Every New Year’s since 1976 a small Michigan school called Lake Superior State University has published a list of “banished words.” “Selfie” received the most nominations this year, followed by “twerk/twerking” and “hashtag,” though the political judgment of the Lake Superior lexicographers is especially notable: They want to ban “ObamaCare”—the word, that is, not the law.

They explain: “Because President Obama’s signature health-care law is actually called the Affordable Care Act. The term has been clearly overused and overblown by the media and by members of Congress.” The law is actually called the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act as modified by the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010, but then philologists aren’t policy wonks. Their objection seems to be that the word is somehow derogatory.