Forbidden Words? Yes!

Last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) was put on notice that there were seven words and phrases that should not be used in its budget request document. The department of Health and Human Services, to which the CDC reports, denies it, but given the administration’s anti-intellectual bent, I believe the CDC was told not to use these seven words and phrases in its budget proposal document:

Fetus
Entitlement
Science-based
Evidence-based
Diversity
Transgender
Vulnerable.

How crazy is that? Maybe not as crazy as it sounds. Daniel Engber at Slate, the online news source, says rather than a ban on theses words from the top, avoiding the seven terms is actually a strategy formulated in the lower ranks of the CDC itself to avoid drawing the ire and thumbs down and of congress.

No matter which version of verboten words you believe, according to the Washington Post, on Tuesday, 19 December, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) in collaboration with artist Robin Bell displayed all of the banned words in yellow and blue lights above the entrance to Trump International Hotel in Washington DC just down the street from the White House. The installation ended with, “We [the lgbtq comunity] will not be erased.” Way to go, HRC!

Regardless of the veracity of the original story, in response to the CDC’s words and phrases to avoid strategy, I have compiled a list of 10 words and phrases Mr. Trump and his minions should never, ever use again:

Crooked
Rigged
Huge
I — as in “I [Trump] alone can fix it.”
Loser
Believe me
Sad
Tremendous
Fake news
Failing — as in “the failing New York Times.”

I am confident that eliminating these words and phrases from the president’s and his administration’s limited vocabularies will cut down on his bombastic tweets and other foolish statements. The aforementioned 10 words and phrases seem to have gotten Trump into the White House. Let’s hope that forbidding their use will send him packing!