Worst Clichés of 2005

[[L A N G U A G E]] * “Surreal,” “hunker down,” “up or down vote,” and “talking points” all found their way onto Lake Superior State University’s 30th annual rundown of words, phrases, and acronyms that ought to be banished from everyday usage. But, one must ask those same Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, word police, what about “at the end of the day”? Or “bring it”? Or “dialogue” as a verb? And how ’bout “cut ’n run”? Maybe next year.

UPDATE: Markos Moulitsas Zúniga, creator of the Daily Kos blog, weighs in with yet another term he’d like to see permanently retired: “mainstream media” or MSM. “The fact that it’s a right-wing construct doesn’t help,” Zúniga writes. “But the chief reason is that interactive media is [sic] now mainstream. In fact, there are tons of blogs and wikis and e-mail lists that have larger readerships than most of the so-called ‘MSM.’”