Post your ‘Banned’ nominations here
Got a phrase the folks in the news are driving you batty about?
Click on “Comments” and plug your contribution in there.
Remember, this site is to intended to help professional news people correct bad habits that show up in their work — published or broadcast. If it isn’t in the paper or on the nightly news, it’s not Banned for Life material (which is not to say it shouldn’t be banished, just that it shouldn’t be highlighted here).
November 8th, 2005 at 10:50 pm
Transparency. As in, our newspaper needs to be transparent. Our process needs to be transparent. Find a different word for describing it. Or stop overusing it.
Transparencies are for overhead projecters.
November 18th, 2005 at 10:10 pm
“Everybody” really bugs me. Well, not everybody, but “everybody”, also “everyone”. When a newscaster says: “Here’s the news everyone has been waiting for”, or “Everybody wants the war to end”, I realize they are merely engaging in hyperbole, but it really irritates me. Yes we’re living during a time of internationalism and global inclusion;
certainly television and the Internet have effectively made the planet a smaller place, allowing people to experience in real time events transpiring on the other side of the globe. But to say, for instance, that everyone (which means all people on Earth) was waiting for the verdict in the Michael Jackson trial, is simply untrue.
What’s wrong with “many of you” or even “a great number of people”? Do the newscasters believe that the information they impart is somehow diminished if there is someone, anyone in the world who has no interest in it?
I would love to see a return to literalism. Say what you mean, focus on clarity and accuracy rather than obfuscation.
Surely “everybody” can agree on that.
December 3rd, 2005 at 8:38 am
How about wing, as in “belonging to the more extreme wing of the x party”?
December 3rd, 2005 at 3:32 pm
“Wing” is especially grating when it refers to people who share your political philosophy, because are “-wingers” are by fanatics by default and if you fancy your views reasonable (vs. radical), you’re apt to be annoyed.
I suspect, though, that this is an annoyance we’re stuck with so long as reporters need some kind of shorthand to place people somewwhere in the political spectrum. (The notion of a spectrum, for that matter, is problematic because opinions don’t exist along a continuum; they’re better described as inhabiting a sphere.)
March 7th, 2006 at 10:54 am
“On the Ground.” Stupid. Period.
March 16th, 2006 at 9:03 am
I’m getting more than a little tired of reading “sectarian violence.” It is accurate of course but I get the sense it’s being used reflexively, without thought, by people who want to sound intellectual.
March 25th, 2006 at 8:12 pm
This might strike many of you as stupid, but it bothers me every time I read of U.S. citizens or U.S. troops refered to as Americans.
Yes they/we are Americans, but so are
Canadians, Mexicans, Argentinians, Bolivians, Brazilians, Chileans, Ecuadorans, Falkland Islanders, French Guianans, Paraguayans, Peruvians, South Georgians, Surnamians, Uraguayans, Venezuelans, Columbians, Costa Ricans, Nicaraguans, Guatemalans, Hondurans, and Panamanians. We are all together Americans.
(Hope I got them all - know I didn’t spell or use the right extensions(?) on all of them).
April 1st, 2006 at 5:45 am
I nominate the phrase “in a timely manner.” Is “promptly” too concise?
April 11th, 2006 at 2:09 pm
People who say “regularly” when they actually mean (or they hope you think they mean) “frequently”. As in “We clean the streats regularly.” My common response is “Haley’s Comet is regular, but I don’t want to have wait for it.”
April 14th, 2006 at 5:57 pm
“A phone call to so-and-so was not immediately returned.”
This little sentence annoys the heck out of me, and seems to be at the end of every other news article recenty. It effectively tells everyone “I was in a hurry and didn’t really bother to try to find a balanced point of view or a good source on this, so I’ll just say I *tried* to do some research and run with my hearsay.”
It wreaks of lazy, blas
April 16th, 2006 at 9:38 am
“Mull”!! The biggest crutch used by every headline editor, but reading it just gives me that fingernail -across-the-chalkboard loathsome response. I know it’s short and easy, but PLEASE, get a thesaurus, get creative — or just go back to school.
April 29th, 2006 at 8:39 am
I should probably read all the others first, but my pet peeve that should be banned for life is “carrot and stick” as the most mangled metaphor. Most use it as a “we’ll offer them a carrot but be ready to hit them with a stick” comment rather than the notion of a carrot dangling on a stick in front of the person being “motivated.”
May 20th, 2006 at 8:07 am
Bradley,
The
May 30th, 2006 at 2:30 pm
White stuff and precip: TV forecasters seem to have a congenital aversion to the word snow; since they can’t shorten it, they come up with a two-word expression, which is inherently vaguer, since dandruff and powdered sugar also qualify as white stuff. They may also take the opposite approach, usually when they don’t want to commit to what kind of precipitation might fall. But why cut off the last three syllables? They don’t take up that much space.
On another note, the business world’s aversion to the word ‘problem’ and its substitution of ‘opportunity’ has long annoyed me. If I fall down and break my leg, in calling for help, should I say, “Help! I have an opportunity! I can’t move!”?
June 1st, 2006 at 8:17 am
From UK politicians:
‘Joined-up’ policies/discussions/what-have-you
they mean ‘adult’ but even that’s superfluous
‘Multi-cultural’ - it doesn’t happen (at least not here), they mean multi-ethnic
‘In terms of’ - politicians here find it impossible to construct a sentence without this phrase
‘My constituents are always telling me…’ - liar!
June 16th, 2006 at 10:07 pm
“went missing”, “turned up missing”, and “showed up missing”.
Maybe we just can’t keep up with our stuff in northeast Texas!
July 21st, 2006 at 8:25 am
“That’s so gay” has become gay! Why can’t the little homophobic morons spend two extra seconds to come up with an original insult?
The movie wasn’t gay, it was boring, dull, or uninteresting.
Your best friend isn’t gay, he’s obnoxious, grating, or uncouth and unkempt.
Your homework isn’t gay, it’s excessive, pointless, or redundant.
Your computer isn’t gay, it’s obsolete, anachonistic, archaic, or even a Mac!
Same goes with fag and faggot. Please, come up with an interesting insult next time. We’ve been given the largest language in the world; it’d be a shame to waste all those wonderfully vicious words. . .
July 21st, 2006 at 7:31 pm
I don’t know when this phrase started being used so often, but I started to notice an over-use of the “sticking point” at the time of the O.J. Simpson murder trial. It’s used to indicate some kind of obstruction or roadblock in solving a problem or reaching an agreement.
Is this some kind of corruption of “sticking place”, as said by Lady Macbeth in Shakespeare’s “Macbeth”? Was it just made up out of thin air?
Regardless of whether it’s used correctly or not, it’s time to retire it. I get the feeling that news people/writers just think it sounds cool to say.
October 16th, 2006 at 1:38 pm
Well Tom, we’re coming up on a year here since your last update. Has this site been abandoned?
October 16th, 2006 at 2:15 pm
People have kept adding comments despite the lack of updates, so they haven’t abandoned it.
March 10th, 2007 at 10:29 pm
How about “I was like and then he was like”.
“Actually”. Actually I’ll be home later.
“He’s actually on his way in”.
“Actually I think I sound smart when I’m actually a babbling idiot”.
During a recent conversation with the store manager I counted 10-11 “actuallies”?
March 10th, 2007 at 10:43 pm
“Last time I checked”.
“Dude, I was like”.
Living in Arizona we have recent “Cali-Trash” moving in all the time. Therefore a lot of:
Dude
Awesome
Most awesome
My guess it’s evolved from years of “Valley Girl” talk from the 80’s. Frank Zappa’s “Valley Girl” was a mock of them but it didn’t seen to phase that generation or their offspring.
March 27th, 2007 at 2:05 pm
faze. not phase.
May 14th, 2007 at 6:05 pm
“It wreaks of lazy, blas
May 22nd, 2007 at 6:57 pm
“Multiple.” What’s it supposed to mean? Many? Some? A few? More than one? Vagueness aside, say it out loud and you sound like you’re speaking around a mouthful of marbles.
May 29th, 2007 at 2:29 pm
Just happened across the Banned list; it’s a wonderful resource for those of us who write headlines daily. I’m moved to comment, though, by Tony’s assertion that “A phone call to so-and-so was not immediately returned” means “I was in a hurry and didn’t really bother…” No, what it means is, you need to see this story this century and the guy who seems to be a doofus in the story is, for some reason, not motivated to share his side of it. I simply can’t hold a story indefinitely waiting for a response. In most cases, the call that was not immediately returned was never returned–lawyers, especially.
October 14th, 2007 at 2:25 am
It’s “fazed” not “phased” and “reeks” (stinks) not “wreaks”. Dictionaries, people, dictionaries!
November 2nd, 2007 at 10:40 am
There is nothing wrong with using the word “American” in the sense of “citizen of the United States.” We are the only people in North or South America referred to as “Americans.” And surely H.L. Mencken knew what he was talking about when he came up with “The American Language” as the title for his multi-volume study.
November 20th, 2007 at 7:29 pm
The “carrot and stick” metaphor, Bradley, is supposed to refer to dangling a carrot from a stick in front of a donkey to motivate the donkey into trying to reach the carrot. Anybody who says differently is mistaken. I’ve heard that phrase since I was a child and that was many years ago. The stick, being used as punishment, would not work quite so well as holding food in front of a being that wants to eat it. This analogy irked me and prompted me to join in. Cheers, everybody.
December 7th, 2007 at 9:04 am
When did “anytime soon” become the only way to express the forseeable future?? I always know it’s coming and even mouth along with the newscasters. “It doesn’t look like we’ll be seeing a return to 2006 levels ANYTIME SOON.” “After the devastation caused by the flood/earthquake/gas leak/plague of locusts/insert your disaster here, life for the Joneses won’t be back to normal ANYTIME SOON.” ” It doesn’t look like we’ll see a change in policy/interest rates/the weather/the traffic ANYTIME SOON.” Arrrgh! Is anyone else annoyed by this?
Oh and BTW, I’ve had it with “devastation,” too.
December 19th, 2007 at 10:25 am
“Deja vu all over again.” Is this a Yogi Berra quote? Who cares? It’s actually completely replaced the phrase “deja vu” to mean “something we’ve seen before.”
January 1st, 2008 at 9:38 pm
“Bizarre” is now every bit as overused as “awesome”.
Shame. They both were such useful words, too.
January 4th, 2008 at 2:19 pm
In a June 2006 post, Suzanne gave us three versions of this ignorant-sounding phrase but missed the worst: “has gone missing.” “Vanished” or “disappeared” or even “was lost” will do nicely, thank you.
January 5th, 2008 at 9:52 am
I vote for ‘impact’ or any forms of that word. Read any newspaper or especially anything church related, things are impacting all over the place. Nothing affects anything anymore, it just impacts.
January 9th, 2008 at 10:15 am
“My bad”
“Person of interest”
“Closure”
“Enabler”
Ugh!
January 23rd, 2008 at 10:59 am
This site is a great resource. My nomination for banning is:
Any problem in the airline industry that is referred to as “turbulence.”
Turbulence happens when a plane moves around unexpectedly while flying, not when pilots go on strike or the financial health of the airline is in question.
January 24th, 2008 at 10:15 am
One phrase I nominate for banning is:
“At the end of the day…”
I hear this silly phrase ad infinitum and it makes me want to vomit.
January 24th, 2008 at 9:07 pm
This has probably been mentioned by someone before, but there is one word (mis)usage I abhor: issues
She is dealing with health issues.
The athlete has had injury issues in the past.
…and so on.
There’s nothing wrong with calling a problem a problem.
February 3rd, 2008 at 9:37 pm
I don’t understand how the word “hydroplane” has come to replace slid or skid, especially in radio news. Has anyone else had this reaction?
Heather
February 18th, 2008 at 6:14 pm
“America/American” In my 25 years as a Spanish/English translator I must disagree that only people living in the United States are referred to as Americans or from America. Example: I just translated a birth certificate from Mexico stating that the father was born in the “United States of North America.” *Not* simply “America!” Mexico is officially called the “United Mexican States” or the “United Mexican States of North America.” (or the Mexican Republic )I think our country does not have a name which adequately distinguishes us from other countries in these Americas–Canada, Mexico, Central America and South America. When I lived in Europe, the Venezuelans or Chileans I met were happy to meet me–I was viewed as a fellow “American.” We need a name for this country. Any ideas?
February 18th, 2008 at 6:37 pm
Another over-used word: “Passionate.” I read it over and over referring to so many things, ideas. etc. “‘I am passionate about yellow!” or “She’s passionate about her new BMW.” Over-used, uh, to the max! (Sorry, couldn’t resist) I prefer the erotic use of the word–I don’t have a dictionary at hand, so I don’t know the exact definition. Another one” Philosophy.” “My philosophy is to take each day as it comes.” Yuck. I studied philosphy at university–real, thought out, defined philosphers. So, if someone’s “philosophy” is whatever they think or believe, well, I sure don’t see it reasoned out as, say, Plato or Heidegger. Perhaps Passionate and Philosophy are perhaps two examples of our cultural narcissism?
March 23rd, 2008 at 12:33 pm
I abhor the cliche “At this point in time….”
And Heaven forbid they should use
synonymous phraseology such “Currently,”
“At present,” “As of now,” etc. Most of the
newscasters are intelligent. but apparently
too phobic to be iconoclastic enough to
annihilate cliches.
-Stuart Davis.
April 11th, 2008 at 2:50 pm
Sorry if this has already been posted, but:
“pain at the pump” and “battle of the bulge” are the most lame, overused, boring, annoying new cliches I can think of. Don’t the news people get tired of writing/reading these phrases? If I was on tv news and one of these came on the teleprompter I would rip off my mic and walk off set.
April 27th, 2008 at 7:02 am
Looked, looking
i.e. “They were looking to rob him.” Couldn’t someone just say what they mean once in a while?
May 9th, 2008 at 7:08 pm
I nominate “play the race card” and all the variations.
>>vote for ‘impact’
I’ve had more than one rant over that. Teeth and bowels become impacted or may be impacted.
May 12th, 2008 at 6:55 pm
How about “fiercely independent” — as opposed to “very” or “highly” or just “independent”? I suppose it’s more restrained than being “wildly” or “savagely” independent. Thanks for giving me a forum to share this!
May 27th, 2008 at 12:08 pm
“Bus Plunge” “Eatery” and “In Hospital” (unless it’s the BBC)
June 13th, 2008 at 2:25 am
This may be specific to the UK, but it seems that in any story covering changes to the law or legal system, only ’senior judges’ are ever quoted.
The status of a ’senior judge’ is never explored or explained and I think it is used as shorthand to imbue a sense of undeniable wisdom or gravitas.
Do junior judges exist? If so, why are they seemingly never asked for their opinion?
June 29th, 2008 at 2:23 pm
The word “insurmountable” has become the word of 2008. Newscasters act as if this word was just invented. It’s everywhere, on TV, on blogs by regular Joes… Just say “impossible to overcome.” Stop trying to sound intelligent…we already know you’re not!
July 5th, 2008 at 10:43 am
“Sense of Place.” How did humanity exist for centuries without having to use this phrase, but now I can’t seem to go an hour without reading it?
I know even pointing out that “Thinking outside of the box” is a cliche is a cliche in itself. Still, people (and surprising people who are supposed to be creative) use this. Whenever I hear it, I do two things: Laugh and then wonder why, if they’re so creative, they don’t have a new way of saying what they’re trying to convey. Talk about not thinking beyond that four-sided container!