All Posts Tagged With: "New Year"

“Solidarity,” “Shame,” “Any form of rhyming couplet”

In the spirit of starting anew and poking fun at the pundits, the pedantic folks at Lake Superior State University have released their 36th annual List of Banished Words for 2011. The words deemed ready for outcast include Palinisms such as “refudiate” and “Mamma Grizzlies,” social media quips “viral” and “epic,” and a variety other terms lambasted for their “Mis-use, Over-use and General Uselessness.”

The list, of course, is nothing short of inspiring. So I figured, why not clean up our post-secondary vocabulary as well? After all, higher education discourse practically leads the way in terms of useless redundancies. So here is my in-no-way exhaustive list of post-secondary words to be banned for 2011:

5. Solidarity

I think it’s about time students put their “Lexicon of Historical Oppression” away. The Cold War is over.

4. Free Speech

A hot-button topic for students and faculty, let’s finally put this one to bed. Free speech is upheld as a cherished right, unless speakers let loose with verbal “owies.” There—now we can stop talking about it.

3. Any form of rhyming couplet

“Education is a right/ We will not give up the fight!”
Aha! They have to take us seriously now that we’ve employed a catchy verse…

2. Scholarly

Used only by academics to describe their own academic work. No wonder they’re so popular.

1. Shame

Typically chanted in a large crowd and directed at an individual, economic system, corporation, idea, artistic concept, diatribe or ambiguous group of offensive persons, this word has the political austerity of a toddler refusing to eat his veggies. Try a new tactic for 2011.

Feel free to add below.