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No more using ‘epic’ or ‘viral,’ university list says

By Sarah Petz | January 3rd, 2011 | 3:15 pm

Lake Superior State University releases annual list of banished words

Words like “epic” and “viral” may be a common part of students’ vernacular, but could get you shunned by Lake Superior State University.

The college, located in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, released its annual list of “banished words”, words that were nominated by voters to be “banished” from people’s vocabulary for being chronically overused and misused.

Topping this year’s list were the words “viral” and “epic,” followed by “fail,” “wow factor,” former Alaska governor Sarah Palin’s “refudiate,” and the expressions “man-up” and “I’m just sayin.”

“Every time I see a viral video on CNN or am asked to ‘Let’s go viral with this’ in another lame e-mail forwarded message, it makes me sick,” Lian Schmidt of Bandon, Oregon, commented on the “viral” nomination on the university’s website.

The university has put out the list since 1976, when “at this point in time” received the honour, and receives more that 1 000 nominations for words to be stricken from society each year through its website. Past winners include “24/7″ in 2000 and “family values” in 1995.



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4 Responses to “No more using ‘epic’ or ‘viral,’ university list says”

  1. Tweets that mention No more using “epic” or “viral”, university list says – - Macleans OnCampus -- Topsy.com says:
    January 3, 2011 at 3:43 pm

    [...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by maconcampus, Almoonir Dewji. Almoonir Dewji said: No more using “epic” or “viral”: Lake Superior State University releases annual list of banished words (http://bit.ly/iblxNq) [...]

  2. Dress it up and torch it | Mark Blevis says:
    January 3, 2011 at 5:11 pm

    [...] debate about the word (which I’ll try not to repeat) picked up when it landed on a year-end list of banished words. I’m all for its banishment. However, the article got media attention. Which, of course, made [...]

  3. Tweets that mention No more using “epic” or “viral”, university list says – - Macleans OnCampus -- Topsy.com says:
    January 3, 2011 at 9:08 pm

    [...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Trever Clark, Follow Sarah Palin. Follow Sarah Palin said: Lake Superior State University releases annual list of banished words… http://goo.gl/fb/h00Nq #palin #teaparty [...]

  4. Think the list should have included Lol « Red Alert says:
    January 7, 2011 at 2:01 am

    [...] views on that expression are reasonably well known. Lake Superior State University releases annual list of banished words Topping this year’s list were the words “viral” and “epic,” followed by “fail,” [...]