Since words are my livelihood, I can be a bit sensitive about the “;creative”; use of terminology. I recently came across a press release from a finance-related organization announcing two new partners to its program. What caught my attention was the way this press release used livestock imagery and a questionable verb to describe the business partners.

The sentence stated, “;The program leverages best of breed partners to handle call center operations and automated credit decisioning.”;

Best of breed? Is this a new way of saying cream of the crop? If I was one of those best-of-breed partners, would that make me a bitch? And what the heck is “;automated credit decisioning”;? Is decisioning really a verb? My spell check consistently denies the existence of this word. When did nouns turn into verbs? And who authorized such a transformation?

I remember when “;cutting edge”; morphed into “;leading edge”; when describing something so new and innovative that you'd have to wait at least two business days for the idea to catch up with you.

Some people just love to conjure up words and phrases to make them appear smarter. They spout words like “;synergy,”; claim to always be thinking “;strategically”; and have “;paradigms”; that shift on a regular basis. It's like screaming, “;Hey, people! Look at me! I'm so edgy and complex!”; Oh, please.

I'm a get-to-the-point kind of gal. The abuse of adjectives and overuse of jargon cause my head to explode. (Obviously, hyperbole doesn't bother me as much.)

I like messages to be just like my 4-foot-9-inch self—short and to the point. Flowery language wilts under the heat of my editorial glare. Long-winded dissertations find a quick death with a stroke of my red pen. Executive summaries are my friends.

Here's my gospel of grammar: If people would communicate clearly, concisely and honestly, even politics would be more palatable. Who knows? It might even be the cure for global warming, fossil-fuel dependence and the heartbreak of psoriases. Well, maybe not, but I think the world would be a much better place.