of the impact and rel­e­vance of our vocab­u­lary. We think you will find this year’s sub­mis­sions tru­ly cringe-worthy.

“This sea­son is marked by var­i­ous joy­ful tra­di­tions, and the Ban­ished Words List remains one of the most icon­ic, humor­ous, and quirky tra­di­tions in the region,” expressed Sheri­dan Worth, Direc­tor of Mar­ket­ing at Lake Supe­ri­or State University.

“The tra­di­tion pro­vides a light­heart­ed oppor­tu­ni­ty to pause and reflect on the past year — our expe­ri­ences, com­mu­ni­ca­tion styles, and the phras­es we com­mon­ly use. At the end of the day, it serves as a plat­form for con­sid­er­ing how we can progress into the new year with a more mind­ful approach to lan­guage,” stat­ed Worth.

LSSU received over 2,000 nom­i­na­tions from around the world, includ­ing sub­mis­sions from Aus­tralia, Bangladesh, Bel­gium, Cana­da, Chi­na, Croa­t­ia, Ger­many, Guam, Ire­land, Lebanon, Namib­ia, New Zealand, Pak­istan, Sin­ga­pore, Switzer­land, Thai­land, Ugan­da, Ukraine, the Unit­ed King­dom, with the major­i­ty com­ing from the Unit­ed States.

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

LSSU start­ing re-ban­ish­ing words it had pre­vi­ous­ly ban­ished a few years ago. That prac­tice now con­tin­ues with the re-ban­ish­ing of icon­ic and at the end of the day. At the end of the day is actu­al­ly being ban­ished for the third time since it was re-ban­ished in 2022. That speaks to how many peo­ple find it very tiresome.

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:

REVENGE TRAVEL — “As more and more coun­tries reopen their bor­ders to eager tourists, a trendy new phrase has emerged on social media: revenge trav­el,” CNN report­ed in May of 2022. Eri­ka Richter, vice pres­i­dent of the Amer­i­can Soci­ety of Trav­el Advi­sors, told the net­work the term dat­ed back to 2021: “Revenge trav­el is a media buzz­word that orig­i­nat­ed in 2021 when the world began to reopen, and peo­ple decid­ed to make up for lost time.” This is anoth­er sil­ly buzz­word we just don’t need. There are plen­ty of good phras­es already avail­able to describe planned trav­el that peo­ple can read­i­ly under­stand, like dream vaca­tion. There’s no “revenge” involved in “revenge trav­el” — let’s send this phrase to the bin.

BOMB CYCLONE — Nom­i­nat­ed by our friends at the Seat­tle Weath­er Blog, this is a slang term for explo­sive cyclo­ge­n­e­sis — “the rapid deep­en­ing of an extra­t­rop­i­cal cyclonic low-pres­sure area,” as put by Wikipedia. Or, in plain Eng­lish, a good ol’ win­ter storm, which “are actu­al­ly com­mon occur­rences in the North Pacif­ic every fall/winter,” as Seat­tle Weath­er Blog observed back in Sep­tem­ber. “So please, no arti­cles about the Pacif­ic North­west get­ting hit by a bomb cyclone. Unless it brings 50 mph+ wind gusts to Seat­tle, it’s very typical.”

DO DAMAGE — The Boston Red Sox made this a team mantra sev­er­al years ago, and it con­tin­ues to crop up from time to time. It’s just not a great euphemism for scor­ing runs or mak­ing offen­sive plays, though. Nor does this phrase have any oth­er pro­duc­tive uses that our team can think of. “Do dam­age” is not some­thing that peo­ple should want to do. There’s enough war, pol­lu­tion, and envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion in our world as it is. We need less dam­age, not more.

SOLUTIONING — An invent­ed word from the world of infor­ma­tion tech­nol­o­gy [IT] that has seen some wider usage in recent years. In a 2017 com­men­tary, a Stack­Ex­change user wrote: “Solu­tion­ing is a com­mon­place term in IT and IT recruit­ment… I would define it as the process of cre­at­ing solu­tions,” adding: “Much like vocab­u­lary in med­i­cine, engi­neer­ing, math and sci­ences, soft­ware devel­op­ment, etc. The same term may be used across these domains with rad­i­cal­ly dif­fer­ent mean­ing. As such it must be not­ed while this most cer­tain­ly is an impor­tant term in the IT domain, use out­side of this domain is prob­a­bly a mis­take.” Our team agrees.

I SEE WHAT YOU DID THERE — Overused, espe­cial­ly on social plat­forms. Inc.com con­tribut­ing edi­tor John Bran­don com­ment­ed that it was fun­ny for a while, but “we now gloss right over the phrase and it’s lost all momen­tum.” Lake Supe­ri­or State Uni­ver­si­ty ban­ished a sim­i­lar phrase, I see what you are say­ing, in 1992.

MOST UNIQUE — Gram­mat­i­cal­ly incor­rect. Since unique means “unlike any­thing else”, it isn’t pos­si­ble to have gra­da­tions of unique­ness, as Kathy and Ross Petras point­ed out in a 2021 piece for CNBC. Any­thing that’s unique is by def­i­n­i­tion just as unique as any­thing else that word is applied to. This is anoth­er case where drop­ping a word can yield bet­ter writ­ing with accu­rate grammar.

Pre­vi­ous­ly ban­ished by NPI:

2023

• Do Your Own Research
• Pro tip
• Coastal Elites
• Adult­ing
• I Did A Thing
• All Of The Feels

2022

• Let’s Go Brandon
• Cheugy
• Not Gonna Lie / I’m Not Gonna Lie
• How It Start­ed, How It’s Going
• Snack­able Content
• Phy­gi­tal

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 con­struct (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!