I'm tired of reading press releases filled with CEO-speak: meaningless phrases, extra words, and a preference for the convoluted over the substantive. I would much prefer that corporate publicists write press releases in Ebonics. Just glancing through Google News, here are some recent examples of my least favorite phrase, "going forward," in action:

"Going forward we maintain our focus in "mission-critical" markets yet remain diversified across the intelligence and DoD community."

"One, let's talk about revenue because that's where we're going to live or die going forward."

Within the last day, Google News shows 17,324 stories with this phrase.

But let's analyze this: what exactly does it mean to say "going forward?" It means that the company is talking about what it hopes to do in the future -- as opposed to what it hopes to do in the past? Fortis CEO Stan Marshall recently said in a press release that "The significant consolidated capital expenditure program, planned at more than $4 billion over the next five years, is expected to drive earnings growth going forward."

But why do you need to say going forward? Surely the $4 billion being spent over the next 5 years will not drive past earnings growth! Not even Enron got that creative. Saying "going forward" is redundant.

And it isn't just CEOs who are using this phrase. New York Post sportswriter Phil Mushnick wrote about how the term has entered the sports coaches' vernacular:

It's no longer enough to regard talk about the future as talk about the future. Now you have to double-dip it, just in case talk about what might happen tomorrow can be confused with talk about what might happen yesterday ... "Going forward, wanna play golf, tomorrow?" "Going forward, yes. But isn't it supposed to rain, tomorrow, going forward?" "Going forward, it might. I'll call you in the morning, going forward." "Good. Going forward, I look forward to hearing from you. Have a nice day, going forward."

Next press release I see that has the phrase "going forward," I'm shorting the stock. A company that resorts to trite and redundant cliches can't have great prospects, going forward.

This post was part of AOL Money & Finance's Best & Worst of 2007. Voting has now closed and readers have chosen globalization as the most overused buzzword of the year. Be sure to let us know in the comments if you are pleased with this result.

We all have our pet peeves in the evolution of language. Mine is the misuse of "quality" as an adjective, as in -- say, "that's a quality mullet you have there!" Quality is a scale of measurement, people, not a unit of measure.

That being said (which should have made the list), we have a quality set of annoying buzzwords as our candidates for the most overused in 2007.

#1. Take that offline; as in, quit embarrassing yourselves by engaging in an IM flame-war and solve your problems in a face-to-face slap-off. We would prefer that those who use the term "take that offline," would, um, take it offline.

#2. Globalization. Also flat earth, global integration, global supply chain, etc. We get it that we put on pants made in Thailand, shoes from China, a shirt from India, get in our car made in Romania, and drive to our office to work for a Belgian company selling widgets to Indonesia. No mas, por favor!

Because the business of manufacturing nearly everything has been deferred to China, it seems to me that there must be some great opportunities in store for those who learn to communicate in the Chinese language. Corporations large and small have already taken hold of this thinking and I believe that companies wishing to thrive in a true global sense are duty bound to maintain staff fluent in English, Spanish, Chinese, and a host of other languages. Gone are the days when speaking English was the "responsibility" of foreign corporations wishing to do business with us. If we want to keep pace, we need to drop our attitude of superiority and realize that the world of business has some staggering new rules.

I'm not doing a promotion here. I'm merely examining the current business conditions and investigating some options. When considering the fact that one out of five people on this planet speaks some form of Chinese dialect, doesn't it make good sense that we should be interested in communicating with them? Perhaps they don't understand that we don't want lead in our children's toys. Wouldn't you like to explain that to them?

This weekend's Wall Street Journal (subscription required) features a piece on the number of CEOs hiring tutors to teach their children Mandarin Chinese, or even hiring a Chinese nanny. They do this because they strongly believe that an understanding of the language will give their children a strong advantage in the business world.

I believe the public schools need to get with the program and start offering Chinese language courses, because most parents can't afford to hire a Chinese nanny to prepare their 7-year-olds for the business world. The fact that rich people can buy their kids the skills they need to succeed can only perpetuate the status quo: the children of the rich arrive in the business world in their 20s with a valuable skill that their savvy parents paid for in their preteen years.

Does your local public school offer Chinese? Chances are it doesn't. Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty has taken steps to level the playing field. In his 2006 state of the state address, he said, "I'm directing the Department of Education to develop a model Chinese language curriculum so it's available to every school district." More governors should do the same, or the only people with the skills to succeed in the global economy will be the children of the rich, and that is un-American.

AOL's Spanish-language portal, AOL Latino, is now available for free like most AOL services. The free site was formally launched on Monday. AOL Latino was previously a $26-per-month service. This is another example of AOL scaling to a free operation.

AOL still charges for dial-up Internet access, extra online storage, and premium security services. Time Warner (NYSE: TWX) apparently is not planning to give those away, although basic versions of storage and security software are free.