BOSTON (Reuters) – This story might be epic, and could even go viral, but not if Lake Superior State University has anything to do with it. Just sayin.'
The small college in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, released on Friday its annual list of "banished words" -- terms so overused, misused and hackneyed they deserve to be sent to a permanent linguistic trash can in the year ahead.
"Viral," often used to describe the rapid spreading of videos or other content over the Internet, leads the list for 2011.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20101231/od_nm/us_banished_words
I'm still looking for the list that includes LSSU as an important cultural or academic influence, but never mind that now.
Me thinks the list has lost sight of its purpose.
It originally became famous for quite rightly condemning "at this point in time" as cumbersome and pretentious when compared to the perfectly adequate, 3-letter "now".
But look at this year's list.
Why is "wow factor" better or worse than "charisma," "panache" or "eclat"? One suspects these words had to be imported from Spanish and French because the English were too dull to have their own words for people, places or things that cause one's stiff upper lip to quiver. Finally, English has its own term to celebrate style.
Why is "a-ha moment" inferior to "epiphany"? And wouldn't theologians like to have "epiphany" back?
Why is "back story" more trite than "exposition"? Liberal arts students should know both terms, but I see no inherent reason why one need be discarded. And regardless of what LSSU thinks, Hollywood has already established "back story" as the term of choice and I'm afraid the USC Film School has a lot more influence than a minor state college
within a stone's throw of--WAIT! I MEAN
near Canada.
I'll concede the point on "BFF" (on the grounds that it is rarely used to refer to anyone's "best" and such friendships are almost certainly not "forever.") But it's the sort of slang that will be "uncool" with a year or two.
(ETA as I used to tell my college students, an educated person should know the difference between formal and informal language, and should be able to use both, depending on social context. It's fine to encourage the use of a varied vocabulary because it is more pleasing to the eye and ear, but for a number of philosophical reasons, no university should be in the business of "banishing" words, not even in jest.)