It's Almost the New Year, So Let's Ban Some Words

It’s the last day of 2013 and therefore a good time to take out the trash. Let’s start by purging the English language of words that are overused, cliche and just plain annoying, shall we?

Lake Superior State University has just released its annual list of terms that deserve banishment in the forthcoming year. Compiled from submissions made throughout the year, it’s been a tradition since 1975. And in 2013, it was “selfie” that led the pack with the most nominations. It’s just not a necessary term, argues one nominator:

People have taken pictures of themselves for almost as long as George Eastman’s company made film and cameras. Suddenly, with the advent of smartphones, snapping a ‘pic’ of one’s own image has acquired a vastly overused term that seems to pop up on almost every form of social media available to us.

“Twerk” also made an appearance, probably because everyone is sick of their dads bringing it up. Also on the list:

Hashtag
“__ on steroids”
The suffixes “-ageddon” and “-pocalypse”
Obamacare
Adversity, specifically when used in reference to football

There are several puzzling inclusions, however, such as “Mister Mom” and “Twittersphere.” Both are stupid, but surely they’ve already fallen out of fashion. At least one commenter on LSSU’s Facebook page is very disappointed with this year’s work: “With the exception of selfie, this is a disappointing list. It is the most insignificant list you have published in recent years. I hope next year brings a more serious effort.”

I’d also suggest:

Meme
Any and every 50 Shades of Grey pun
“Literally” (you know who you are)

Feel free to nominate additional warts on our collective vocabulary for removal in the comments below!