No one holds a monopoly on cranky admonishments of popular parlance, but Lake Superior State University’s annual “List of Banished Words” does hold the distinction of admonishing longest. The 40th year’s list is now out, featuring words in the “get off my lawn” tradition (kids today, debasing the language with their “swag” and “baes,”), words suffering from topical overuse (LSSU is over the “Polar Vortex” and calling every innovation a “hack”), and words that are simply objectionable on principal (“enhanced interrogation techniques” and “Friend-raising”).
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