The English language has many words being constantly misused that force many individuals to the point of insanity. I am sure each person has their own little word that they feel is misused in every description of an event or a corporation. Contributing to the PR word usage game I would like to add these three words:   ·         TECHNICAL – It is more than just a word, but rather a phrase that irritates me. I cannot stand when a friend or colleague blabs the phrase “technically speaking”. This seems like a way for an industry to mask the consumers’ demands and questions instead of giving them a straight up answer. It also appears that the person is very proud when saying technically speaking. It is almost as if they have the answer but they would rather give it to you one more time in a different way to further their brilliance. That could be harsh, but when a corporation messes up and is speaking to the media they seem to use that phrase too often. For instance, the media or even the consumer asks a corporation why a certain event happened and led to this outcome (insert crisis). Instead of being honest the corporation replies with, “technically speaking, the event became a crisis because….blah, blah, blah.” ·         UNFORGETTABLE – This annoys me for the sole fact that everything can be forgotten. Just because you say it is unforgettable does not mean that it is the end all, be all. When it eventually becomes forgotten the industry will come up with another unforgettable extreme.

When I'm leading clients through positioning sessions, I tell them to imagine that the word "solution" doesn't exist. "Now," I ask, "What do you do?" It's never ceases to amaze me how far more specific and focused their answers become once I've taken that lazy and meaningless word out of circulation.

I admit it -- I have used "leading". It essentially means "not just an also-ran" / "we are important" -- notice how companies often don't say they are leaders but rather a leading company, not implying there is only one. You can also lead in many respects -- technologically, in making money, hiring people, firing people, creating press releases...  To add a word or phrase, I'd go with "post". Everything is "post-PC", "post-Desktop", "post-Facebook" etc. these days it seems.

Dynamic is one I'd add. I get tired of reading about dynamic solutions

"New" is so overused, but it's hard NOT to use it. There are limited synonyms in the English thesaurus. Maybe we should start writing in Klingon! ;-)

One that's been bugging me lately is "highly anticipated.'  By whom, exactly?