Drinking With The Leaders And The Great Buzzword Poll

Here it is, the revelation you've all been waiting for - the results of last week's poll, and the New Poll for the week to come.

LAST WEEK'S POLL: DRINKING WITH THE LEADERS

Last week you were invited to tell us which national party leader you'd most like to share a drink with. Not necessarily who you'd vote for - just who you'd prefer to spend time with over a beer, a glass of wine, or a venti soy caramel frappichino extra whip.  Here, without comment (because we're not THAT kind of blog), are the results:

Jack Layton: 33%
Gilles Duceppe: 29%
Elizabeth May: 16%
Michael Ignatieff:  12%
Stephen Harper: 8%

We can only conclude that a clear  majority is as elusive on Canadian barstools as it is in Canadian ballot boxes.

THIS WEEK'S POLL: ANNOYING NEWSPEAK

We like language here. What we don't like is the proliferation of new, overused, irritating words and phrases that start cropping up in articles by self-proclaimed business gurus and overblogged social commentators and Übercool trendsetters that start filtering into everyday language. Having polled our in-house wordsmiths, we present a selection of our special unfavourites - feel free to list your own Most Annoying Buzzwords in the comments. We present for your odium the following offenses against the language.

"Key": a pointless attempt to make the insignificant seem extraordinary. "Key" findings, "Key" questions, "Key" informants...well, jeez, what are all those other informants? Chopped liver?

"Competitive Advantage": Never trust anyone who uses seven syllables where one syllable - "strength" - would suffice. And please explain what kind of "advantage" could ever be "NON-competitive"??

"Tweet": yeah, yeah, we know. Social networking is transforming the universe as we know it, and even the Vatican has a twitter feed. We don't care. Grown-ups shouldn't "Tweet". Find another name for it.

"Concerning": as in, "that new budgetary proposal is very concerning to us". Shudder.Why mangle a perfectly respectable adverb by treating it as an adjective?

"Bleeding edge": unless you're talking about an unsuccessful new shaving appliance. Characterizing as "bleeding edge" your bold decision to switch your corporate font from Arial to Calibri is just the teensiest bit- melodramatic, n'est-ce pas?