Words that should be ‘out’ in 2025

There’s some good news and some bad news. Good news is that there are certain slang terms that are no longer acceptable to some University Academics in 2026 and they are calling for them to be banished from the English Language.

Last Saturday I was out walking and I passed a group of children between the ages of 8 and 13. They were talking amongst themselves and I distinctly heard ‘6,7’ being muttered over and over again. Then I remembered hearing about this new slang that was coined by some rapper after which it came into the common teenage vernacular. It just means ‘nothing’. But I ask you, what’s wrong with the word ‘nothing’ if it’s nothing? I am always irritated when the English language is being butchered and not just by children but grown adults who say they’ve been to university. Unfortunately nothing useful is being added to it except awful slang which seems to be replacing the perfectly good words. Like me, many university academics think ‘6,7’ actually is nothing and is, therefore, rightly so on a list of words that should be banished.

But the bad news here is that the bad news far outweighs the good news. Yes certain words have been put on a list but even those words that are still in should also be on the out list. Moreover, at the end of the day, it is just a list and its effectiveness is only as good as those willing to stop using it. And it would appear that we are dealing with youngsters who seem to be largely responsible for anything odd added to the language. Phrases like ‘it’s so rad’ and ‘supp’ came from uneducated and inexperienced young people.

As well as those that have been nominated, I think all of the words on the ‘in’ list should also be added to the ‘Out’ list because none of them make any sense in the real English Language. I also think words such as ‘Supp’, it’s so rad’ and ‘tripping’, which doesn’t refer to someone who tripped and fell, should also be included. And these are just a few I can remember off the top of my head.

There are other language failings that irritate me such as when people reply to me with an emoji when I’ve made a thoughtful post in prose. I don’t like the word ‘babe’ being used when someone addresses their other half. In the old days it used be ‘darling’ sweetheart’ or ‘my dear’. I don’t like the word ‘invite’ being used to describe the act of sending out an invitation. Invite is a verb and you don’t send out a verb. You can send out a noun which is the invitation. It just sounds like poor English. It annoys me when people say ‘let’s talk offline’ even when they’re quite literally sitting right in front of me. Also, I don’t know how ‘sorry, my mistake’ became ‘my bad’. I also cringe at the word ‘period’ to let people know that it’s the end of a sentence when I am used to using ‘full stop’ which, by the way, is also on the banned list. Apparently folk find ‘full stop’ intimidating. Little do they understand that the phrase is meaningful in grammar. It is a full and complete stop at the end of a sentence as opposed to a comma, a colon or a semi-colon which are brief pauses. In other words these are periods. And don’t even get me started on ‘exclamation point’ which is an exclamation mark.

And finally the phrase that almost every member of LinkedIn uses to start a post relating to a change in their lives. ‘I’m happy to share...’ is the most annoying of all and a laughing stock. To illustrate that point I feel I should use it. I’m happy to share that I was able to get up at 6.30am this morning, make breakfast, eat said breakfast, go shopping, put away said shopping and then work on this column which is now sitting in the drafts folder ready to be sent. See how ridiculous it sounds? Makes you cringe, doesn’t it?