“To be sure, COVID-19 is unprecedented in wreaking havoc and destroying lives, but so is the overreliance on ‘unprecedented’ to frame things, so it has to go, too.” — LSSU Banished Words List committee members
“I know, right?” The irony is this popular statement of empathy or agreement was included in this year’s annual banished words list from Lake Superior State University. As things change, so does our lexicon evolve to reflect our culture.
Dedication: I dedicate this musing about words as a tribute to friend and fellow writer, Lewis Bosworth Jr., who died on Thursday, November 4, 2021.
“Lewis was many things to many people, for me, we’d see each other annually at the Wisconsin Film Festival, compare notes, critiques, and recommendations about the films we saw, shared our writing and poetry with each other; he was my most loyal reader of my blog, Mixed Metaphors, Oh My! and I will treasure his encouraging words. His reputation as a poet and writer gave his words more value.”
Wordplay Backstory
When I began blogging and created Mixed Metaphors, Oh My! it was a way to practice and share my writing, to play with words, share reminiscences of my lived experiences, and comment on culture and politics.
I’ve been writing for as long as I can remember, beginning when my father taught me to print my name and tie my shoes before I began kindergarten. I love my father, though we challenge each other and have done so for as long as I can remember. We are cut from the same cloth (there I go, playing with words), auditory, stubborn and sometimes willful. We both also possess a strong visual acuity and a tendency for artistic flair. Dad was a sign-painter for a hardware store in one of his earliest jobs. I became a screenprinter early in my work life.
My first and middle name in Dad’s cursive style.
When I first learned to print my name, I wanted to add a flourish to the capital ‘L’, a hump. My father and I had an argument as he attempted to convince me that my ‘L’ looked like a lowercase ‘h.’ I satisfied his instructions that day, yet I began writing my own name in my own way. Today in my signature, the ‘L’ in my first name has a slight, playful, hump.
I kept — and abandoned — diaries when I was a child. I became a storyteller like both my father and maternal grandmother, enjoying and retelling the oral history of my family. When my sister Roz and I would put on backyard carnivals as children, I became ‘Linda Binda’ part Charlie Chaplin mime, part Lucille Ball and acted-out stories, misadventures of my character. I wrote my first play before I became a teen, Wienerstein, a satire on the Frankenstein story.
Around the age of 16, I began to assert my independence and adulthood. The family often told stories and caught up with each others lives after Sunday Dinner. Mom would make two roasts, a beef and pork roast with mashed potatoes, gravy, a vegetable, applesauce and white bread and butter and afterwards we’d retreat to the living room before we’d do homework, read the Sunday papers, or watch television. One Sunday, after some family storytelling, gossip, or teasing, in a playful moment, I threatened my family that someday I would write a book about our family. My mother responded, “I look forward to reading it!”
While in middle school I’d discover new words that I’d add to my everyday vocabulary, words like ‘indubitably’ became a trademark answer to express my enthusiastic agreement.
In high school I was the first editor of the J. I. Case High School Newspaper as a junior in Racine, Wisconsin. We didn’t have a senior class since it was a brand-new school. We held a contest in our journalism class to name the school paper. My entry was chosen, Just In Case. Yes, my legacy, a play on words.
Just In Case, Editor-in-Chief, 1967
That summer I attended a high school journalism workshop at the University of Wisconsin – Madison. I knew that summer at the age of 17 in 1967, that one day, Madison would be my home, and writing would be a lifelong avocation.
As a young adult I began writing sophomoric, moody, sentimental poetry, often about love. Yes, I’m that girl. What I liked about writing poetry was the exercise of selecting the essential words that would create the imagery and express the emotions or message of the piece.
In my work life, after becoming a sales account manager for the screenprinting company where I worked, I honed my business writing skills. I drafted quotes and project proposals, marketing communications, and more. Later, I worked as a print buyer and production manager for a graphic design and recycled giftwrap company, a book sales representative for a publishing company, project manager for a public relations firm, and a business development center manager in a number of positions. Graphic, sales, and marketing communications, plus public relations, became a growing skill set.
I restarted the practice of journaling which I had abandoned as a child, when I entered a recovery program for alcohol and other substances and behavior which no longer served me. My recovery journals were a form of meditation and a self-examination tool. The journals became a roadmap of my journey of my recovery. Later, I started and again abandoned journals when I resolved the issues. Thirteen years ago, when my last committed partnership ended and I began living alone, I’ve journaled continuously. As a result, I became a writer by writing.
The past almost four decades, I’ve written and published poetry chapbooks, spoken word monologues, short plays, stand-up comedy routines, reminiscences, and as a novice creator and coproducer of a web series, Hotel Bar, I’ve continued to write and tell stories. Almost eight years ago, I began my blog, Mixed Metaphors, Oh My! whose tagline is, “A place where words, this writer, and readers play together.” I’m a founding member of LGBTQ+ Activist Writers group, and currently a member of an LGBTQ+ writers’ group, Write On.
Banished Words of 2021
Each year, Lake Superior State University (LSSU) in Wisconsin publishes a banished word list. I was late in accessing this year’s list, though I’ve been paying close attention to the words that are overused in the media, daily conversations, and social media, including by me. My personal pet peeve and overused word is unprecedented. Everything in politics and our personal lives during the pandemic cannot ALL be unprecedented. I share the 2021 Banished Words List from LSSU below:
LSSU Banished Words List
2021 Banished Words List
“It should surprise no one that this year’s list was dominated by words and terms related to COVID-19,” said Peter Szatmary, executive director of marketing and communications. “LSSU’s Banished Words List has reflected signs of the times since debuting in the mid-1970s, and the zeitgeist this year is: We’re all in this together by banishing expressions like ‘We’re all in this together.’ To be sure, COVID-19 is unprecedented in wreaking havoc and destroying lives. But so is the overreliance on ‘unprecedented’ to frame things, so it has to go, too.
LSSU Banished Word List 2021
LSSU has compiled an annual Banished Words List since 1976 to uphold, protect, and support excellence in language by encouraging avoidance of words and terms that are overworked, redundant, oxymoronic, clichéd, illogical, nonsensical—and otherwise ineffective, baffling, or irritating. Over the decades, LSSU has received tens of thousands of nominations for the list, which now totals more than 1,000 entries. This year, nominations came from most major U.S. cities and many U.S. states, as well as from Australia, the Czech Republic, England, and Canada. Here are the list of the banished words and terms for 2021 and the reasons for their banishment:
- COVID-19 (COVID, coronavirus, Rona)
A large number of nominators are clearly resentful of the virus and how it has overtaken our vocabulary. No matter how necessary or socially and medically useful these words are, the committee cannot help but wish we could banish them along with the virus itself. Coincidentally, this list arrives as does a vaccine—the committee hopes this proves a type of double whammy.
- Social distancing
This phrase is useful, as wearing a mask and keeping your distance have a massive effect on preventing the spread of infection. But we’d be lying if we said we weren’t ready for this phrase to become “useless.” With north of 50 nominations, many others clearly feel the same, and the tone of their reasoning ranged from impatient to heartfelt.
- We’re all in this together
This phrase was likely intended as a way to keep everyone feeling safe and calm at the start of the pandemic. However, as the virus made its way across the globe and nation, it became clear that we are all dealing with COVID-19 in different ways and that we confront some vastly different challenges in coping with it. As with many words that show up on the list, its usefulness has faded.
- In an abundance of caution (various phrasings)
Yes, humanity needs to follow safeguards during COVID-19. The statistics are sobering: more than 342,000 deaths and more than 19 million confirmed cases in the U.S. and more than 1.8 million deaths and more than 82 million confirmed cases worldwide. But the phrasing about how to take preventative steps is vague. What is the standard measurement for caution, metric or U.S. standard?
- In these uncertain times (various phrasings)
The committee agrees that COVID-19 has upended everyday life and wishes this weren’t so. But putting things into imprecise context doesn’t help matters. The blur dilutes reality and, to some, sounds like the beginning of a movie trailer. Keep as wide a berth of trite parlance as those who don’t wear masks in public. What exactly does it mean for times to be uncertain? Look at a clock!
- Pivot
Reporters, commentators, talking heads, and others from the media reference how everyone must adapt to the coronavirus through contactless delivery, virtual learning, curbside pickup, video conferencing, remote working, and other urgent readjustments. That’s all true and vital. But basketball players pivot; let’s keep it that way.
- Unprecedented
It’s unheard of that a word would be repeated on the Banished Words List. Actually, it’s not. In the early years, words wound up repeated, although we try to avoid repetition nowadays. Despite the fact that “unprecedented” was banished in 2002, given that it was nominated many times this year for misuse in describing events that do have precedent, inclusion again seems warranted.
2021 Banished Words and Terms Not About COVID-19:
- Karen
What began as an anti-racist critique of the behavior of white women in response to Black and Brown people has become a misogynist umbrella term for critiquing the perceived overemotional behavior of women. As one nominator said about reasons for its banishment, “I would tell you why, but I’d sound like a Karen.” Another critic observed, “Offensive to all normal people named Karen.”
- Sus
It’s a shortened version for “suspicious” in the video game Among Us. No committee members play, but our children who do explained that this multiplayer online social game is designed around identifying “sus” imposters so they can be “thrown into the lava.” Complainers a) ask: How much effort does it take to say the entire word; and b) request: If that can’t happen, confine the syllable to the gaming world.
- I know, right?
An amusing phrase flooding social media, “I know, right?” is a relatively new construction to convey empathy with those who have expressed agreement. But as one wordsmith put it, if you know, why do you need to ask if it’s correct or seek further approval? Another grammarian suggested that the desire for confirmation connotes insecurity. In other words, it’s reiterating something already seconded.
Banished Words 2022
LSSU announced on New Year’s Eve the Banished Words for 2022. Wait, What? tops the list.
The phrase topped Lake Superior State University in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula lighthearted list of 10 “winners” chosen from among more than 1,250 submissions of overused, misused and generally groan-inducing words or phrases.
2022 LSSU Banished Words
New Words Bonus Edition
From the online edition of Merriam-Webster and the Words at Play feature, new words were added to the dictionary for October 2021, an update off 455 new words, in the following categories:
- Culture and Community
- More Coronavirus Words
- Words from Tech and Science
- Words from Politics
- Words About Food
- Words from the World of Medicine
- Words from Pop Culture
- Other Notable Terms
To read the total list from Merriam Webster, New Words Added to the Dictionary October, 2021
Epilogue
Words and wordplay reflect our culture, daily discourse, and are fun, “I know, right?”
Related Reading from Mixed Metaphors Oh My!
Words Matter II: Trump’s Demagoguery
Words Matter: The Seven Banned Words of 2017
Additional Reading on the Topic
“Wait, What?” Quip Tops University’s Annual Banished Words List (2022)
New Words Added to the Dictionary October, 2021
One Month Remains to Submit Words and Phrases to Banish in 2022