Once-presidential phrase casualty of word war DETROIT – The phrase "shovel ready," incessantly invoked by the Obama administration this year as a way to sell its $787 billion federal stimulus bill, died Thursday. The official cause of death was overuse, according to Lake Superior State University, which announced the phrase's demise in its annual List of Words to Be Banished from the Queen's English for Mis-use, Over-use and General Uselessness, released Thursday. "Shovel ready" dug its own grave by forcing its way into speeches and out of the mouths of the president and too many other politicians in past months....