The 2022 edition via LSSU (the college in my home town). (Google “LSSU banished words”.) Okay, I always love this list but I don’t always agree with every single word so here are my opinions on this year’s list:

“GOAT”: yes yes yes yes, this should be banned. This word or acronym or whatever it is has been the bane of my xword existence over the last year. I CAN NEVER REMEMBER WHAT THE HECK IT STANDS FOR!!! I think it finally clicked the last time I encountered it.

“Inflection point”? I have no strong opinions about this. Apparently people are using it in place of “pivot”? Who knew? I am still a pivoter.

“Quiet quitting”: I have read some articles about this and my reaction is a big meh although I don’t totally understand it. I have complicated thoughts about this but the short story is that I don’t think employers should EVER require people to work more than 40 hours, at least not for extended periods of time. Mine doesn’t. If I got pressure to put more time in on a regular basis, I would just plain QUIT albeit probably quietly. I know not everyone has that privilege. I certainly didn’t back in the day. But also, what do you do when your new boss installs bedrooms in your office?

“GASLIGHTING”? Really? Gaslighting is a real technique often used in abusive relationships. I was the butt-end (not gonna use “victim” here) of it when a former in-law hired lawyers to harass me after The Commander died. They did their best to make me feel like I had done something wrong. I had followed her simple instructions to the letter and in the end I realized that my only wrongdoing was that I was not born clutching a law degree in my clenched little newborn fist. I was never in any real danger but some people are, depending on a whole bunch of variables.

“Moving forward”: My only issue with this one is personal in that someone I once knew overused it ad nauseam.

“Amazing”: I hate “awesome” even more but it was probably on some previous list. Superlatives (and these are superlatives in a way) usually drive me nuts. Way overused.

“Does that make sense?” I actually use THIS a lot at work when I am trying to explain a complex piece of functionality to a very specific audience, usually to make sure *I* understand it myself. It’s what works for me and I’ll keep using it, at least in that limited context.

“Irregardless”: Isn’t and hasn’t EVER been a word. People are still using it?

“Absolutely”: This one doesn’t really bother me depending… Sometimes the word “yes” can be mis-heard depending on the means of communication. Pretty hard to mis-hear “absolutely”.

“It is what it is”: I agree with all they say about this but probably won’t stop using it.

I sooooo agree with the statement “Stop resorting to imprecise, trite, and meaningless words and terms of seeming convenience!” Yes yes yes yes! Plain, SIMPLE English is always best to convey a point. Start using vague or fancy words and they can mean different things to different people. And yes, “gaslighting” fits that category but I still like it, probably because it’s personal to me. Language is weird but that makes it interesting.

Gratuitous pic of my lizard taking off to meet friends downtown in The Indefatigable on another New Year’s, 15 years ago. I think she returned to SanFran the next day. And I began my second full-time professional career. This New Year’s is warm, gray, and rainy and we didn’t have to take anybody to the airport.

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