Banished Words

Year-end lists of "banished words"—yes, they're fun to snark at, but they should be used for entertainment purposes only! Paul and I explain why in a new Moxy Blog post, "The Futility of 'Forbidden Words.'"

Now. All that said, here are some words and phrases that I would like to banish (a purely subjective list!):

• Off the reservation—This term is used to mean "off brand," or just "inappropriate" in corporate America. I hate it and am pretty sure it's in poor taste if not outright offensive. 
• Edgy—Used only by people who wouldn't know "edgy" if it shivved them in dive-bar bathroom.
• Manscaping—Just blech. 
• Fiscal cliff—The cliff metaphor is not apt. Call it what it is: a clusterf&%#.
• Huntie—If you don't watch Ru Paul's Drag Race and don't know anyone who does, you might not have been exposed to this term; it's sort of a disdainful way to say "Honey." Like a lot of drag argot, it was funny the first thousand times and then became awfully tiresome.
• Awesome—This is a personal challenge: Charles, stop saying "awesome" so much. Use your words! You are a 4[redacted]-year-old marketing professional with a massive vocabulary, not a teenage skateboarding prodigy. 
• It is what it is—Talk about an empty sentiment (in the category of YOLO and similar painfully obvious platitudes). If you don't have anything useful to add to a conversation, you can always just nod politely and make sympathetic noises. 
• Hipster—The definition has gotten too broad. I challenge speakers to use appropriate subcategories, like "skinny-jean lumberjack guy," "neck-tattoo pixie girl," and "bicycle militant."