Mrs Hughes, one of my favourite teachers, momentarily enthralled me in year three when she promised to let my class in on the secret of the worst word in the English language. She was going to write it on the blackboard, she said, and then we must never use it again. Expecting dreadful swearing, or utter foulness, I waited, breath bated. It was "nice". I was let down – though it's one of those childhood moments that's stuck with me, and to this day I stay as far from "nice" as I can when writing.

It turns out, anyway, that Mrs Hughes was wrong. The New Yorker has done a very unscientific survey to find the word that should be eliminated from the English language. Thousands of suggestions came in: "Popular objects of dissatisfaction included 'awesome' and 'epic' (pointlessly inflationary), 'phlegm' and 'fecund' (pointedly ugly), 'bling' and 'swag' (self-conscious slanguage), 'impacted' and 'efforting' (boardroom blather), 'like' and 'but' (only ever taking up space), and 'irregardless'."

The New Yorker plumped for "slacks". For one hairy moment, as the magazine took fire at the "pair of words for a pair of pants [that] had overstayed their welcome", it was almost "trousers" – and then what would we Brits have done? But in the end "slacks" it was, and the word has duly been banned – for a whole week.

If it were me, I would have banned the "fashion singular". The trouser, the heel, the – I suppose – slack: it's ridiculous. "Slacks" I don't mind; the word seems vaguely old-fashioned and Enid Blytony to me – referring to the sort of garment Aunt Fanny would have worn, but which I certainly don't. But what word would you go for as the worst in the language? If we achieve any kind of consensus, perhaps we can ban it from Guardian Books for a week …