Using an app to tweet about sexting? One university wants you to watch your language.

Lake Superior State University, though no doubt a fine institution of higher learning, doesn't have big name recognition. But it does have one annual PR stunt created by the school's public relations director back in 1975: a "word banishment" list for the year that just ended.

The list's full name, "List of Words Banished from the Queen's English for Mis-use, Over-use and General Uselessness," pretty much sums up its function. For 2010, four tech terms made the cut.

Tweeting twits and the tweeters who <3 them



"Tweet" earned itself a banhammer, along with all of its variations (up to and including "tweetaholic, retweet, twitterhea, twitterature, [and] twittersphere").

"I don't know a single non-celebrity who actually uses it," said Alex Thompson of Sault St. Marie, Michigan, which just goes to show you that Alex Thompson does not work in the Ars Orbiting HQ, where my curmudgeonly ears are assaulted daily with all sorts of tweet-related terminology. Like many of life's little annoyances, this one comes mainly from our Younger Staffers, the ones into "social media" and "having friends."

Ars Editor-in-chief Ken Fisher is a devoted tweetaholic, but even he has a limit, and that limit is "twebinar."

"It's the most evil word because it's a bastardization twice removed," he complains. First came the hideous "webinar" (web + seminar), but the second stage "twebinar" (tweet + webinar) is a bridge too far.

There's an app for that?

"App" also made the list. Some of the submitters seemed angered by the presence of another abbreviation in their lives, while others argued that we have plenty of other words (such as "program") for the same concept.

"Must we b sbjct to yt another abrv?" wrote one, who gives me a real run for the money on the Curmudgeon-o-meter. "Why does the English language have to fit on a two-inch screen? I hate the sound of it. I think I'll listen to a symph on the rad."

Me too! Now, where is my rad?

Sexting

Like a peanut butter cup, this one combines two of life's great pleasures: texting and sex. (Our Younger Staffers tell me that texting is a great pleasure, anyway; I have little use for it. Conjures up a vaguely unpleasant sense that I am "tweeting.")

"Any dangerous new trend that also happens to have a clever mash-up of words, involves teens, and gets television talk show hosts interested must be banished," complained Ishmael Daro from Saskatoon, Canada.

I guess that means "getting a handroid" (don't ask) is out, too.

"Friend" as a verb

Friends are nouns, they have always been nouns, and they will always be nouns. Verbing your friends is an abomination.

Just ask Kevin K. from Morris, Oklahoma. "'Befriend' is much more pleasant to the human ear and a perfectly useful word in the dictionary," he says.

Facebook, we're calling you out for destroying the Queen's English, and we await the "befriending" overhaul of the entire site. Let's get on that, stat.

Of course, if non-mellifluous words are right out, we're going to lose a lot more than just friend-as-a-verb. "Chillaxin" would also have to be cut... and it was, making the Lake Superior State list this time for "its ability to exhort the opposite reaction from the receiver."

Non-tech words on the list included "bromance," "too big to fail," "toxic assets," "teachable moment," "czar," "shovel-ready," and any "Obama" portmanteaus like "Obamalicious."

What's on your own personal gripe list?