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Zinsser’s chapter on words was a refresher for me. The “bizspeak” I adopted as a technical writer are just as tired as the “journalese” lingo Zinsser described. Owing to a layoff, I was out of the workforce for a while, but I recall terms and phrases I accepted on protest and others that I really hated and did not use. I accepted “bandwidth,” as in “do you have the bandwidth for that?” and “ping” (abbreviation for “packet Internet Groper”), meaning a short query to a colleague. Interesting that while we complain about any assault on our humanity, we willingly accept these dehumanizing terms. I rejected “circle back around” and “at the end of the day” and squelch my anger when I hear them.