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Words are our business. What we say, what our clients say, the words that result when we’ve done our job and a story appears.

Likewise, words are our tools, our measuring stick, our responsibility. We are constantly challenged to use new words, to express more thoughts in fewer words, to add new words to our lexicon.

Every morning, a new “word of the day” lands on my computer courtesy of dictionary.com. In the past two weeks my vocabulary has increased by three—swaddle (definition), ectype (def), and calvous (def.). Now you know them, too.

Words change and new ones evolve. Among the words added to the 2012 Concise Oxford English Dictionary are cyberbullying, sexting, and retweet.

Words come in, businesses go out: Will next year’s edition be without Twinkies and Sears?

Word-of-mouth has been replaced by word-of-thumbs. Should we adopt “word-working” rather than networking? What about the word of the minute, “sweatworking”? It means getting to know business associates and clients while exercising together: That’s working out instead of going out, getting loose instead of getting lunch. Or getting tight.

We all know that words can get us into trouble. And not just the four-letter variety. Alec Baldwin was recently thrown off an American Airlines flight for playing Words With Friends after the cabin door had been closed. America’s hottest TV star—who epitomizes a very hot word these days, “retro” (he’s back!!!)—is hooked on the same word game that’s gotten under the skin of three generations of Hunters: Grandpa on his iPad, daughters, aunts, nieces, and cousins on their iPhones, and the little guys, ages 7 and 9, on an iTouch.

It’s hard to iMagine the world today without Steve Jobs’ contributions to the language. And don’t forget tweet, google, and wiki, real corporate speak, words derived from the names of corporations. The grandchildren of Xerox, Kleenex, and Saltine.

Speaking of corporate-speak, at the PGA Tour the Commissioner has minted his own coinage, called “Finchem-speak.” Runway = planning period. The next environment = future. “He’s seldom met a noun he can’t verb,” explained Wall Street Journal golf columnist John Paul Newport. “He ‘platforms’ new initiatives and ‘same-pages’ adversaries.”

In the race to turn nouns into verbs, the current leader in the clubhouse is “tebowing.” Even the New York Times acknowledged it, running a headline that read: “He’s a Quarterback, He’s a Winner, He’s a TV Draw, He’s a Verb.” Later that day, he lost. He got shellacked.

In the “Cooking & Eating” column in The Wall Street Journal, cookbook author and four-time James Beard Award winner Rozanne Gold discussed how wordsmithing recipes captivates her as she wants readers to taste the recipes as they read them.

“I count on gustatory adjectives (juicy, warm, golden, carmelized, spice); and action words like ‘double-rise’ pancakes or ‘overnight’ tabbouleh. I close the sale with unusual grace notes such as green-apple ‘croutons’ or carrot ‘nibs.’ Terms like these stimulate what I’ve coined ISR: instant salivatory response.”

Speaking of food—an area in which words get cooked up almost as quickly as dishes—a tip of the cup to Starbucks. Just went we got used to Venti, they super-sized and poured out Trenta, the 31-ounce addition to the menu. At 916 ml, one Trenta is actually larger than the average capacity of the adult human stomach (900 ml). Could Trenta actually be the plural of Trenton?

With that thought in mind, it’s time for that multi-syllabic concoction found only at Starbucks: an iced, Venti French-Vanilla latte. Hey, barista!

Is there a new word you love—or loathe? Pass it on and we’ll post it. Send it to: kmoraghan@hunter-pr.com

Or if you’d like to recommend a new word, send it in with a definition. Best one wins a Starbucks gift card. Of course.

- Karen Moraghan