"banished words" (clich és) [Re: -gate]

[Christopher Philippo]

On Jan 10, 2014, at 1:19 PM, Gordon, Matthew J. <GordonMJ at MISSOURI.EDU> wrote:
> I think we're overlooking the really shocking news here: some people continue to use words (morphemes) more than a decade after they've been banished by the keepers of the language at LSSU.


I doubt if “banishing” a word ever affects its usage, aside from which LSSU isn’t trying to be the equivalent of the Académie française.  Some clichés have extraordinarily long lives.  English and journalism classes and texts that discourage their use are probably similarly ineffectual.  Some “banished words” gone out of usage, doubtless unrelated to their inclusion on a list, e.g.

“In Der Tat – which means ‘indeed.' The latter was also nominated by many from the U.S.A. and Canada, including Bryan Szabo of Eugene, Oregon, who describe it as ‘the most overused word of the year; indeed, of the century.’"
http://www.lssu.edu/banished/archive/1985.php

I don’t recall ever hearing “in der dat” at all - not even in the 1980s.

Chris Philippo

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