Top Five Words That Should Be Eliminated

The English language has a plethora of words that should be eliminated, or at least not used in conversation quite so often. Some people, for example, might not like the word plethora. I think it is permissible if it is used sparingly, but it is annoying if people use it plethorally.

In order to help the American people, I have come up with the Top Five Words that truly should be eliminated. I should add, though, that in the future I may add another five, as there are numerous words that people use way too often and these are mainly just the ones that are bothering me today.
Here now are the Top Five Words That We Should Eliminate (or at least stop using so often).

5. Irregardless – First of all, it’s not even a word. The word is “regardless” and it has the same meaning as what someone is trying to say when they say “Irregardless.” Irregardless Regardless of if they regard more or less of what I say, many people believe “irregardless” is a word when it is not. Please regard proper English and stop saying irregardless.

4. Thusly – Admittedly, I don’t hear this a lot. When I do hear it or read it, though, I always think that it is awful. Just say thus! Or better yet, so “so,” it works just as well.

3. Mandate – After every election, political pundits and politicians always talk about if elected officials have mandates or not. First of all, most of them really don’t because most elections are split. Even if candidates win by wide margins, that is usually a 60-40 split of the vote, which is hardly a mandate or consensus. Second of all, and most importantly, did you ever listen to the word mandate? It’s man – date, like going on a date with a man. It always sounds funny to me. It sounds like something a single grandmother would say. “I will be out tonight, dears, I have a man-date with my man-friend.”

2. Heat lighting – Okay, this one is just my own annoyance, but it needs to be stopped. Listen to me, there is no such thing as heat lighting! When people say they see heat lighting, they are just seeing lighting from a storm far away from them. It’s just a thunderstorm! It may not be raining right over you, but it’s still just a normal storm. There is no such thing as heat lighting.

1. Tie between POTUS and SCOTUS – Who decided that the media had to start calling the President POTUS and the Supreme Court SCOTUS? People who use these terms are just trying to sound important, but they come off as pretentious. I can see if a newspaper editor had to use one of those terms to make a headline fit on a page, but that’s the only time they should be used. It’s not shorter to say POTUS than it is to say President, and it’s not shorter to say SCOTUS than it is to say Supreme Court. POTUS and SCOTUS do not convey an immediate meaning, they just sound dumb. All of the media outlets are using these terms, though, and now they are going mainstream. They need to be stopped or I will have to call the USHOR (United States House Of Representatives) to try to fix this.