you’re on mute (10. 382)

Guilty of restoring to a zealous “absolutely” myself when question is a binary one and not a gauge of enthusiasm, we can fully get behind this banished words list put out annually by the faculty of Lake Superior State University in Michigan—in a tradition that dates back to 1976 as a curative declaration again misuse, overuse and redundancy. Culling from a thousand entries submitted yearly—past examples including “classic,” “viable alternative,” “zeroise,” “no worries,” “bespoke,” ♥︎ and strangely in 1985 the German phrase “in der Tat” (indeed) in 1985, those retired or otherwise banned for 2023 also include GOAT and inflection point, as well as some contenders for words of the year, like quiet quitting and gaslighting.