I have 3 kids, between 10 and 14. The don’t say “versus” or “verse” is alway “vee”
i.e. 1 v. 1, 10 v. 10, or Sparky v. Cecil
“Legit” has made a big comeback since the 80’s as well as “sick” to mean cool.
But my most hated word right now, is by far, “Rubric” It’s fucking pedantic and half of the “rubrics” I get sent are not fucking rubrics!
Which is actually the way Supreme Court cases are spoken…Roe Vee Wade being the most famous.
I agree with curate…anything that used to be provided or hand-selected is now curated.
Another one: “inform”. Not in the sense of to learn, but in the sense of “motivated” or “inspired” or “engendered”. “The chef’s cuisine was informed by his time in Paris.”
Of course… but that’s not where they’ve learned it. This usage is a product of on-line gaming.
“Roe vee Wade” is the most common way to pronounce “Roe v. Wade” but it is not the way.
“Roe versus Wade” is also common and correct.
“Roe against Wade” is must less common but perfectly correct.
U.K. lawyers would correctly pronounce it as “Roe and Wade.”
“At the end of the day…” seems definitely more used than it was before.
Did they ever settle that Jarndyce and Jarndyce matter?
My “such as” referrred to “boss” being commonly used outside of law enforcement. I think you mistakenly bundled me with Roe v. Wade.
Any words that you think should be more popular?
Not sure what the precise criteria are; purely statistically, ineluctably the vast, vast majority of words are going to be hopelessly obscure. If you look at a representative sample of English text, approximately 135 different words already account for half of the volume. Also, spamming even the most sublimely poetic word will quickly spoil it: for instance, “awesome”. But so many words deserve to be dusted off, if only a bit. I will leave the choices up to you.
Some preliminary ideas (no particular unifying theme):
dwale/dwaal
apricity
fillip
motley
judder
lunt
flagitious
noetic
epigone
gullion
lum
hieratic
fop
ken
monsterful
darkle
fain
yegg
freck
carouse
groak
enough from me for now 
in fact not every word I’ve listed makes the cut…
Granular. This one goes against the grain when it is used to indicate examining in more detail.
“Shelter in place” was coined a few years ago and has gotten heavy use ever since.
Potentially underused expressions:
qui vive
have kittens
…
Well, if circumstances in the world change, then of course some words are naturally going to be used more. (Or we might need to change how we use current words.)
The presumption in this thread seems to be that we have a static set of “officially approved” vocabulary, and if a word that’s not on the officially approved list starts to be used, people are just being “trendy.”
But changing circumstances in society call for changes in vocabulary. So shelter in place, as mentioned above, is being used more now. Of course it is.
Of course we are using certain words more with someone like Trump in the White House. Why shouldn’t we? That’s what language is for.
I don’t know exactly when this became trendy, but it has the feel of 1990s hip-hop to me—“drop.”
Any new product release—be it a recordin, a film, a book, whatever—is now “dropped.” Never issued, released, published, distributed, debuted, launched, put out. Always dropped.
I hate that metaphor. It’s very negative-sounding to me, aggressive, arrogant, and dismissive, but it’s becoming the regular term.
Why “dropped” for something you worked hard on and want people to like? Dropping something is disrespectful, either to the thing that’s being dropped or the people who have to pick it up when you could have politely handed it to them.
Also, regarding music, every good song “slaps” or “is a banger.”
This made me snort. 