Chicago Tribune

Pivot. Problematic. Y'all. All the feels. What words make you cringe?

While the year is still fresh, can we establish a few linguistic ground rules?

Can we refrain from cluttering our emails and Twitter feeds and Slack channels and talk-show appearances and Netflix series with the same words and phrases that we reached for too easily in 2018? I understand this is asking way too much, and I recognize this may be a predictable request; every year brings a new list of words and phrases that we have weaponized, overused, abused or just made annoying the previous 12 months. But lists like that tend toward the trendy, once-clever choices of words now growing insufferable.

I'm thinking more about the silent, everyday killers.

I'm thinking, those words and phrases that ran amuck last year less because of flashiness than repetition, an uncertainty of what was meant,

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