Of course we love words. But certain words have become so overused and banal that we’re thinking it might be time to consider an early retirement.
I recently asked on Twitter and the forum: What word would you nominate to retire from common English usage?
There were many impassioned nominations for retirement. Most frequently nominated words: synergy, utilize and bling.
It’s not difficult to recognize that most of the words nominated for retirement are words such as “synergy” and “leverage” that have been abused through bland corporate-speak. Other frequent offenders ready for retirement include teen-speak words long past their prime such as “awesome” and “bling.”
Here’s the official Editor Unleashed list of words we’d like to nominate for retirement.
@glecharles “Synergy, Guru and Advertise”
@LouisBClark “Collateralize”
@dinajames “Restructure”
@Thandelike “Interesting and Meaningful”
@thursdayb “The word Synergize makes me break out in hives”
@nancydevine “Impacted’”
@MuchAdo1 “Actuality”
@genealogy_va “Partner has been completely hijacked from regular usage”
@EditorJ “Irregardless makes me cringe every time I hear it.”
@readandbreathe “Interesting”
@annschilling “Guaranteed”
@sarahevekelly “Resource used as a verb.”
@BellaStander “Incentivize”
@davidbrewster “Incentivate. Not sure it was a word to start with.”
@jeangreenberg “She was, like, dude, and I was, like, I know. And it was like, wow.”
@jen_fontaine “Leverage”
@futurescape “Strategy”
@christinerose “Appropriate”
@cindyscottday “Oust input & output”
@axerickson “Obtained”
@kevinjmackey “Utilize. What’s missing from the verb ‘to use?’ ”
@michellewitte “Bling”
@mattbucher “Repurpose”
@LeafyVC “Albeit”
@thephatbunny “Irregardless”
@QuinnCreative “Proactive”
@ChrisRomer “Awesome”
@ghirsch711 “Bandwidth, except for its literal meaning”
@mariaschneider “Monetize”
What words would you like to add to our retirement list? Please share here in the comments or join in the forum discussion.
And a big thanks to all who contributed!
-Maria Schneider
flickr photo by tamaleaver
{ 1 trackback }
{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }
“Extreme,” “X” anything and “i” anything. Also “panty.” I feel silly just typing that word.
More a term than a word, Politically Correct, there is nothing so incorrect as a term that has been altered for political reasons. Call a spade a spade and be done with it!
@b2beditor “in order to”, “prior to”, “whether”, “in the event that”
Hella, that word should definitely be destroyed.
“Disrespect” used as a verb.
“Conversate”.
I’m tired of hearing about when something “informs” our decision, etc.
I’m with Claire…politally correct. But also, I’ll throw in “modernity” and “post-modern”. I’m tired of it!
“Conceptualize”
A word I’d like to retire from my vocabulary is “nice,” because all too often I use it in conversation and every time I mentally thump myself on the head, thinking “couldn’t I have come up with a more descriptive term than ‘nice’ for I am a writer and reader.” A second one that I use way too often as a substitute for a better word is “interesting,” so maybe that one should be out the door as well.
“Disconnect,” as in, “There is a disconnect in the public’s belief about what is proper word usage and what is not.”
“Actually” when it adds nothing of value to a statement, such as: “I am actually going to the beach.” or “He actually said that!”
“No problem” as when you ACTUALLY mean: “you’re welcome”
“Counter-intuitive” – a deeply dishonest word, invariably used as a substitute for “illogical” or “contrary to expectation” to describe phenomena that are in fact illogical or contrary to expectation. I’m guessing it’s the invention of people who live by logic & want to persuade the rest of us that our intuition can’t be trusted.