The joy of banning

Just over a month ago we asked readers to suggest words that should be banned for Christmas.¹ The response was immediate and overwhelming. At the time of going to press there were 212 responses on bmj.com, and they are still coming. Having gathered your suggestions, we held a vote. The table shows the top 10 words that readers want to ban together with our response. The full vote and all the rapid responses can be seen at http://bmj.com/misc/ban_a_word.shtml.

The exercise was a game and might be compared to free association of words. It illustrates what is on readers' minds and allows them to expose prejudices in a politically correct way. The diverse responses in the collection come from at least 14 countries and dozens of different perspectives. Many of you agreed that it was fun—but there's plenty of irritation, anger, and prejudice in there too. A few even took the opportunity to settle old scores. An Australian wants to ban the “Great” from Britain because we can't play cricket and, worse, refer to Australia as “down under.” A researcher wants to ban the word clinician—because it implies superiority over non-clinical specialties. A patient wants to ban the word “doctor” for the same reason, and a junior doctor wants to ban “breaks” for nurses, because they always seem to be on one when you need them.

Most of you, though, just want rid of words that rub you up the wrong way. Jargon of all kinds is top of the list, but you hate politicians' jargon the most—words such as paradigm (because no one knows what it means), governance (ditto), reform (because it means constant unevaluated reorganisation), modernisation (ditto), opinion leaders (because they might not be), and seamless (because it's grossly unfair to seams, which are a practical way of holding things together). There are many more suggestions. All of them disguise what's actually going on and are the building blocks of “spin”—another word you would be happy never to see again.

The second commonest theme included words that are overused (quality, obviously, sharing, caring, community, basically), or used wrongly. Three respondents want to ban the “junior” in junior doctor because it's one of medicine's peculiarities. Many “juniors” have been training for over 10 years. Some of you hate the word patient, preferring client. Others hate the word client, preferring patient because “only lawyers and prostitutes have clients.” There is disagreement too over the choice between “gender” and “sex” and “compliance” and “adherence.” The misuse of language by journalists was also criticised with widespread support for banning “miracle” and “hero” (to describe someone who had the misfortune to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and consequently died). And who would miss “breakthrough,” “cure,” and the meaningless “health chiefs” or “life support machine” if they disappeared from our newspapers? More randomly, a pharmacist in Britain wants (without explanation) to ban the word cheese.

A couple of you commented on the number of responses. One, a freelance researcher from the United Kingdom thinks the whole exercise suggests (sorry, that's another candidate) that BMJ readers are fussy, pedantic, arrogant, sad, and deeply conformist. Get out more, he says, and learn to delight in the diversity of language. Another thinks that banning words is just another form of cultural expression.

Why did so many readers stop what they were doing to share their list of most hated words with the world? Probably because venting spleen is always more fun than working. Perhaps, too, they realised this was likely to be their only chance to tell a global audience how they felt about the words solstice, nakedness, pop, pigeon, Christmas, and, of course, ban.

Table.

Top 10 words that readers want to ban

Word for banning	No of votes	BMJ 's response
9/11	173	Wouldn't be used in BMJ—house style is “11 September”
Clients (to describe patients)	97	The BMJ has already debated the use of “patient” and alternatives.2 We can't commit ourselves
Kiddie porn	91	Wouldn't be used in BMJ—house style is “child pornography”
Developed/developing (for countries)	77	Impossible to avoid using these words until alternatives are developed
Miracle (in the context of news)	68	We wouldn't use the word in news, except ironically
Basically	65	We will avoid
Mission statement	59	Oh dear, the BMJ has a mission statement3
Stakeholders	54	Too hard to avoid: there is no good alternative
Modernisation	51	People are probably objecting to the way the word is being used by the government. We cannot avoid it for now (what would we call the Modernisation Agency?), but the word is losing its meaning. Spin doctors will soon invent an alternative
Hero (to describe someone who had the misfortune to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and consequently died)	51	RIP