Lake Superior State University Banished Words List

“IT IS WHAT IT IS”

The wordsmiths at Lake Superior State University are giving back to English speakers everywhere with their 33rd annual List of Words Banished from the Queen's English for Misuse, Overuse and General Uselessness.

On Dec. 31, 1975, former LSSU Public Relations Director Bill Rabe and his colleagues cooked up an idea to banish overused words and phrases and issue a list on New Year's Day. Much to the delight of language enthusiasts everywhere, the list has stayed the course into a fourth decade.

This year's list derives from more than 2,000 nominations received through the university's website, www.lssu.edu/banished. Word-watchers target pet peeves from everyday speech, as well as from the news, education, technology, advertising, politics, sports and more. A committee makes a final cut in late December. The list is released on New Year's Day.

Over the years, some copycat lists have made an appearance, but LSSU's list was first.

This year, in a gesture of humanitarian relief, the committee restores "truthiness," banned on last year's list, to formal use. This comes after comedians and late-night hosts were thrown under the bus and rendered speechless by a nationwide professional writers' strike. The silence is deafening.

In this spirit, LSSU presents its 2008 list, a perfect storm of overused and abused words and phrases that pops organic, to a post-9/11 world decimated by webinars.

It is what it is.

On to the 2008 Banished Words List...