LSSU’s Banished Word List has always been an exercise conducted tongue firmly in cheek, as per its full name, “List of Words Banished from the Queen’s English for Mis-Use, Over-Use and General Uselessness.” Nobody with common sense expects words to evaporate because someone or even a group of someones wants it so. The submissions sound insufferable, but we ought to take stock of our language, at least on occasion. Our clichés say a lot about us. Phrases like “peacekeeping force” or “down time”—on LSSU’s 1996 and 1997 lists, respectively—are applied to how we describe the world and ourselves and thus describe what we think we know about the world and ourselves. Some clichés, such as “welfare queen,” “axis of evil,” and “weapons of mass destruction,” encourage a racial perspective that looks truer and truer with each repetition, sounding like something real, as if meaning something apart from the racism whence they came.
But across the forty-three years of LSSU’s archive, something disquieting emerges, too. It starts in the ’90s, when phrases like “you go, girl” and “da bomb” enter the frame, and later “dawg” and “bling.” The common feature of these additions grows more glaring in the 2010’s, dramatized by Time’s appropriation of LSSU’s project. In addition to “feminist,” that fateful 2015 list proposed the following for the chopping block: “bae” (shared with LSSU), “basic,” “bossy,” “disrupt,” “I can’t even,” “influencer,” “kale,” “literally,” “om nom nom nom,” “obvi,” “said no one ever,” “sorry not sorry,” “turnt,” and “yaaasssss.” The list, with few exceptions, curated words derived from black and feminized speech. Only three entries seem genuinely critical of discourse we find ourselves in without notice: “bossy,” a common slur against women with expertise and authority; “disrupt,” the Silicon Valley motto; and “said no one ever,” a sarcastic equal opportunity rejoinder. But the cutified “obvi,” “I can’t even,” “influencer,” and “kale” together suggest an immature, girlish archetype worthy of scorn—like young women don’t have enough to deal with.
Additionally, the words Time draws from black vernacular are attributed to the same archetype, and the magazine doubles down on its obsession with white girls as the harbinger of vernacular trends. “Girls need a word for other girls who name-drop D-listers in their fake Louboutins, going around thinking they’re a Carrie, even though they’re really a Miranda,” reads the hostile copy for “basic,” whose meaning black culture made popular. “Yaaasssss,” an expression from ball culture is credited to a viral clip of Lady Gaga. On “bae,” another gift from black vernacular: “Yes, this term of endearment has been around for years, but suddenly it’s everywhere.” Blan, from Sugar Hill, Georgia, was similarly annoyed by its ubiquity when he submitted the term to LSSU. “Also,” he added, “the concept ‘before anyone else,’ developed AFTER the word became popular. Reason enough for it to be banned.”