Every New Year's Eve since 1976, tiny Lake Superior State College gives us the "List of Words Banished from the Queen's English for Mis-Use, Over-Use and General Uselessness."  Partly tongue in cheek, the list is a check on political correctness and a blow against an Orwellian use of the English language. Some of this year's finalists – gleaned from tens of thousands of entries – are spot on.  So "Tune in to any news channel and you'll hear it. The word serves no purpose in the sentence and to me is like fingernails on a chalkboard. So, I submit the extra, meaningless, and overused word 'so,'" wrote Scott Shackleton, Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan. Problematic "Anything that the speaker finds vaguely inconvenient or undesirable, such as an opposing political belief or bad traffic. Contrast things that are self-evidently taken to be problematic with, say, actual problems like a hole in the...(Read Full Post)