I never would have guessed I was creating a smash hit when I wrote Words That Piss Me Off in March 2010. Most of the phrases that sparked my rant were irritating proliferations of business English into daily use. Those trendy terms faded into obscurity like the 1970s pant-and-shirt combos that seemed cutting-edge on school photo day but were used against you by your mother when your first...
I had an unexpected glimpse of a friend from the distant past last week. I was staying up late watching a French Canadian film called The Decline of the American Empire. Around thirty minutes in, just as I’m taking a sip of Crown Royal on ice, a telephone rings. The character in the shot stiffens in his chair, and then the camera pans to a side table, where we see… I had to stop and grab a screen...