For the last 38 years, Lake Superior State University has been leading the battle against jargon, acronyms, overuse, and pointlessness in the English language.  It hasn’t always been a successful fight, but importantly someone’s fighting against garbage words like mancave, viral, and the like.  The 38th annual List of Words to be Banished from the Queen’s English for Misuse, Overuse and General Uselessness has been released, and it’s a pretty comprehensive mixed bag of tech jargon, internet speak, trends, and politics.

Adding to the list of nearly 900 banned words are passionate, YOLO, spoiler alert, bucket list, trending, superfood, boneless wings, guru, double down, job creators, and kick the can down the road.  As far as I’m concerned, the sooner we can kill off non-ironic usage of YOLO and everyone calling themselves a guru of something, the better.  As for boneless wings, I’m okay with them, because it’s all the awesomeness of buffalo wings and none of the distraction of having to eat around a wing bone.

Tags: banned words, banned word list, banned words for 2013, 2013 banned words list, lexicon, lexicography, 38th annual banned words list, List of Words to be Banished from the Queen’s English for Misuse Overuse and General Uselessness, Lake Superior State University, Michigan, overused words, yolo

I’ve never had a problem eating food from a gas station.  Just two weeks ago, I ate a couple of hot dogs purchased from a gas station.  They were delicious.  That’s not the first time I’ve eaten gas station food, and I doubt it will be the last.  There’s nothing like a fun food novelty. […]

Commissioner Roger Goodell gathered 32 NFL owners for one big question.  One of the league’s most wanderlust-stricken franchises is looking to move again.  The Oakland-Los Angeles-Oakland Raiders, tired of gutting it out in a run-down stadium, were once again looking for greener pastures.  Only the Miami Dolphins refused to cooperate.  With a vote of 31-1, […]

In 2006, an injury to Dallas Cowboys starting quarterback Drew Bledsoe opened the door for an undrafted free agent by the name of Tony Romo to take the helm of America’s Team and lead the Dallas Cowboys to an early playoff exit.  Bledsoe went from starter to afterthought in a season.  Now, the circle continues […]

For 89 years, Oscars has never had a major mistake.  The last few Oscars might have had a few flubs, but at least they never got the most important category of the night wrong.  Well, that’s now changed, all thanks to OG Bonnie and Clyde legends Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway.  When Faye Dunaway called […]

Tom Brady has been wildly successful, if controversial.  He’s the first quarterback ever to win five Super Bowls and only the second player to do so after Charles Haley.  Unlike Haley, Brady won all his Super Bowls with the same team, the New England Patriots.  The only thing that seems to be able to stop […]

Ben Affleck, no matter what you might think of him, is a talented actor and director.  He’s got the goods, but he’s smart enough to know when he’s in over his head.  All along, since he took on the mantle of Batman, he’s had his eyes on writing, directing, and starring as the Caped Crusader. […]

In May, students for the for-profit American College of Education were running into some problems.  Their access to email accounts and course information was locked down by Google, who had disabled their accounts.  The reason why?  A fired IT worker for the American College of Education locked the school out of their Google cloud account. […]