Purity of language seems to have 'gone missing'
Associated Press
Jan. 1, 2007


DETROIT - If the media's habit of combining celebrity names didn't cause word watchers enough heartburn in 2006, the past year had plenty of other words and phrases that language purists wish had "gone missing."

Lake Superior State University on Sunday released its annual "List of Words and Phrases Banished from the Queen's English for Mis-Use, Over-Use and General Uselessness."

The Sault Ste. Marie school has been compiling the list since 1976 to attract publicity. A total of 16 words or phrases was selected from more than 4,500 nominations.
The list reads like a lexicon of popular culture.

Take "ask your doctor," the mantra of pharmaceutical commercials. The university called it "the chewable vitamin morphine of marketing."

Critics piled on the media's practice of combined celebrity names such as "TomKat" or "Brangelina." One said, "It's so annoying, idiotic and so lame and pathetic that it's "lamethetic.' "

Real estate listings were targeted for overuse of "boast." As in "master bedroom boasts his-and-her fireplaces - never bathroom apologizes for cracked linoleum,' " Morris Conklin of Portugal quipped.

It wasn't hard to find the phrase "gone/went missing" in 2006.

"It makes missing sound like a place you can visit, such as the Poconos. Is the person missing or not?" Robin Dennis of Texas asked.