The 39 Worst Words, Phrases, and Parts of Speech of 2013

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Many words were spoken in 2013. Not all of them were created equal. Here is a brief, but by no means complete, guide to the words and phrases (and symbols, and parts of speech) we’d like to retire in 2014.

Please print this out and post it to your refrigerator or cubicle wall for convenient access.

  • “#.” R.I.P., early Twitter feature. We’ll bury you next to your friend, the FourSquare check-in.
  • adverbs. Ban all adverbs. They’re mostly just gulp words, really.
  • “all the things.”
  • “because [noun]”: (e.g. “because science.”)
  • brogurt.” No.
  • classy.
  • “controversial tweet.” There’s just no way to make this sound dignified, and besides, it leads to think pieces.
  • “cronut.”
  • “crowdsourced.”
  • “derp.” It’s been an emotional ride, but it’s time to send this one off on the ice floe.
  • “disrupt.” Luxury car apps aren’t disruptive.
  • “Donald Trump is considering a run for…” No, he’s not. He just isn’t. And if you’d like to get him unearned publicity, you should at least get some stock options out of it.
  • “doubled down.” Unless the candidate did it while biting into a delicious sandwich, let’s just say the candidate “reaffirmed his/her position” on transportation funding or burrito drones or whatever we’ll be discussing in 2014.
  • “…favorited a tweet you were mentioned in.” No one has ever wanted to know this.
  • “gaffe.” It’s going to be a long-enough election year as it is.
  • “game-changer.” What you’re describing probably won’t change the game. But if it does, would you want to spoil the moment with a cliche?
  • “Guy Fieri.” What if we all decided to just never mention him again? Would he disappear?
  • “hashtag.” This refers to the spoken utterance of the word “hashtag,” often accompanied by air-quotes. People can see you doing this.
  • “hipster. Wearing glasses is not something people do because they’re hipsters; it’s something people do because they’re nearsighted. People don’t drink hot chocolate because it’s a hipster thing to do; they drink hot chocolate because it’s literally liquid chocolate. Yes, I wrote “literally.” That’s what happens when you use a word so casually and carelessly in think pieces as to render it meaningless.
  • “I can’t even.” You can. Dig deep. Find your Kentucky.
  • “impact.” (When used as a verb.)
  • “…in .gifs.”
  • “…in one chart.” We’re aiming high in 2014. Two chart minimum!
  • “listicle.” This is the last one.
  • “literally the worst.” Actually, while we’re at it, let’s ban “literally.” Literally is the “not the Onion” of fake things.
  • “millennial.” Young people are living with their parents because their parents’ generation destroyed the global economy. Next.
  • “nondescript office park.” As opposed to the Frank Gehry ones.
  • “not the Onion.
  • “Rethuglicans, Repugs,” “Republikkkans,” “Demoncrats,” “Dumbocrats,” and every other variation thereof. Please just use the normal proper nouns; you can add whatever modifier you like before or after.
  • “selfie.” But what do they tell us about our society, in the digital now? Let’s ask James Franco.
  • “Snowfall.” (In the future, a high-cost digital production that doesn’t live up to the hype shall be known as a “Skyfall.”)
  • “the Internets.” This was a George W. Bush joke or something, right? You can still use the Internet—just drop the “s.”
  • “This Town.”
  • “thought leader.” Mostly beaten out of existence, but don’t think we didn’t notice that Paul Allen interview, Wired. You’re on notice.
  • #YOLO. Seriously.

I am guilty of most of these sins. Let us never speak of this again.

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And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. It's going to be a nail-biter, and we really need to see donations from this specific ask coming in strong if we're going to get there.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT.

We have a considerable $390,000 gap in our online fundraising budget that we have to close by June 30. There is no wiggle room, we've already cut everything we can, and we urgently need more readers to pitch in—especially from this specific blurb you're reading right now.

We'll also be quite transparent and level-headed with you about this.

In "News Never Pays," our fearless CEO, Monika Bauerlein, connects the dots on several concerning media trends that, taken together, expose the fallacy behind the tragic state of journalism right now: That the marketplace will take care of providing the free and independent press citizens in a democracy need, and the Next New Thing to invest millions in will fix the problem. Bottom line: Journalism that serves the people needs the support of the people. That's the Next New Thing.

And it's what MoJo and our community of readers have been doing for 47 years now.

But staying afloat is harder than ever.

In "This Is Not a Crisis. It's The New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, why this moment is particularly urgent, and how we can best communicate that without screaming OMG PLEASE HELP over and over. We also touch on our history and how our nonprofit model makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there: Letting us go deep, focus on underreported beats, and bring unique perspectives to the day's news.

You're here for reporting like that, not fundraising, but one cannot exist without the other, and it's vitally important that we hit our intimidating $390,000 number in online donations by June 30.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. It's going to be a nail-biter, and we really need to see donations from this specific ask coming in strong if we're going to get there.

payment methods

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