Public relations: PR blacklist | The Economist

Public relations: PR blacklist | The Economist: "PR blacklist
Aug 10th 2010, 18:50 by R.L.G. | NEW YORK

A BIT of synergy here: my colleagues and I at this blog decry overused words in journalism. As journalists, we are also on the receiving end of quite a few press releases (I'd conservatively estimate about seven quadrillion a second), and they are often very tired in their attempts to grab attention. So Kudos to Adam Sherk, a public-relations and strategy consultant, for putting together this list of the most overused words in PR. Extra Kudos for backing it up with actual data. The numbers below are the number of mentions in a single database of press releases, PRWeb.com. So yes, it seems everyone is a 'leader,' nearly everyone is the 'best,' at the 'top' and of course, 'unique'. This isn't even Lake Wobegon, where all the children are above average; it's an even more mathematically improbable world where everyone is number one.

1
leader 161,000
2 leading 44,900
3 best 43,000
4 top 32,500
5 unique 30,400
6 great 28,600
7 solution 22,600
8 largest 21,900
9 innovative 21,800
10 innovator 21,400"