good words, bad words

Lake Superior State University and the American Dialect Society should play each other in softball, or at the very least, compete against one another in a spelling bee. They seem to be working at cross purposes. The University just published their 2003 list of banished words. The Society will choose their favorite amongst all of the new words coined this year, to determine a Word of the Year from this group. And yes, there is at least one phrase that is on both the banished list, and the American Dialect Society's list from 2002. I'm fond of one of last year's phrases -- second-hand speech. as a word of the year. The term stands for "cell phone conversations heard by others in public places."