University wants to ‘banish’ Trump’s favorite word in 2019

Even our vocabulary needs a fresh start for 2019.

This has been a rough year in so many ways, even for the words we use -- and particularly for those that President Donald Trump is constantly tweeting out. That's why one group is proposing we ban the word "collusion."

Lake Superior State University has unveiled the 44th edition of their annual "List of Words Banished from the Queen’s English for Mis-use, Over-use and General Uselessness" and while it's heavy on cliches, it also features plenty of Trump-related phrases.

The biggest one here is "collusion" which, okay, I can get with that. We hear it so much thanks to the ongoing Robert Mueller-led investigation into potential, well, collusion, between Russia and the Trump campaign in the lead-up to the 2016 election that it's become almost white noise. The one caveat, given the context: it's a damn serious charge and maybe we should wait for the final outcome before banishing it.

Unless we're talking about in Trump's tweets in which case burn it with fire.

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Either way, you're still going to hear it an awful lot as the investigation continues onward. Just as you'll hear the abbreviated "-OTUS" words used as shorthand for the president, first lady, and Supreme Court (POTUS, FLOTUS, SCOTUS).

The list was curated from submissions made via the school's website and Facebook, narrowed down to a tidy 18 examples. Among some of the non-Trump and non-politics choices include:

• Grapple (misuse)

• Eschew (uselessness)

• Platform (misuse and overuse)

• Ghosting (uselessness)

• Optics (misuse and overuse)

The school's list includes people's comments about why they thought the word should be banned, so if you disagree with anything on the list, now you know who to grapple with on the platform of your choice while you try to wrap your head around the optics of eschewing words that are in your wheelhouse.