Campus News

‘Problematic’ makes Lake Superior State’s annual banished words list

Lake Superior State University took its annual tongue-in-cheek swipe at overused words and phrases in its List of Banished Words. Among the expressions on this year’s list was starting a sentence with the word “so.”

Other words include “problematic,” “stakeholder,” “vape” (referring to electronic cigarettes) and “physicality.”

The list also included hyperbolic expressions such as “giving me life,” used to refer to anything that excites a person; “walk it back,” to refer to a retraction of an embarrassing statement; and “break the Internet,” for any popular meme.