Banned Words and Phrases 2020

Apologies to those who have been awaiting my annual list of banned words and phrases. An end-of-year crisis with the water in our house put me off my game. The winter concert for the community band I’m in consumed the first week of January. I’ve come up for air, but only just realized that I’m well past my due date for this post. As with the lists for 2018 and 2019, many of my 2020 entries come from the political arena and the media, which these days are pretty much synonymous sources.

My first and most obvious choice to ban is ‘quid pro quo’. There’s no way to deny the need to get rid of this phrase. Since I’m late with my list this year, I’m aware that Lake Superior State University has already claimed this as the single most suggested word/phrase to ban in 2020. Good on them.

I’m compelled to revisit (but not count for 2020) several words that were previously banned but are like those burs that stick to your clothes and you can’t get rid of them. We still have the ubiquitous ‘fake news’ and ‘collusion’ that I banned in 2018, and ‘witch hunt’ that I banned in 2019. This year, let’s pull the plug on another of 45’s favorites: ‘hoax.’ Like the other three, it’s been used so fraudulently that it no longer has any meaning. I want to give them all a mass interment.

Let’s face it. As long as 45 is in office, no list of my banned words and phrases is complete without a few hopeless entries. Here’s another one on my ‘wishful thinking’ sub-list. No more ‘temper tantrums.’ You can’t talk about them and our national toddler-in-chief can’t have them. I know. Good luck with that.

Here’s one without any political influence. I’m done with ‘Period. Full stop.’ This is a classic example of redundancy. Use one or the other. Make a decision. Period. End of story. Or end of paragraph anyway.

I’m begging Madison Avenue to find alternative ways to talk about issues ‘down there’. Stop tormenting us with Cottonelle’s “Down There Care.” Eeeuw! But it’s not just toilet paper commercials that use that. There are many other ads with this phrase, touting everything from better hygiene and manscaping to sexual performance issues. (I can just imagine the ads I’ll be seeing after researching this phrase.)

The expression ‘Excuse Me’ is a passive-aggressive response when used by someone who has been interrupted, especially during an interview. It means: “I’m asking you to excuse me when what I really want to communicate is that I have no intention of excusing you for interrupting me.” Oh, snap! (By the way, I love ‘snap!’ so don’t expect me to ban that anytime soon.) But fie on ‘excuse me.’

Here are two phrases that are over-used by candidates in the Democratic primary. I’m done with ‘The fact of the matter is…’ Sorry, Joe Biden. Find another way to bridge the temporal gap between your brain process and your mouth delivery. I’m also so over Elizabeth Warren’s ‘A Plan for That.’ It seems like she’s cut back on this recently, so maybe she’ll be cool with giving it up altogether. Unfortunately, in the final debate before the Iowa caucuses, Amy Klobochar picked up Elizabeth’s pet phrase. Pundits called her out on it, so let’s hope it was a one-off. (Ditto for 45’s term in office.)

As a fan of The View and Saturday Night Live, I should feel bad about my next entry on this year’s banned list. Thank you, Joy Behar, for providing ‘Who cares?’ and the variation ‘So what?’ I’m also including ‘Says who?’ which is close enough to join the other two in a single entry. SNL actors will have to find other ways to parody Joy, because I care. Anyone who worries about the state of the environment and any number of other important issues should also care.

Finally, I’m outlawing my personal bugaboo: ‘Chillax.’ Have you ever heard someone say: “I’m going to chillax today”? Of course not. This ‘chill’ and ‘relax’ hybrid is never used in the first person. It’s always directed at someone else. Especially someone openly decrying what’s happening to our world, our earth, our almost everything. When I’m told to chillax, I just get more riled up than I was to start with. No matter how well-meaning you might be, telling someone to chillax never deescalates the situation. Even though you'll want to use it a lot this year, just strike it from your verbal tool kit.

There you have it—this year’s list of ten deplorables. I trust it was worth the wait.

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