As 2020 draws to a close, one university wants to prevent the introduction of various words and phrases in the new year.
On Thursday, Lake Superior State University in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, has launched its annual ‘Banished Words List’, which contains ten words it wants to ban in 2021 due to ‘overuse, abuse or uselessness’, the university said in its announcement.
However, many of the words can be difficult to dispel.
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More than 1,450 words and phrases were named from around the world. Of these, more than 250 were related to the coronavirus.
When the university decided to compile a list of banned words, he placed COVID-19 himself at the top of the list, using similar terms, including COVID, coronavirus and Rona.
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In fact, most of the phrases on the final list relate to the pandemic, including ‘social distance’, ‘we are all in this together’, ‘in an abundance of caution’, ‘in these uncertain times’,’ ‘pivot point’ and “unprecedented” – already banned by LSSU in 2002.
Lake Superior State University has released its annual “Banished Words List,” which contains seven phrases related to the coronavirus pandemic. (iStock)
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The university also wanted to ban the term ‘Karen’, which ‘started as an anti-racist critique of the behavior of white women in response to black and colored people’, but has now been transformed into a misogynistic umbrella term for criticism of the observed emotional behavior of women, ”reads the announcement.
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LSSU also banned ‘sus’, which is the abbreviation for ‘suspicious’ and is commonly used in the video game ‘Among Us’ and the phrase ‘I know, right?’ because it “repeats something that has already been seconded.”
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“It should come as no surprise that this year’s list was dominated by words and terms related to COVID-19,” the members of the Banished Words List Committee said in a joint statement. “LSSU’s Banished Words List has reflected the signs of the times since its debut in the mid-1970s, and the spirit of the times is: We are all in this together by banning expressions like ‘We are all in this together.’
“To be sure, COVID-19 is unprecedented in wreaking havoc and destroying lives,” the members said. “But also the excessive reliance on ‘unprecedented’ to frame things, so it should go too.”
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LSSU has released an annual “Banished Words List” since 1976 as a way to “maintain, protect and support excellence in language by avoiding words and terms that are overworked, redundant, oxymoronic, clichéd, illogical, nonsensical and otherwise, “ineffective, staggering or irritating,” the announcement read.