Banned words List offers no 'bailout' to offenders

DETROIT – A movie about a "maverick," his journey "from Wall Street to Main Street," his "desperate search" for a "monkey" and a "game-changing" revelation about his "carbon footprint" probably would make the nation's word-watchers physically ill.

Especially if it were the "winner of five nominations."

All those words and phrases are on Lake Superior State University's annual List of Words to Be Banished from the Queen's English for Mis-use, Over-use and General Uselessness. The 34th version of the list was released Tuesday, which means, "It's that time of year again."

The school in Michigan's Upper Peninsula selected 15 entries from about 5,000 nominations.

Despite the year's economic meltdown (which itself wasn't banished but don't rule it out for next year), the most entries came from the environmental category — for "green" or "going green."

"If I see one more corporation declare itself 'green,' I'm going to start burning tires in my backyard," wrote Ed Hardiman of Bristow, Va., in his submission. Nominators also had their fill of "carbon footprint" — the amount of greenhouse gases an individual's lifestyle produces.

The list wasn't overrun with politics despite the national election — no "change," for instance — but one simply couldn't escape the critics' wrath.

"I'm a maverick, he's a maverick, wouldn't you like to be a maverick, too?" offered Michael Burke of Silver Spring, Md., in his entry for the label embraced by unsuccessful Republican presidential candidate John McCain.

Also knocked was "first dude," a term adopted by Todd Palin, husband of McCain's running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.

Words related to the economy led to a few meltdowns.

"I am so tired of hearing about everything affecting 'Main Street.' I know that with the 'Wall Street' collapse, the comparison is convenient, but really, let's find another way to talk about everyman or the middle class, or even, heaven forbid, 'Joe the Plumber.'" wrote Stacey from Knoxville, Tenn. She provided only a first name in her bid to eradicate — or at least separate — Wall Street" and "Main Street."

Although this year's sluggish economy and record rise in gas prices may have kept people closer to home, the word coined for it, "staycation," is "idiotic and rootless," says Michele Mooney of Los Angeles.

An emoticon made the list for the first time. The strings of characters used in e-mails and text-messaging commonly represent a face — like ;-) or :-0 — but the school singled out an emoticon heart, formed with a "less than" symbol and the number 3.

"Monkey" was on the list because of what some see as its rampant use as a suffix. "Especially on the Internet, many people seem to think they can make any boring name sound more attractive just by adding the word 'monkey' to it," wrote Rogier Landman of Sommerville, Mass.

The school's annual quest to throw lexicon logs on the fire always gets some end-of-the-year attention for the school in Sault Ste. Marie, the last stop before Michigan's northern border crossing with Canada. But the list is more about letting off steam and offering laughs than performing any verbal vanishing act.

"We get several nominations for the same word or phrase, and we still get nominations for words and phrases that have been on previous years' lists," said university spokesman Tom Pink.

"'At this point in time' was on the first list in 1976 and it continues to be nominated every year. People still hate it."

Think these gendarmes of jargon should "get a life"? Watch it, kiddo. That phrase was banished in 1997.

i haven't posted since i was twenty two.

hello! so...i had a wonderful birthday. more fun than i could shake a stick at. we went to bar louie in legacy village. lots of wonderful friends came - i had lots of fun, maybe even a little too much fun, lol.

so now, i'm twenty three. i'm excited, it's my favorite number! so many people have been telling me that twenty three is a good year. we'll see!

xoxo

take me to the water.

another interesting weekend spent in my hometown area.

the reason we went down this weekend was because my uncle chuckie invited us to come and see him get baptized and also to attend the church service afterward. for anyone who doesn't know my uncle chuckie, physically and mentally abused as a child by his father, he is a drug user, an alcoholic, sometimes racist when under the influence, and all around not your choice type of fellow. he was the only person wasted at my wedding. a wedding where there was no open bar - simply wine. he was arrested later that night. so anyway, he lives right across the street from a black baptist church. they'd often notice my uncle outside or doing whatever it is that he does, and they would walk over to his house and ask him to help with something at the church, help him unload a truck, etcetera. as time passed, chuckie would just walk over to see if anything needed to be done, if there was anything he could help with. as time passed a friendship grew between some of the men at the church and my uncle. (many of them had already had known my uncle from back in high school - and from the fact that wellsville is a very small town). out of the friendship, they began inviting him to church. he began to have some sense of community, of worth, there were a few people who believed in him. this led to him being baptized and giving his life to Christ this past weekend. it was pretty amazing. he still has a long way to go, but he was so excited about what he did. he looks as if he has some hope in his eyes. i pray that the lord guards this planted seed and that it grows to abundance.

besides my uncle receiving baptism, there were many other interesting things that came out of going to this church. there were so many people there from my past.

there was a lady there that my parents and i used to live next door to. i used to play in her yard and steal vegetables out of her garden when i was about three years old. she came up to me and gave me a huge hug. she told me about her husband and how he is still gardening. they lost their thirty-eight year old son last month to kidney failure & diabetes. all through worship i couldn't help but notice her. her hands were so high in the air, praising god, she sang so beautifully.

i met a man named derek who was in the men's choir. my mom introduced him and told me that he was the best man in her and my biological father's wedding. it wasn't a big deal to them, but, to me it was like meeting a celebrity or something. i just wanted to make him sit down with me and answer every question i had. it was so surreal to watch someone who was doing so well. he had god, he had a beautiful wife and two little girls, he had good friends surrounding him. he had, what seemed to me, a normal life. crazy to think that he used to be close enough to my father to be his best man. their lives are so opposite now.

i met my stepfather's cousin, who i had actually met several years before. he was a very sweet guy - polar opposite from my stepfather, if i may say. my mom teased him about stealing my name for his daughter. her name is "jocelyn." we joked about how if he was going to steal my name, he could have at least spelled it right. i even got to meet jocelyn. she was beautiful.

and last but not least - there was this little girl, none of us knew her or her parents, but she was probably about four years old. she just kept following me around everywhere. holding my hand, sitting on my lap. if you didn't know it you would have thought she was my child. she was absolutely adorable. her dad had to keep coming to get her. so funny!

all in all, it was a good weekend. i really gave it all to the lord. it has been hard for me to go down there and spend a lot of time with my family. there is just this spirit of hopelessness. listen to kris vallaton's teaching "from paupers to princes." it explains it perfectly.

new age craziness.

i had the weirdest dream last night.

hiya.

i've been away a bit too long. gotta update before i lose my blogging streak.

firstly, i just wanted to make it clear that in my previous blog entry, when i was speaking about how i felt about dan & the other guys at the usmc ball, i was in no way promoting war. i hate war. dan hates war. it's awful for families, governments, the environment - everything. we can't wait until jesus returns and war is thrown into the pit forever. but, because we live in a world consumed by sin, ("big S" Sin and "little s" sin...) war is inescapable. country will come against country. nation against nation, blah blah. and i am proud of the men who will chose to step up and protect their country. who chose to go even when the don't want to. who have a sense of duty. the men who know that even if they decide they would rather not go and put themselves into danger - inevitably, someone else will. and as for the "thou shalt not kill" commandment...in the context of the original hebrew, it is saying "thou shalt not murder." murder, unlawful and premeditated killing of another human. (also, just clarifying. any soldier who has gone to war and was put in the position to have to kill someone to save his or someone else's life -- i can't think of a worse situation to be in) god called men to war many times. jesus is not a pacifist. when god promises groups of people healing in the old testament, often he promises to heal them and their land. we are knit to our land. we are called to protect our land.
but that's enough of that for now.

i'm re-reading a really wonderful book that i read when i was in portland several weeks ago. it's called serve god, save the planet. dan and i are reading it together, a chapter a night out loud - and frankly, it's changing our lives. we are seeing so many things differently. we're seeing how wealthy we are. we're realizing how our actions and choices directly affect so many impoverished people in other lands. i would strongly suggest reading this book. every single christian should read this book. he perfectly ties environmentalism and christianity in a straightforward and practical way. he's not preachy, and he's also not a hippy. he just found that it makes perfect sense. creation care is an essential part of serving the lord.

a man was trampled in a walmart on black friday. trampled to death. a pregnant woman was also trampled over. she survived, but was in critical condition after the incident. are we that blinded by consumerism and selfishness that we will push and shove our way in to get what we want before anyone else - totally oblivious to the lives we're crushing beneath us?

onto a lighter note, geeeeesss!

ben & mackenzie, ashley & jay came over last night. we played apples to apples. it was so fun. mackenzie and i drank too many martinis and ashley complained about being pregnant, and we laughed a lot at dan & jay's explanation skills. it was wonderful. i love fun.