- BY:JARED OWENS AND SARAH ELKS
- From:The Australian
- January 02, 2012 12:00AM
LANGUAGE manglers beware: the buzzword “occupy” features prominently on a list of futile words and phrases the world’s grammarians want purged from the English language this year.
After submissions from incensed wordsmiths and literary fiends worldwide, a US university has published its annual blacklist of the most misused, overused and generally useless words it says should be banished.
In a sign our celebrity-heavy culture is going strong, the Lake Superior State University’s blacklist for 2012 includes several words routinely used by reality television personalities, talk-show hosts and gossip magazines.
“Amazing” topped the list this year, with linguists infuriated it is being used to describe seemingly mundane objects such as toast. “Every talk show uses this word at least two times every five minutes,” said contributor Martha Waszak of Michigan.
The term “baby bump” ran a close second, with linguists appalled the gift of life has been transformed into a celebrity accessory “or worse, when less-than-six-pack abs are suspected of being one”.
“Occupy” was nominated for its chameleon-like application to any gathering of the lower 99 per cent of income-earners. Examples provided by contributor Bill Drewes included “I guess we will occupy your office and have the meeting there” and “We are headed to Grandma’s house — Occupy Thanksgiving is under way.”
“Ginormous” made the cut, with one contributor saying: “No need to make a gigantic (idiot) out of yourself trying to find an enormous word for ‘big’.”
US presidential contenders were warned against the slogan “Win the future”, first used by Republican hopeful Newt Gingrich and repeated 10 times by President Barack Obama during last year’s State of the Union address.
Australian National University linguist Pauline Bryant vented her frustration at the “verbification” of nouns, such as leaders “summiting”, or athletes “medalling” and “podiuming”.
“They probably Christmassed and New Yeared too,” Dr Bryant told The Australian.
She said many people found political and corporate-speak particularly offensive, with the serial offenders including “road map”, rather than plan, and the ubiquitous “going forward”.
“I used to work with someone who never worked on a project or completed it — he carried it forward,” she said.
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