Banned words and banned apostrophes
There was a story two weeks ago that street sign makers in Birmingham officials have, since the 1950s, been dropping apostrophes in names such as “St. Pauls Square”. Now it is making the change official.
I thought of this, this week, as I walked past St Johns’s Street in London, and then read a review of the annual list of words that a university in America is banning (something it does each year).
The argument against apostrophes in Birmingham seems to be that “they confuse people” – which is interesting, since I would have thought with additional levels of education over the years people should now be less confused than before. Apparently they also confuse the emergency services – which seems rather reminiscent to the argument in the 1960s that we couldn’t have local radio stations because their broadcast would confuse aircraft.
Lake Superior State University’s list is perhaps more interesting.
The ubiquitous ‘Green’ and all of its variables, such as ‘going green,’ ‘building green,’ ‘greening,’ ‘green technology,’ ‘green solutions’ etc, was top of the list of annoying words and phrases.
Maverick was another word that was much overused and disliked, at least in the United States, most particularly in relation to the presidential campaign.
Bailout was also thought to have been overused in relation to every aspect of the economy, as suffered from being incredibly vague as to its meaning (“Is it a loan? Is it a purchase of assets by the government? Is it a gift made by the taxpayers?”)
“Wall Street / Main Street” was another economic phrase that annoyed – and indeed it becomes even more meaningless when repeated (as it has been) on UK radio stations.
And there is the use of the word “Monkey”. Anything on the internet now seems to have the word “Monkey” put at the end of it, for not apparent reason. Although I must say I do like the use of the word to signify a person who writes one line rebuttals to complex arguments posted on a blog. This use comes, I believe, from the tale that a bunch of the animals working on typewriters will eventually produce the work of Shakespeare. The link isn’t accurate or even correct, but still makes me smile.
Icon and iconic were reported for being horribly overused with the complaint that ”every actor, actress and entertainment magazine show overuses this.” And that’s the point. Not everyone and everything can be iconic. As one person writing to the university said, “It’s becoming the new ‘awesome’ – overused to the point where everything from a fast-food restaurant chain to celebrities is ‘iconic.’”
Staycation is a much hated new word (meaning having a holiday at home).
Desperate search is something the media reports when anything goes missing, and on the day when another set of people won another set of awards, there was annoyance at the reporting of “the winner of five nominations.” Such a person has won nothing – he/she has just been nominated.
It’s that time of year again, was also much disliked, and I agree totally with that – every other email advert I see seems to start with it.
Maybe we should start a list in this country, rather than just leave it to the Americans. Do let me know if you have any suggestions, and I will create a list on the www.schools.co.uk blog.