With Luck, They’ll Die With the Old Year
Lake Superior State University has recommended the banishment of 16 words and phrases from the English language, including "Brangelina" and "ask your doctor." The annual list targets expressions that are irritating, overused or generally ill-applied.Lake Superior State University has recommended the banishment of 16 words and phrases from the English language, including “Brangelina” and “ask your doctor.” The annual list targets expressions that are irritating, overused or generally ill-applied.
WAIT BEFORE YOU GO...AP:
The list reads like a lexicon of popular culture.
Take “ask your doctor,” the mantra of pharmaceutical commercials. The university called it “the chewable vitamin morphine of marketing.”
Critics piled on the media’s practice of combined celebrity names such as “TomKat” or “Brangelina.” One said, “It’s so annoying, idiotic and so lame and pathetic that it’s “lamethetic.'”
Real estate listings were targeted for overuse of “boast.” As in “master bedroom boasts his-and-her fireplaces – never ‘bathroom apologizes for cracked linoleum,’ ” quipped Morris Conklin of Portugal.
It wasn’t hard to find the phrase “gone/went missing” in 2006. “It makes ‘missing’ sound like a place you can visit, such as the Poconos. Is the person missing, or not?” asked Robin Dennis of Texas.
This year, the ground feels uncertain — facts are buried and those in power are working to keep them hidden. Now more than ever, independent journalism must go beneath the surface.
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