Caroline Giles Banks
Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA
In its March 2025 quarterly update theOxford English Dictionary added 42 new words from other languages. The words do not have direct English equivalents. The list includes gigil, from the Philippines, an intense feeling when seeing someone or something cute; blaa, from Irish English, a soft white-floured bread associated with Waterford, Ireland; and alamak, a Malaysian word expressing shock or outrage.
Simultaneously, hundreds of English words and phrases disappeared from U.S. Government documents. Many words erased from these documents relate to D.E.I. and transgender issues and initiatives. Forbidden words include: race, trans, intersectionality, Indigenous, tribal, ethnicity, activism, gender, pronoun, sociocultural, Black, female, disabled, and ally.
Where do these red strike-through words go?
hide-and-seek
woke words
doze under the tongue
Contemporary Haibun Online Issue #21.2 (August 2025)
Read the list here:
Federal Government’s Growing Banned Words List Is Chilling Act of Censorship – PEN America