(AP) — You, sir: Focus, if you will, on a historic, on fleek listicle containing words nominated for bigly banishment. But don’t convene a town hall meeting or get your dandruff up in the echo chamber over them.
Northern Michigan’s Lake Superior State University on Saturday released its 42nd annual List of Words Banished from the Queen’s English for Misuse, Overuse and General Uselessness.
The tongue-in-cheek, non-binding list comes from suggestions to the Sault Ste. Marie school. It includes “you, sir,” ”focus,” ”town hall meeting,” ”historic,” ”echo chamber,” “on fleek,” ”bigly,” ”listicle” and “get your dandruff up,” seemingly a substitute for “dander,” its hair and skin kin.
“Bigly” also made Merriam-Webster’s Top 10 for 2016. President-elect Donald Trump was fond this year of saying “big league” but making it sound like “bigly.”
Here are a selection of some words that made the list:
- You, Sir – A civilized term that they say doesn’t work in the age of Internet comment debates .
- Post-Truth – Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but not their own facts.
- Guesstimate – A guess is already an estimate.
- Historic – The university says the determination should be left up to historians, not the news media.
- On Fleek – The university thinks use of the term has strayed too far from its original reference to perfectly-groomed eyebrows.
- Bigly – This pronunciation of “big league” by president-elect Donald Trump also made Merriam Webster’s list of the 10 worst words of the year.
- Ghost – Whether it’s the word itself, or the practice of fading out communication that upset people who nominated the term, is unclear.
- Listicle – Yes, they recognize the irony of including the term for “top x” lists on this list.
You can find the entire list here.
