Terms that make us cringe: the sequel

Last week, we wrote an article identifying words that make linguists cringe.

As professional speechwriters, we had no shortage of options. The hardest part was winnowing them to our favorite options. In the days since, it’s become clear that many of our fellow writers, bloggers and readers share a pent-up annoyance at words and phrases that are overused or lazy or say nothing at all.

When other sites, including Mediabistro, asked readers to submit their own cringe-worthy words, the nominations rolled in. Narrowing down the great options wasn’t easy, but we were up to the challenge. For your reading pleasure, here are five more words, phrases and pseudo-suffixes that make us cringe—the user-submitted edition:

1. “-Mageddon” and “-Gate”

Snowmageddon, Carmageddon. Twittergate. Nipplegate.