Earlier this week, time.com published a list of words that should be banned. Here’s one of our writers take “2015 Words to Be Banned”.
We would like to apologize for suggesting we ban the word feminism, we realize an internet petition has gained a massive number of signatures from people who mistakenly think we were somehow being offensive when we stated that we wanted to remove a word whose definition is the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes. We were just trying to introduce a dialogue on the subject, in a fun way! That’s why its position in our list equates it with gems such as “Bae” and “Om nom nom” which, admittedly, aren’t real words. So calm down ladies! We aren’t actually going to do anything about it, but we acknowledge you’re angry (that time of the month?) and we’re sorry about that, so sorry.
Here is a list of a few words that need to be banned in 2015! Join us in our attempt to preserve our values by refusing to use any of these words:
Feminism– we don’t hate women! We just want everyone to stop telling us they’re feminists, because it’s okay to be a feminist, we just don’t want to know – it’s more of a don’t ask, don’t tell kind of thing, you know? While we’re at it, we want to ban a few other words that we find uncomfortable like equality, equal wages, and maternity-leave.
Kale– this is a vegetable we aren’t used to! So take it away! We understand that you can’t actually ‘ban’ a vegetable, but maybe if we start yelling profanities whenever anyone starts saying, “Hey for the dinner party tonight can I bring a fennel and ka-” we can at least stop those around us from bringing it into our homes.
Turnt– children and their crazy slang, am I right?! What does this even mean? We aren’t sure so we’re going to ban it also. Millennials, we all know you’re lazy good-for-nothings whose brains have been fried by the internet and who won’t amount to anything, but we’d at least like to feel in the loop. When you use slang we don’t know, we feel the crushing weight of our own banality and insignificance along with the mortality that is advancing as quickly as our hairlines are receding.
Disrupt– from now on you all must only use “interrupt”. We feel that disrupt is too aggressive. It makes us uncomfortable.
Literally– all of us at Time are confused by the use of this word outside of the context of literature. Is anything literal except what is truly literal? No! It isn’t! You know what is “literally” literal? The fact that we are all slowly slipping towards the abyss! Faster and faster and that mid-life crisis Corvette you bought and the trip you and your wife took to the Sandals Resort in Jamaica in the failed hopes of lighting some long dead fire again aren’t slowing anything down!
I can’t even– we have put these three words together as one of the words which must be banned in 2015 because we believe that incomplete slang like this is lessening our children’s literary ability. The youth of today clearly are idiots.
Petitions– can we all calm down? It seems like every time you go online these days someone is petitioning against something else and asking you to sign it. And usually it’s just raging against what was essentially someone’s silly little slip of the mind! We aren’t all 24 years old now are we? How are we all expected to refrain from a bigoted comment or action here and there? We’re all human! Let’s put the petitions down and instead just talk about it. Petitions don’t do any good any ways!
(These are actually a few of the words that the great minds at Time think should be banned. Read the full “article” here.)