Banished History
In 1977, one year after Lake Superior State University Public Relations Director W.T. (Bill) Rabe released the first “banished words list,” he said that the international reaction from news media and the public told him “it would go on forever.”
Forever may be stretching it, but the annual List of Words Banished from the Queen’s English for Mis-Use, Over-Use and General Uselessness has been going strong since New Year’s Day 1976 and shows no signs of stopping. People from around the world have nominated hundreds of words and phrases such as “you know,” “user friendly,” “at this point in time,” and “have a nice day,” to be purged from the language.
The tongue-in-cheek Banishment List began as a publicity ploy for little-known LSSU. The University, established in 1946, was opened as a branch of Michigan College of Mining and Technology to make room for returning World War II veterans. Lake Superior State College became autonomous in 1970 and developed into Lake Superior State University in 1987. It has grown from the tiny branch college into an institution offering more than 60 degree programs in fields such as engineering, fisheries and wildlife management, biology, criminal justice, nursing, teacher education and more.
In 1971, Rabe realized that Lake State was still largely thought of as a branch of Michigan Technological University, if it was known at all. To combat this image, he established the mythical Unicorn Hunters, along with events such as the annual Snowman Burning to welcome the first day of spring and, in 1976, the famous list of words.
In order to gain the most media coverage possible, the Banishment List is released each year on New Year’s Day. This is attributed to former newsman Rabe’s knowledge of the press. New Year’s Day is traditionally a slow news day.
The first list was dreamed up by Rabe and a group of friends at a New Year’s Eve party in 1975. The following day, he released the list and the rest, as they say, is history. Since then, nominations for words and expressions to be banished have been invited and accepted throughout the year.
After Rabe retired in 1987, the University copyrighted the concept and continued the tradition. The popularity of the effort shows no signs of dwindling. Hundreds of nominations are received each year, and LSSU Public Relations Office staff conduct dozens of news interviews, largely with radio stations throughout North America and sometimes overseas on all major networks, including Cable News Network, Associated Press, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and more.
Comments
Comment from Mel Furney
Time: January 1, 2007, 6:29 am
Congratulations for a good idea that really does work!
Happy New Year 2007!
Comment from S Noble
Time: January 1, 2007, 9:05 pm
I discovered your banished word site today via Yahoo! and have a question. What happened to using a dictionary and a thesaurus when writting a news article, or even a letter? Guess it’s become ‘cool’ to use words incorrectly, or make them up.
Comment from Michael G. Dworkin
Time: January 4, 2007, 8:03 am
I knew Bill Rabe personally back in the days (early 1960s) when he was a publicist at the University of Detroit.
He had a sense of humor that was one of the keenest of anyone I have ever known. Obviously, he was very creative, but more than that he was a genuinely nice person.
After all these years reading about the list of banished words I have finally been motivated to visit this website and am very, very pleased to see that Bill continues to receive the recognition he so deserves for your efforts.
Michael G. Dworkin, Ph.D.
Southfield, Michigan
Comment from Patti
Time: January 10, 2007, 4:59 pm
I am older and I go to College and I am sick of the following:
Dude, sweet and like. Need I say more
Comment from Doug
Time: January 1, 2008, 12:30 pm
Mr. Rabe is certainly a marketer extraordinaire. What great ideas. I would have loved to have been at one of those gatherings
Question: Is the banned word list a free for all or is it edited? I agree with much of what is listed and the reasons given, however I must disagree with some.
I understand this is a light hearted list but some words that appear can only be used in very specific applications. How can they appear on your list?
Comment from Tom G.
Time: January 1, 2008, 10:03 pm
I am a 44 yr old w/out a college degree now inspired to go back to college and attend LSSU!
Comment from Jeff
Time: January 2, 2008, 8:35 am
People, People, People.
Don’t blame the university for having fun in “banning” words. They’re not outlawing words or word usage. The tongue-in-cheek Banishment List began as a publicity ploy for little-known LSSU. The University, established in 1946, was opened as a branch of Michigan College of Mining and Technology to make room for returning World War II veterans. It simply gathers overused or extremely mis-used or made-up words that, in many instances, have overstayed their use and for other words might be better.
It’s not that serious. If you don’t agree with their having some fun with words, don’t read the list or at least don’t bother responding that they should have better things to do. If they should, shouldn’t (or don’t) you have better things to do than comment on a list of words gathered by others?
Comment from Ivan
Time: January 2, 2008, 10:08 am
Please add “craft (v.)” to your list. Thank you.
Comment from Judy Knapp
Time: December 31, 2008, 9:25 am
Thanks for your list of banished words. Two were especially obnoxious to me.
‘First Dude’? ‘Her husband’ sounds so much better.
The other was ’staycation’ I dispise putting parts of two words together to come up with one very irritating word, such as ‘flustration, guestimate,etc. I hope they never make the dictionary!
And surely ‘At the end of the day’ has made a list sometime in the past.
Keep up the good work!
Comment from Cindy Dobrez
Time: January 1, 2009, 3:02 pm
Can you correct the spelling of “cybrarian” in the 2000 list? It’s right in the search engine and in the list AtoZ of all banished words, but is misspelled in the entry itself as “cybarian.” I was posting a link on facebook to the current list to alert friends and mentioned my “fame” with the cybrarian entry and realized it was misspelled. Thanks.
Comment from Unscripted Blogs
Time: February 11, 2009, 6:43 pm
As the owner of a blog hosting site, a thought came across my mind while looking at the banished words list about a word we all hear so much of these days online…the word “blog”. According to Wikipedia, its origin lies in the mixing of the word “web” and “log” by Jorn Barger back in 1997. If thats the case, the word “blog” may be a misuse of the term “weblog” because they’re may not be a logical reason for splitting the we in web from the b that gets added to blog. I wonder what Bill Rabe would have to say on this issue.
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