Figmentations

Interestingly, about two years ago I wrote a post about how the phrase “it is what it is” could be interpreted in a positive and empowering way. I wrote this post because I needed to find a way to stop letting this phrase aggravate me so much when people used it to refer to frustrating situations, in my case at work.

Now….finally….I knew I should have gone with my gut feeling! I wasn’t the only one that felt that this phrase was useless. See now that it is on the LSSU 2008 list of banished words. For example take this one quote from their listing:

It is what it is. “It means absolutely nothing and is mostly a cop out or a way to avoid answering a question in a way that might require genuine thought or insight. Listen to an interview with some coach or athlete in big-time sports and you’ll inevitably hear it.” – Doug Compo, Brimley, Michigan.

[On a separate but related note, I see no need to get into the semantics of whether we want to call this a list of words or phrases; in the end isn't it all the same, since you need words to get phrases, right? But, I digress, let's get back to the main point here....]

Other “banished” words include: perfect storm; wordsmithing; back in the day (as when referring to technology); random (popular with teens); sweet (when used like “awesome” is used); decimate (which surprisingly actually means “reduce by one-tenth” rather than how it’s meant to mean “annihilate”); and, one that I hear a lot around work, to throw someone “under the bus”.

Keep in mind that this ‘banished’ word list is different, but no less interesting, than the recent release of the American Dialect Society’s 2007 Word(s) of the Year which include (but is not limited to) the following words: plutoed; flog; thruthiness; subprime; connectile dysfunction; wrap rage; texter; and earmarxist.

Would you believe that the word “waterboarding” made it on both lists?