(Newser)
– While vaccines are being launched to combat COVID-19, word makers at Lake State State University in Michigan say they want to release any trace of the English language term. Seven of the main words or phrases selected for 2021 for the school’s annual collection of banned words and phrases are virus-related, with “COVID-19” at the forefront. “Unprecedented,” which was banished in 2002, has been reinstated on the list, according to the AP. It launches “Coronavirus” and “social distancing,” along with “we’re all together,” “very cautious,” and “in these uncertain times.” Of the more than 1,450 applications submitted to the school, about 250 words and terms suggested for exile due to overuse, misuse or uselessness had something to do with the virus.
“Certainly, COVID-19 is unprecedented in wreaking havoc and destroying lives,” committee members on the list of exiled words said in a statement on Thursday. “But so is over-reliance on ‘unprecedented’ to frame things, so it has to go, too.” Sault Ste. Marie compiles the list every year since 1976 to “defend, protect and support excellence in language by encouraging the avoidance of overworked, redundant, oxymoronic, clichéd, illogical words and terms , absurd, and otherwise ineffective, baffling, or irritating. “The non-virus-related words and phrases that made the top cut include” pivot, “” Karen, “” sus “(short for” suspect “) and “I know, don’t you?” “In a small way, perhaps this list will help‘ flatten the curve, ’which was also being considered for exile,” LSSU President Rodney Hanley said in a statement. “We are confident that your ‘new normal’ (another candidate among the nominations) for next year will no longer have to include this.”
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