[release] DETROIT — It's official: Viral went viral, and now it's been virtually vaporized.
Michigan's Lake Superior State University features the term linked to popular online video clips in its annual List of Words to Be Banished from the Queen's English for Mis-use, Over-use and General Uselessness. The 2011 list, compiled by the university from nominations submitted from across North America throughout the year, was released Friday.
Nominators did more than vanquish "viral." They also repudiated Sarah Palin's "refudiate," flunked "fail" and weren't at all wowed by "wow factor." In all, 14 words or phrases made the cut to be, well, cut from conversation.
The call to banish viral was vociferous, garnering more nominations than any other.
"This linguistic disease of a term must be quarantined," Kuahmel Allah of Los Angeles wrote in his submission. "If one more thing goes viral, I'm buying a Hazmat suit and moving into a clean-room."
Seconded Lawrence Mickel of Coventry, Conn.: "Any mindless stunt or vapid bit of writing is sent by its creators whirling around the Internet and, once whirled, its creators declare it (trumpets here) 'viral!' Enough already!"
Lake Superior State spokesman Tom Pink said viral's death spiral mirrors the trajectory of the typical YouTube clip that becomes a momentary sensation and thus goes viral.
"It starts out small, then grows and people get sick of it because they start hearing it everywhere," Pink said.
He said it's among a few entries on the list sentenced to the dialectical dungeon that "have to do with the way we communicate these days." Another: Facebook or Google used as a verb.
Other entries showed people's apparent aversion to simple language, hence the call to "live life to the fullest" when they could just live, promoting every foible or stumble to "fail," or super-sizing every reasonably good time to an "epic" event.
"Standards for using 'epic' are so low, even 'awesome' is embarrassed." said Mike of Kettering, Ohio, whose submission came with no last name.
Appropriately, Pink stopped short of describing this year's batch of submissions as "epic." Rather, he viewed it as solid and typical — based on more than 1,000 nominations, once he and his colleagues sorted out phrases previously banned in the list's 36-year history.
For all the words coming in for a "shellacking," he was surprised President Barack Obama's endlessly dissected term to describe his party's performance in November's mid-term elections didn't merit one vote.
Still, Washington-speak made an appearance. Several American people vetoed the phrase "The American People."
"No one in Washington can pontificate for more than two sentences without using it," wrote Dick Hilker of Loveland, Colo. "Beyond overuse, these people imply that 'The American people' want/expect/demand all the same things. They don't."
Not all phrases must go viral to be reviled. "I'm just sayin'" festered for a while in the lexicon before coming up for banishment this year.
"Obviously you are saying it — you just said it!" wrote Catherine Wilson of Granger, Ind.
But those who just want to keep on saying the words or phrases that made the annual list can take heart. Although it does bring attention to the school in Sault St. Marie — the last stop before Michigan's northernmost border crossing with Canada — it doesn't really change the way people talk. After all, "tweet" and "sexting" made last year's list. And other previously banished items have included "carbon footprint" (2008), "LOL" (2004) and "state of the art" (1993).[/release]
[url=http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40860123/ns/us_news/]source[/url]
Only you can prevent epic from becoming the new awesome.
[editline]31st December 2010[/editline]
On a side-note languages change and evolve; the plan in the OP is dumb.
I have a friend who can only say 8 words: Like, super, awesome, oh my god, epic and so.
This won't do anything. The words flow through society, they can't be controlled. Their overusage will cease with time again, but nobody can really influence it.
[editline]31st December 2010[/editline]
So; epic fail.
[QUOTE=Awesomecaek;27102648]
So; epic fail.[/QUOTE]
This phrase should be killed and anyone who uses it should be punished
Wait.
They have universities in Detroit?
[QUOTE=ham!;27102732]This phrase should be killed and anyone who uses it should be punished[/QUOTE]
"LOL" (2004). This post is in "state of the art" (1993).
The word of 2011 will be "Duckmeat".
[QUOTE=not_Morph53;27102868]The word of 2011 will be "Duckmeat".[/QUOTE]
Thats totally duckmeat man.
The article was awesome in of itself.
[QUOTE=ham!;27102732]This phrase should be killed and anyone who uses it should be punished[/QUOTE]
Get one of these.
[img]http://dl.dropbox.com/u/5636656/2010-10-04.jpg[/img]
I guess according to this university, no words have two definitions.
Just did a quick Google for "define: viral", and the second definition was:
"A video, image or text spread by "word of mouth" on the internet or by e-mail for humorous, political or marketing purposes; Of or relating to a biological virus; Caused by a virus; Of the nature of an informatic virus; able to spread copies of itself to other computers; Spread by word of ..."
[editline]31st December 2010[/editline]
I bet they take offense to the word virus being used in reference to computers too.
communist evil world destroying illuminati have already begun their master plan to conquer the english language
DONT LET IT HAPPEN
Fuck their shit.
oh no language is evolving over time whatever will we doooo
oh I know
[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qS7nqwGt4-I[/media]
How do they banish a word? Does it have to leave and go somewhere else?
Good to hear some people are fighting the good fight on that front. I don't know what idiots would praise Palin for that level of stupidity.
[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z06nQIrd1jQ[/media]
I believe this to be relevant.
Who are the dumb asses throughing the word "epic" around so lightly? Save it for ancient Greek literature and Gears of War campaigns.
Reminds me of one of my retarded friends that throws bullshit words around permanently, Pwn pronounced Pown, Everything good is epic and everything bad is epic fail, etc...
He has never made a correct sentence since I met him, the thing I hate most that he says: "It's because I'm/it's pro"
[QUOTE=Janus Vesta;27103858]How do they banish a word? Does it have to leave and go somewhere else?[/QUOTE]
They send it to a hellhole of torture, smoke, and death.
[sp]New Jersey[/sp]
Face it, almost everyone here used to say Epic and words just like it constantly only a few years ago.
How exactly do they plan on "getting rid of" these words?
Are they going to hold an epic viral campaign?
I used to say Epic and Fail a lot until Facepunch taught me not to.
Epic should only be used to describe art. Epic poetry and epic music, mainly.
Hey guys let's banish perfectly good words
What's that you'd like to describe Beowulf in a simple way? Too bad, it's now just a "really really long poem."
Epic has now changed from describing a type of poem from being a word to essentially describe anything that is above mediocrity.
Deal with it. I am in favour of the word duckmeat. Everybody go and say it.
[QUOTE=Sobotnik;27115157]Epic has now changed from describing a type of poem from being a word to essentially describe anything that is above mediocrity.
Deal with it. I am in favour of the word duckmeat. Everybody go and say it.[/QUOTE]
So now poems are duckmeat?
[QUOTE=Fatman55;27117122]So now poems are duckmeat?[/QUOTE]
Stop being such a duckmeat.
[QUOTE=mysteryman;27108032]Face it, almost everyone here used to say Epic and words just like it constantly only a few years ago.[/QUOTE]
uh nope the utter misuse of a term in an attempt to fit in is not directly correlated with maturity of age(i have never unironically used the terms epic/win/fail as adjectives describing quality of something)
I know several colleagues who would gladly post epic win lmao to cat pictures on facebook
personally I think this may be some kind of mental disorder, antisocial losers trying to fit in by using words that other antisocial losers overuse as well??? :iiam:
[QUOTE=Paramud;27113594]Hey guys let's banish perfectly good words
What's that you'd like to describe Beowulf in a simple way? Too bad, it's now just a "really really long poem."[/QUOTE]
Except, you know. Beowulf is an epic.
[img]http://gyazo.com/56430bc41741ba122e3741bc35194b80.png[/img]
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