Banning words: is it a good idea?
It seems that I am not the only person who wants to fight back against the conspirators. Word is on the blogosphere that Lake Superior State University has ‘banished’ some words.
These include shovel-ready – which means ready to be implemented – and teachable moment, which is apparently a lesson.
I was thrilled to see chillaxin’ appear on this list. In the dog-eat-dog world of B2B editing, I am often told to chillax. Funnily enough, I always assumed that chillax isn’t really a word at all, but a hideous hybrid constructed by my tormentors purely to wind me up.
Lake Superior’s list also includes economic words and phrases, which include toxic assets, stimulus and in these economic times.
But there are some words that I think we should definitely keep and are perfectly harmless when used in the proper context:
- transparent / transparency
- czar
- tweet.
I was puzzled by the inclusion of these words on the list. After all, Lake Superior State University says on the very same webpage:
“A History [sic] degree will prepare you for entry-level work in industry and government as well as prepare you for graduate or professional schools.”
Presumably they’re talking about all history, including world history that might make reference to Russia. They also flag up their ‘Fisheries and Wildlife Mgmt’ course in the top right hand corner. Surely such an establishment can find room for a word like tweet?
That seems to be the problem with banning, or even ‘banishing’, words: it’s not so much the words that are hard to understand but they way they’re strung together and whether the person using them is:
a) deliberately trying to confuse
b) trying to look like they know more than they do
c) or just isn’t thinking clearly.
On this side of the Atlantic we have a similar list of words that is trotted out every so often by the Local Government Association (LGA). This list includes everyday words like welcome, ambassador, agencies, customer and vision – all perfectly harmless in their usual contexts.
What I particularly like is that the LGA have helpfully offered some alternatives to the words they seek to ban. Here’s just a sample:
- Vision – ideal/dream/belief
- Visionary – ideal/dream/belief
- Welcome – necessary and needed/step in the right direction
- Wellbeing – healthy
- Worklessness – unemployed
And so far no one has told them that they’ve got their definitions wrong. You cannot, after all, substitute an adjective for a noun.
Better still where they don’t know what the definition is, they’ve just written ‘Why use at all?’
Well, exactly.
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