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Lake Superior State University celebrates the end of every year by releasing a List of Words to be Banished from the Queen's English for Misuse, Overuse and General Uselessness.
Nominations are collected throughout the year and the "winners" are announced on New Year's Eve.
Selfie was the banned word with the most nominations. One nomination of the word said: “People have taken pictures of themselves for almost as long as George Eastman's company made film and cameras. Suddenly, with the advent of smartphones, snapping a ‘pic’ of one's own image has acquired a vastly overused term that seems to pop up on almost every form of social media available to us…. A self-snapped picture need not have a name all its own beyond ‘photograph.’ It may only be a matter of time before photos of one's self and a friend will become ‘dualies.’ LSSU has an almost self-imposed duty to carry out this banishment now.”
Twerk/twerking also had many nominations. "Time to dance this one off the stage," said one nomination letter.
Hashtag also was banished. The university's release says: "We used to call it the pound symbol. Now it is seeping from the Twittersphere into everyday expression. Nearly all who nominated it found a way to use it in their entries, so we wonder if they’re really willing to let go. #goodluckwiththat"
Further, this year's list suggests ending all the words that are created by adding "aggedon" or "pocalypse" to some other word.
Other words and phrases banished by Lake Superior State this year:
- Twittersphere
- Mister Mom
- T-bone
- ____ on steroids
- Intellectually/morally bankrupt
- Adversity (in athletics)
- Fan base (in athletics)
