The word wonks at Lake Superior State University have issued their annual list of overused words that they feel we should eschew. The list includes "desperate search" - obviously they didn't have to execute one to find candidates! - "maverick" (Sen. McCain's endless repetition of "my friends" in the debates should have made the list), and, thank goodness, "green."

Although they issue an annual list, the LSSU word guardians refrained from saying "it's that time of year again" in their press release - except to make it part of the overused list. I guess by using the Internet they were keeping the announcement carbon-low, although they condemned the "carbon"-nation of our discussion of environmental issues.

I'll stop there and let you read the list for yourselves. Having just listened to an interview I gave recently, I'm going to nominate "uh" as another overused word. Like, you know?