I came across a story last week about banned words that NYC won’t allow to be used on their standardized tests anymore and that gave me an idea and Dave said it was OK to run with this. We have all talked about it and we have come up with a list of banned words that shouldn’t be used anymore here at SBC Voices in order to help maintain civility in blogging and commenting. I tried to come up with the appropriate number of words to ban. Carlin said that there are 7 words you can’t say, but I am pretty sure there are more than that. NYC has a list of 50, but that seems a bit excessive. In a spirit of compromise, here is a list of 15 words to avoid at SBC Voices.
- Civility – It kind of reminds people of the Civil War and we all know that wasn’t very nice. And rumor has it that there may be at least a couple of regulars who still have flashbacks at the very mention so I will say no more.
- I am a C – No not the C-word from the famous children’s song we all sung in church, that other one: Calvinist. We have determined that the banning of this word will prevent approximately most of the arguments in any given post or comment thread.
- Alcohol – If you can’t use it, you can’t use it and then we won’t have to fight about using it.
- Moderation – Both for its effect on the health of Dave, who has found moderation to be much harder than he ever wanted and for its confusion with the other kind of moderation regarding word #3, which just leads to arguments as well.
- GCB – Our greatest hope and prayer is that this show will simply fade away and no one will watch it and ABC will cancel it. If we stop talking about it, that just might happen.
- Red Sox – Dave pretty much insisted on this one. It is unclear however if it will still be permissible to mention wearing red socks (with the proper spelling) for any reason at all. This is a sore spot for Dave ever since he wore a pair by mistake and got booted out of Yankee stadium during his one and only trip there.
- SEC – Dave lobbied pretty hard for this one too, although I don’t see why anyone would have a problem with a abbreviation for a short unit of time. He kept insisting on typing it out in all caps, so I could tell he was really worked up about it.
- Elder – There is some sort of sticking point with this word that I am guessing comes from some of those who have gained more, shall we say, experience in life. They didn’t say anything about geezer however, so we will leave that as an accepted term. Codger might be a good stand-in as well.
- Potter – Between some famous kid with this name, a controversial church with the name in it and references to clay shapers or something, this word is loaded like a .45 magnum. Probably best to avoid it from here on out.
- ACTS29 – We are people of the Bible. Go look it up. There is no chapter 29 in Acts, so no matter what verse you cite in that chapter it isn’t in the Bible. Stop referring to it now.
- Broadman and Holman – No one even remembers who these people are anymore, so it just gets confusing to use outmoded terminology. Not to be confused with B & H publishing.
- CR – I am pretty sure that there is a C missing on the front of this and I haven’t figured out why Dave doesn’t like Creedence Clearwater Revival. I mean, I was too young to appreciate them when they were new, but I still like some of their songs. Besides, why do we have trouble with all of these acronyms anyway, it’s just their nickname.
- Problem – We don’t have them, so we shouldn’t even need this word. There, that was easy now wasn’t it.
- Fair – As we all know, life isn’t fair; anyone who says differently is selling something. Therefore, we have no use for this word anymore either.
- Missionary – Per NAMB guidelines, these are to be referred to as church planters from now on to fit with the recent changes. We no longer need the word missionary in our vocabulary. If you can find a way to call them commissionary, that might be OK, even though my spell checker didn’t like it one bit.
The banned words take effect as of the moment this post is published. Usage of any of these words will be considered grounds for deletion of comments, revocation of posting rights and possible excommunication from the GCB. Your cooperation in this matter is greatly appreciated.