SARAH KARUSH
Associated Press
DETROIT - No up-or-down vote necessary: Everyone from persons of interest to first-time callers will agree that 2005 offered more than its share of irritating words and phrases.
Lake Superior State University on Saturday released its 2006 "List of Words and Phrases Banished from the Queen's English for Mis-Use, Over-Use and General Uselessness." They were selected by a university committee among almost 2,000 nominations.
The small academic outpost in the Upper Peninsula community of Sault Ste. Marie has been compiling the list since 1976 as a way to attract publicity. Among the nearly 800 words banned so far are "metrosexual" (2004), "chad" (2001), "baby boomers" (1989) and "detente" (1976).
Heading into 2006, the committee targeted such linguistic gems as "hunker down," which it noted is used by media "in reports about everything from politics to hurricanes."
Also frequently heard on the news is "person of interest," a favorite of law enforcement agencies. Such a person is "seldom encountered at cocktail parties," the list's authors noted.
Not all the words came from the evening news, however. "Community of learners" is a phrase from the field of education. "Not to be confused with 'school,'" wrote one critic, Jim Howard, of Indiana.
Politics offered plenty of fodder for the list. The committee cited "up-or-down vote," a phrase uttered often in 2005 by Republicans eager to see President Bush's judicial nominees move quickly through the Senate, without the threat of a Democratic filibuster.
The committee also banished "FEMA," the acronym for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, whose operations in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina were widely criticized as ineffective.
"If they don't do anything, we don't need their acronym," wrote Josh Hamilton, of Tucson, Ariz.
Many of the phrases banned this year are not new, but simply got under enough people's skin to finally deserve the dubious honor.
Miguel McCormick, of Orlando, Fla., for example, was fed up with "first-time caller," a designation heard on talk radio.
"I am serious in asking: Who in any universe gives a care?" he asked.
Banished words: http://www.lssu.edu/banished
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