Respondents to an annual Michigan college survey of overused and misused words and phrases say \u201c6-7\u201d is \u201ccooked\u201d and should come to a massive full stop heading into the new year.<\/p>\n
Those are among the top 10 words on the 50th annual \u201cBanished Words List,\u201d released Thursday by Lake Superior State University. The tongue-in-cheek roundup of overused slang started in 1976 as a New Year\u2019s Eve party idea and is affectionately called the list of \u201cQueen\u2019s English for Mis-use, Over-use and General Uselessness.\u201d<\/p>\n
Around 1,400 submissions came from all 50 states and a number of countries, including Uzbekistan, Brazil and Japan, according to Lake Superior State.<\/p>\n
Also in the top 10 are \u201cdemure,\u201d \u201cincentivize,\u201d \u201cperfect,\u201d \u201cgift\/gifted,\u201d \u201cmy bad\u201d and \u201creach out.\u201d \u201cMy bad\u201d and \u201creach out\u201d also made the list decades ago \u2014 in 1998 and 1994, respectively.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe list definitely represents the fad and vernacular trends of the younger generation,\u201d said David Travis, Lake Superior State president. \u201cSocial media allows a greater opportunity to misunderstand or misuse words. We\u2019re using terms that are shared through texting, primarily, or through posting with no body language or tone context. It\u2019s very easy to misunderstand these words.\u201d<\/p>\n
Few phrases in 2025 befuddled parents, teachers and others over the age of, say, 40 more than \u201c6-7.\u201d Dictionary.com even picked it as its 2025 word of the year, while other dictionaries chose words such as \u201cslop\u201d and \u201crage bait.\u201d<\/p>\n
But what does \u201c6-7\u201d actually mean? It exploded over the summer, especially among Gen Z, and is considered by many to be nonsensical in meaning \u2014 an inside joke driven by social media.<\/p>\n
\u201cDon\u2019t worry, because we\u2019re all still trying to figure out exactly what it means,\u201d the dictionary\u2019s editors wrote.<\/p>\n
Each number can be spoken aloud as \u201csix, seven.\u201d They even can be combined as the number 67; at college basketball games, some fans explode when a team reaches that point total.<\/p>\n
The placement of \u201c6-7\u201d at the top of the banished list puts it in good company. In 2019, the centuries-old Latin phrase \u201cquid pro quo\u201d was the top requested phrase to ban from popular use. In 2017, \u201cfake news\u201d got the most votes.<\/p>\n
Alana Bobbitt, a 19-year-old sophomore at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, is unapologetic about using \u201c6-7.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI find joy in it,\u201d Bobbitt said. \u201cIt\u2019s a little bit silly, and even though I don\u2019t understand what it means, it\u2019s fun to use.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jalen Brezzell says that a small group of his friends use \u201c6-7\u201d and that it comes up a couple of times each week. But he won\u2019t utter it.<\/p>\n
\u201cNever. I don\u2019t really get the joke,\u201d said Brezzell, a 19-year-old sophomore at the University of Michigan-Dearborn. \u201cI don\u2019t see what\u2019s funny about it.\u201d<\/p>\n
But banning it, even in jest, might be a bit of a stretch, he said, adding that he does use other words and phrases on the list.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve always used the word \u2018cooked,\u2019\u201d Brezzell said. \u201cI just think it got popular on the internet over this past year. It\u2019s saying, like, \u2018Give it up, it\u2019s over.\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n
Some of the phrases do have longevity, Travis said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think they\u2019ll ever go away, like \u2018at the end of the day,\u2019\u201d he said. \u201cI used \u2018my bad\u2019 today. I feel comfortable using it. I started using it when I was young. A lot of us older people are still using it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Travis said that although some terms on the list \u201cwill stick around in perpetuity,\u201d others will be fleeting.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think \u20186-7,\u2019 next year, will be gone,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Williams writes for the Associated Press. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Respondents to an annual Michigan college survey of overused and misused words and phrases say \u201c6-7\u201d is \u201ccooked\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":117517,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[62508,62504,62509,62505,48,52,51,62503,47,50,49,62510,18754,212,1594,62506,10383,62507,7585,4119,62502],"class_list":["post-117516","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-alana-bobbitt","tag-david-travis","tag-inside-joke","tag-jalen-brezzell","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-lake-superior-state-university","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-mis-use","tag-new-year","tag-number","tag-other","tag-other-dictionary","tag-phrase","tag-sophomore","tag-term","tag-top","tag-word-list"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117516","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117516"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117516\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/117517"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}