Below was written by Kate Forgach and I think it is very timely for us as writers in this “check the facts last if at all” age. I have seen so many words and phrases used way too much and hence they have lost what meaning they first had, if, indeed, they first had much meaning.
My pet peeve is when reading the cutline below a photo, it always seems as if the photographer has miraculously arrived just as the artist was “putting the finishing touches” on whatever project was being photographed. I wished that my timing was so good.
Enjoy her piece and please submit your own to the website!
Darlene
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Way back in 1975, my father got a burr under his saddle — as he was wont to do) — and created the Word Banishment Society of Lake Superior State University (located in the chilly northeast corner of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula). Dad was a bug about proper grammar and despised lazy language. So every New Years’ Day he would issue an annual “List of Words to Be Banished from the Queen’s English for Mis-use, Over-use and General Uselessness.”
The clever PR scheme for LSSU outlived Dad, receiving thousands of nominations each year and garnering nationwide media coverage.
Half the fun of these submissions is spotting words and phrases that cry out for banishment: The other half is writing a supporting explanation.
For example, Ben Green of State College, Penn., submitted the word “bailout” for the 2008 list, saying, “Use of emergency funds to remove toxic assets from banks’ balance sheets is not a bailout. When your cousin calls you from jail in the middle of the night, he wants a bailout.”
Paul Ruschmann of Canton, Mich., nominated “First Dude” because, “Skateboard English is not an appropriate way to refer to the spouse of a high-ranking public official.”
I encourage under-represented Coloradans to join in the fun by visiting www.lssu.edu/banished. Lists from previous years are posted on the site to get you up to speed
