Happy New Year! Here's Some Banned Words And Phrases

Every year, Lake Superior State gives us a list of words and phrases they would like to ban. Here's the list:

• Perfect storm.
• Webinar.
• Waterboarding.
• Organic.
• Wordsmith/ wordsmithing.
• Author/authored.
• Post 9/11.
• Surge.
• Give back.
• 'Blank' is the new 'blank.'
• Black Friday.
• Back in the day.
• Random.
• Sweet.
• Decimate.
• Emotional.
• Pop.
• It is what it is.
• Under the bus.

Here are my additions to their list:

"Pwnd" (for those of you who don't know, this is pronounced, "poned")

"The ATL" as an abbreviation for Atlanta

"Radical Shiite Cleric" in front of Muqtada Al-Sadr every time his name is mentioned

"Evangelical Christian/s/ity"

"Progressive"

"Out Of This World" when describing a space shuttle/station story. We get it.

"Former Soviet Republic" in front of Georgia/Ukraine/Kazahkstan, etc. They've been divorced for almost 20 years now.

"Eight-time Olympic gold medal winner" Michael Phelps.