Words to banish and peeves to ignore

No, not really. Actually, not at all. The only people who might have been suh-prised by this hed choice would have been the ones who didn't read Tuesday's paper:

... or  the Dec. 8 issue, or pretty much any issue during draft season or the hockey playoffs. At least "Suh-perb" works phonetically, kind of, a little bit, for what that's worth.

Funny how this coincides with the annual dose of free peevological publicity for the cousins at LSSU and their list of Banished Words. Granted, I thought it was a waste of time -- theirs, mine and that of journalism students everywhere -- for the AP gang to add "polar vortex" to the 2014 Stylebook, but that's because the best way to send "polar vortex" to the snow heap of history is to ignore it. Having never heard "cra cra" in the wild,* and having never heard "bae" at all,** I don't see the point in peeving about what Those Kids are doing when Those Kids don't seem to be doing it within earshot of the classroom or office.***

Those Grownups, on the other hand -- let's start by banning all sports heds that play off athlete's names? (Name pun heds in general need to be Foot Heads Arms Body-caliber to escape.) Everybody should already have access to the Forbidden Holiday Terms; might as well add "Are you ready for some football?" to the list. For cutlines, we have "celebrates," "shares a laugh with" and "smiles as he [VP]."

In text, anything that sounds like it should be among the Magic Phrases of Journalism: "limped into port," "flatly denied" or "told the Free Press in a wide-ranging interview." And -- has it really been more than two weeks?

No Bob Bashara, no jury deliberations.

That's what it's come to in court this week as jury deliberations in the Grosse Pointe Park man's high profile murder trial have been put on hold indefinitely because of a mysterious illness that's landed Bashara in the hospital.

Yes, Virginia, there is a War on Editing. Knock it off, you peevers, and get back on the guns.

* Like Google, my first question is: "Did you mean "cray cray"? I'd hyphenate it, too.
** Except as a proper name, which doesn't seem to be what LSSU had in mind.
*** Or of Language Czarina's, and she sees a lot more of them than I do.