Generally, I don’t agree with banning too many things. I love banned music and banned books, and if you went to high school with me, you weren’t cool unless you were banned or nearly banned from Wal-Mart.
But banned words… we need more of them. Each year, Lake Superior State University puts out a List of Words to Be Banished from the Queen’s English for Mis-use, Over-use and General Uselessness. The Associatd Press did a nice write-upof this year’s, and I’m happy to see that the emoticon “<3 ” made it onto the list.
<rant>It doesn’t even look like a heart. I think that my unwillingly-adopted sister Laura Turner was the first one to explain to me what the heck it was. And aside from its overuse by twelve-year-old girls, it is undeniably overused by twenty-something girls in their facebook photo albums and even in otherwise legitimate and expensive corporate advertisement (fortunately or unfortunately ” <3 ” is not a searchable term and I can’t find any of the images I’m looking for for your veiwing pleasure). </rant>
Also on this year’s list is “maverick,” and I’m equally surprised as Jeff Karoub that “change” didn’t make it. I was really pleased in the past when “weapons of mass destruction” and “undisclosed location” made previous lists, and though I might actually use “-monkey” as a a suffix more often now, I’d really like to see “tasty,” “mmmbye,” and “economy” (good, bad, or otherwise, I don’t want to hear about it for 50 years) on the (unfortunately non-binding) 2009 edition.
