Monday, 22 May 2023

Words to Banish from the English dictionary...



Susie Dent is a lexicographer, to you and me that's someone who compiles dictionaries. In fact, she is all about words and has a very popular Twitter channel where she hosts Word of the Day and other fun facts to do with the English language.

Recently, she asked her followers on Twitter, what words they would like to see banished from the English dictionary. Here are the top ten that Susie calls an "unscientific analysis" of people's "excellent" responses.

Top ten words to banish

  1. Going forward
  2. No disrespect
  3. 'Like' as a filler
  4. I wanted to reach out
  5. I'm not gonna lie
  6. Basically
  7. Let's go offline
  8. 'So' at the start of a sentence
  9. The 'optics' of something
  10. My bad

How many are you guilty of?

Interestingly, some of these have been around a long time. For instance, 'like' as a filler was first used in 1778 and 'gonna' was first referenced in the Oxford dictionary in 1806.

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