As someone who accepts money from people, money he uses to pay his mortgage, I’m not prone to ranting about their weaknesses. But occasionally we have clients who give in to the temptation to sound like insiders by partaking in marketing speak.

It’s not their fault. I blame the manipulators who delight in enslaving and torturing language, in beating it into a sad submission of cliches, lingo and catch phrases, and then selling it in e-books and how-to videos to hard-working and unsuspecting people who are trying to make a living.

Take the word verbiage, for instance. It’s been exploited. Oppressed. Battered.

I can’t tell you how many times clients or potential clients have called asking me for verbiage.

Verbiage, noun, overabundance or superfluity of words, as in writing or speech; wordiness; verbosity. Origin: 1721, from Fr. verbiage "wordiness" (17c.), from M.Fr. verbier "to chatter," from O.Fr. verbe "word," from L. verbum "word"

 That’s right: verbiage means excessive or unnecessary words. I don’t care how much someone pays me; I won’t give them that.