Annual Banished Word List

[ANNE V. GILBERT]

Jim:
This is an interesting "take" on things.
>
> friendly fire - is also called "fratricide".  Friendly fire has been much
> discussed since the Gulf War, but is nothing new.  Item:  in the 1948
battle
> for Jerusalem, the commanders on both sides (Abdul Kadar el Huseinni and
> David Marcus) were killed by friendly fire, as was Stonewall Jackson in
1863.
>  It can be argued that at Waterloo more British soldiers were killed by
> friendly fire than by enemy fire.

I agree with you that "friendly fire" is nothing new.  I remember hearing
back in the dear old days when the Vietnam War was going on.  I just assumed
that the term came from that period.  I'm no doubt mistaken, as I am about a
great many things.
>
> faith-based - no available synonyms, and if you happen to dislike Bush's
> ideas on faith-based initiatives, your desire is that they be killed after
> public debate, which will be difficult if the term is banished.  Hence
> banishing the term would be a politically biased activity!

"Faith based" is definitely new, and IMHO overused, but since there's no
real synonym, we're probably stuck with it, unless people come up with
something else.
>
> synergy - no available synonyms

"Synergy" is a word borrowed, I think, from physics, but it doesn't mean in
popular parlance what it means in physics.Basically it's used(again, I
think)in business situations to describe a kind of ebb and flow between two
groups or two ideas.

> sugrical strike - this time I agree that the term should be banished.
> Knowledgeable people (including many in the US Air Force) know that "smart
> bombs" have something like a 50% probability of hitting their targets, as
> opposed to the traditional "dumb bombs" whose probability is something
less
> than 1%.  Thoughtful admirers of the US air campaign in Afghanistan will
> admit that a "surgical strike" is a matter of luck, or in other words,
bombs
> do not always do what you intend.  (Not a political comment, just a
statement
> of reality).

"Surgical strike" is another military term that's been around for a long,
long time, not just in recent wars, and it's been around long before "smart
bombs" were invented, so I doubt that this phrase will get banned any time
soon.
Anne G