The Most Misused Word In English?
By Mannie Sherberg

What's the most frequently misused word in the English language, the word most often used incorrectly? Nobody knows for sure but communicate certainly comes close. It's a word we all use often, a word we all misuse frequently.

When you talk or write to people, you think of yourself as communicating. We all do. Yet the fact is, when talking or writing to other people, you may not, in fact, be communicating. You don't communicate unless the other person understands you. If the other person doesn't get it, doesn't fully and accurately comprehend what you've said, you've failed to communicate. Speech that fails to produce understanding isn't communication--it's just a lot of noise. And writing that fails to produce understanding isn't communication either--it's just a bunch of squiggles. Unfortunately, we all spend much of our time simply making noise and producing squiggles. Telling ourselves that we're communicating does not mean we are communicating.