DETROIT — Before passing comment on someone's "baby bump," take a pregnant pause. Likewise, give up promoting "shared sacrifice." And if you're tempted to proclaim your desire to "win the future," you've lost it.
Michigan's Lake Superior State University is featuring those phrases in its latest List of Words Banished from the Queen's English for Misuse, Overuse and General Uselessness. The 2011 list was released Friday. It was compiled by the university from nominations submitted from across the globe.
The syntactical Scrooges also want to cast out "occupy," ''amazing," ''man cave," and "the new normal."
In all, a dozen words or phrases made the 37th annual end-of-the year list. It started as a publicity ploy by the university on New Year's Day 1976, and has since generated tens of thousands of nominations.
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