As I decelerate into the real world, I am shocked by terminology that echoes the way folks spoke in the early days of the Web. This has moved me to nominate a new member on my Tired Words list [wow, just realized tomorrow would be two years since the last one].
e-"words" – You might remember these words from the e-commerce days, when everything had an "e-" before it to connote coolness, hipness with the Web, and the digital world. In my first month at my new job, I heard (and still do) e-news, e-blast, e-list, e-vite, e-book, e-philanthropy (which, ugh, is in my title). I think they grate on me since I only have room for a few (one?) e-words, such as e-mail. To me, I think folks slap an "e" on anything to signify that the digital world is something alien and different, that sending a mass mailing on news to addressees on a list to invite them to a philanthropy event is something you could only do with paper and stamps.
You can review all my previous 'Tired Words' here on this page.
UPDATE 22oct09: Just today I got a few more: e-learning, e-transfer, e-tools, and e-library. Oy!
UPDATE 01feb10: Using e-newsletter in an article. No getting around it. Sigh.
That reminds me, how about “webinar”? Yuk.