Don't Say It! Ten Banned Words

Don't Say It! 10 Banned Words

What do "sexting," "tweet" and "bromance" have in common? They should all be banned! So say the guardians of the English language, whose day jobs are at Lake Superior State University in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan. This group annually takes on the role of word police by collecting a list of words and phrases that we have used so much they have become annoying. The solution? Ban them!

Here are 10 of the banned words and phrases on the 2010 list that were winnowed down from hundreds of entries:

1. Shovel-ready: Stick a shovel in it. It's done.

2. Czar: We have appointed a czar of such-and-such; clearly that's better than a leader, coordinator or director!

3. Tweet (and all of its variations: tweetaholic, retweet, twitterhea, twitterature, twittersphere...): People tweet and retweet, and it's used so many times, it's lost its meaning.

4. App: Is there an app for making this annoying word go away? Why can't we just call them programs again?

5. Sexting: Any dangerous new trend that also happens to have a clever mash-up of words, involves teens and gets television talk show hosts interested, must be banished.

6. Teachable moment: This phrase is used to describe everything from potty-training to politics. It's time to vote it out!

7. Toxic assets: Whatever happened to simply saying bad stocks, debts or loans?

8. Too big to fail: Does such a thing exist? We'll never know if a company is too big to fail, unless somehow it does fail and then it will no longer be too big to fail. Make it stop!

9. Bromance: We're sick of combined words the media create to make them sound catchier, including frenemies, bromances and blogorrhea?

10. Chillaxin': Heard everywhere from MTV to ESPN to CNN, this bothersome term seeks to combine chillin' with relaxin'--and it should get an axin'.