“Perfect storm” of cliches makes bad English list

By Andrew Stern Reuters -A “surge” of overused words and phrases formed a “perfect storm” of “post-9/11″ cliches in 2007, according to a U.S. university’s annual list of words and phrases that deserve to be banned.Choosing from among 2,000 submissions, the public relations department at Michigan‘s Lake Superior State University in Sault Ste. Marie targeted 19 affronts to the English language in its well-known jab at the worlds of media, sports, advertising and politics…. 

This was reported on BT Yahoo! today. Is one persons cliché regarded as normal language by others?

Perhaps some of these are not actually cliches but just annoying was of talking.

It’s interesting that a web site is reporting a criticism of words used about the internet.

“Webinar” made the list as a tiresome non-word combining Web and seminar that a contributor said “belongs in the same school of non-thought that brought us e-anything and i-anything.”

Surely all words were non-words at some time. Where do new words come from otherwise? I don’t particularly like this one but it serves a purpose.

One of my pet hates is the athletics commentater who refers to a new personal best as ‘a lifetimes best’. Doesn’t he allow for more improvement in the future?

This is the link to the web site

http://www.lssu.edu/banished/current/default.html