As always, we like to start out the new year in amusing fashion, as we salute the tireless pedants way up north at the Lake Superior State University who, each year, determine which words and phrases have been so overused and are so annoying that they deserve banishment from the vernacular.

We see from their helpful website that this is actually the 50th anniversary of this list being published, and perhaps because of this momentous occasion, they have provided a bonus list this year, of "Repeat Offenders: Words That Refused to Stay Banished."

Since it is a big year for them, we thought we'd give proper credit, from their press release:

SAULT STE. MARIE, Mich. -- It's time for a golden anniversary. Celebrating five decades of linguistic commentary, Lake Superior State University (LSSU) presents the 50th annual Banished Words List, a tradition highlighting the importance and evolution of language.

What began as a whimsical New Year's Eve party idea in 1976, has grown into a global reflection on the words that wear out their welcome. Since former public relations director W.T. (Bill) Rabe showcased the first "List of Words Banished from the Queen's English because of mis-, mal-, over-use, or general uselessness," LSSU has carried the torch.

The entries continue a tongue-in-cheek commentary on language, catchphrases, and corporate jargon. Over 1,400 submissions were entrusted to LSSU this year, pouring in from all 50 U.S. states, and as far as Uzbekistan, Brazil, Japan, the United Kingdom, and many more.

Before we get to this year's list, we have a personal bookkeeping announcement to make (and, yes, we do thoroughly enjoy using the word "bookkeeping" in a language column, since as far as we are aware it is the only English word to have three double letters in a row). We are happy to report that we hit our donation goal early this year, before the new year even dawned. Thanks to everyone who donated to the upkeep of the site and we can promise another entire year of ad-free blogging as a direct result! And today is the end of our year-end vacation period (where we tend to take things easy as we recover from the year-end awards columns), so new columns will begin to regularly appear once again starting Monday. Stay tuned for big site announcements in the coming week or so, too....

But back to the list. We were pleased that this year we knew almost every phrase on the list, with the exception of one or two bits of recent slang that we either hadn't heard before or didn't know how it was now being used. Without further ado, here is the official 2026 Banished Words List:

6-7 (Six-Seven)

Demure

Cooked

Massive

Incentivize

Full Stop

Perfect

Gift/Gifted (used as a verb)

My Bad

Reach Out

And, as promised, here's the bonus list to go with it, of the repeat offenders that have snuck back into usage to an annoying extent (with the years that they previously made the banished list):

Absolutely (1996, 2023)

At The End Of The Day (1999, 2022, 2024)

Awesome (1984, 2007)

Game Changer (2009, 2025)

Hot Water Heater (1982, 2018)

The first entry seemed inevitable, for anyone who has heard the cries of gleeful inanity this phrase sparks in the young folk of today. No, I am not going to explain it (it is largely meaningless, and falls into the category of "things young folk say to bewilder and annoy their elders"). From two people nominating this phrase: "There are six or seven reasons why this phrase needs to be stopped," and (our favorite): "It's time for '6-7' to be 86-ed."

We must admit we're also far too old to understand the whole "demure" explosion, because as a rule we shy away from most all social media. But at least we had heard it and saw the original video at some point during the year. "Cooked," however, we had to look up to ascertain the current slang meaning.

"Massive" has been around (and been overused) pretty much forever, but for some reason it annoyed the L.S.S.U. mavens enough to make it onto the list. Ditto for "incentivize," although (as was pointed out) this one's annoying mostly for being a noun that has been verbized. "What's wrong with 'motivate'?" one person asked, and we find we have to agree.

"Full stop" was banished "for the same reason 'period' was banished... redundant punctuation." Although we do have to say it's also annoying for the "I'm so cool, I use British terms!" reason as well. Nobody says "period" across the pond, which is probably where the "full stop" phrase got its American cachet in the first place.

"Perfect" seems not quite as annoying as most of the others, but it seems to have annoyed enough people to deserve banishment. "Gift" or "gifted" was initially banished in 1994 and seems to have been included again for being another verbized noun. Fair enough. We also tend to get annoyed at "nounized verbs," with one in particular sounding like nails on a chalkboard to us when pundits use it: "elected" or "electeds," when used as a noun ("we'll have to see what the Democratic Party electeds have to say about that," for instance). "Officeholder" seems adequate to us, but we are digressing, so we'll get back to the list.

"My bad" is also up for re-banishment, after initially reaching the status on the 1998 list. Personally, this one doesn't bug us that much, since after all it is a way (perhaps too cutesy, but still...) of apologizing, and we feel the world can always use more apologizing than less. And the last one on the main list, "reach out," also doesn't seem that annoying to us. "What started as a phrase with emotional support overtones has now become absurdly overused," one nominee stated, but we haven't noticed this ourselves, we have to admit.

The repeat offenders list seems rather self-explanatory, for the most part. "Absolutely," and "at the end of the day," and "awesome," are all pretty obviously annoying and overused. As we noted last year, "'Game changer,' however, did make me cringe [Note: "cringe" was also on last year's list...], since (being a compound noun of sorts) it really should have a hyphen ('game-changer')."

The last entry on this list was a head-scratcher until we read the explanation. They rightly classify it in the "redundant phrases" category (along with "A.T.M. machine," "PIN number," or "DC Comics"). Way back in 1982, someone pointed out: "Since when does hot water need to be heated?" Which is a good point, we have to admit!

So, at the end of the day, while we finished up last year absolutely cooked, we are once again incentivized to start writing more awesome game-changer columns for 2026 -- even reaching out to 2027 (6-7!). Each week we will strive to gift our readers with four rather demure columns and then one massive one at the end of each week, full stop. If they're not perfect, then we offer up a "My bad!" in advance, since sometimes political writing comes out of the tap boiling hot (after running through the hot water heater of my feverish mind) and sometimes they just come out stone cold. Silliness aside, though, here's hoping 2026 will be a productive year for everyone! See you next week....

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant