Day's end for “At the end of the day”?

Is it the end of the day for “At the end of the day”?

It’s seems that even advertising and marketing executives hope so.

A recent survey of 200 Canadian industry executives named “At the end of the day” as one of the most annoying of current buzzwords.

Who can argue with that?

The execs were asked, "In your opinion, what is the most annoying or overused buzzword in the creative/marketing industry today?"

Not surprisingly, “Think out of the box,” another endlessly repeated business cliché, was also among those picked.

I would have ranked then higher than the 14 and 12 spots (out of 15) they achieved.

However there are apparently other buzzwords that the marketing and advertising types (along with people in government and other business spheres) have to hear ad nauseam that rankle them more.

These include, in the number two spot, the dreaded “Synergy,” followed by “Innovative/innovation,” and “Extra value/value added.” Other concepts they no longer want to hear about are “ROI/return on investment,” “Culture Change,” “Multitasking,” and, interestingly, “Going green” and “Free.”

And the number one buzzword that made them squirm: “Social media.” That seems a bit of an odd one. It isn’t as if Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn et al aren’t a reality they’ll have to continue to deal with – I guess they’re just very tired of talking about it all the time.

The daily hubbub in which we are immersed contains all manner of annoying utterances, from racism and sexism to grammatical and usage errors.

Business-related buzzwords are often particularly irritating because they are imposed on us in situations where we have no choice but to listen, and imply that there are other things (what exactly?) we could and should be doing better.Considering that it is the marketing execs who create and popularize many of these buzzwords that afflict us, it is rather satisfying that at the end of the day they grate even on them.