I think I can best illustrate my point using an example from pop culture, specifically a linguistic “gotcha” that occurred on a late night talk show. The incident in question involves the actress Jennifer Garner and the ginger-haired host of the show, Conan O’Brien, whose Harvard degree makes him an obvious target for linguistic sharpshooters.

Garner chides O’Brien for using “snuck” as the past tense of the word “sneak,” instead of the more traditionally proper “sneaked.” Of course, she also can’t resist bringing up the fact that a Harvard graduate should know better than to use such a solecism on live television. Later in the broadcast, O’Brien produces a dictionary and proudly points out to Garner that the word “snuck” is defined as simple past and past participle of “sneak.” Apparently, that settles that! Or does it?

The truth of the matter is that both of them are correct, although Conan has probably taken the more defensible position. While one could argue that “sneaked” has been the past tense of “sneak” since the late 16th century, it is also accurate to say that “snuck” has been in common usage since the 1890s and is perfectly acceptable—and intelligible—in just about any context I can think of. In this case and in others like it, your best bet is to use the form that is most appropriate to your audience; after all, the primary purpose of language is communication.

One of my favorite sites on the web is the “Common Errors in English Usage” page of Paul Brians, Professor Emeritus of English at Washington State University. As the title suggests, it’s an alphabetized listing of the mistakes people tend to make in speaking and writing the English language (e.g. using “for all intensive purposes” instead of the correct “for all intents and purposes”); however, the site also includes resources to help us deflect the smug corrections of the Jennifer Garners of the world. The site offers a page full of non-errors with useful, even-handed explanations for why each particular usage is not in fact incorrect, despite opinions to the contrary.

While you can certainly stump some pseudo-pedants with Prof. Brians’ listing of non-errors, there are other even more satisfying ways to befuddle your potential linguistic detractors. I’m thinking in particular of a recent article by Arika Okrent: “9 Extremely Pretentious Latin and Greek Plurals.” This piece is chock-full of the sort of information you might need to take an arrogant language snob down a peg or two. I’ll give you a few examples.

I’m sure each one of us has at one time or another used the word “octopuses” as the plural of “octopus” only to have some wannabe brain interject, “Don’t you mean ‘octopi,’ Brendan?” Well, if you look at the first item on Okrent’s list, you’ll notice that the proper plural of “octopus,” a word derived from Greek, should actually be “octopodes” (see the article for a full explanation). While we’re at it, another great one to bust out at parties is “stadia,” the Latin-derived plural for “stadium” (eighth on Okrent’s list).

Although both of the words above are fun to discuss intellectually, by and large, using terms like “octopodes” and “stadia” will just earn you a bunch of confused stares. At worst, you might find yourself at the receiving end of a knuckle sandwich, the poor victim of some long-dormant high school bully’s desire to pummel nerds and squares. This brings me back to my original point: it’s always best to tailor your language to your audience.

The truth of the matter is that the English language is constantly evolving, just like all the other languages of the world. Words enter and depart our lexicon constantly, and it’s very difficult to pin down what constitutes “correct” or “proper” English. While you may not have time to point this out to someone who’s yelling, “It’s ‘octopi,’ dummy!” in your direction, you can at least fire back,  while thumbing your nose, “Actually, it’s ‘octopodes,’ you self-satisfied snoot!” Maturity is overrated.

Over the past few weeks, I have seen more people set their profile picture to support a cause than ever before. There was a recent Supreme Court decision, a Senate hearing, and tragic explosions in Massachusetts and Texas. While changing your picture does show support and raise awareness, it fails to help in a tangible way, one that might actually help the organizations who are fighting injustice throughout the world. You may feel better or like you have helped in some way, but the actual need remains. If you want to help, what can you do besides writing a check?

Luckily, there’s an app for that!

FoodShareFilter – If you use Instagram, you’ve probably seen plenty of pictures of food, with everything from appetizers to desserts being shared widely. This app allows you to tag your “foodstagram” with “#FoodShareFilter” and also includes a message reading “This picture helps millions of people not to suffer hunger.” The money raised by the sale of the app goes directly to an agricultural program in El Salvador run by Manos Unidas.

WeTopia – This is a Facebook game that allows players to build villages and earn points that turn into charitable donations to organizations like Save the Children, Action for Healthy Kids, and Alliance for a Healthier Generation. To date, players have provided more than 1.6 million gallons of drinking water and over 760,000 hot meals for children in Haiti; 45,000 meals for U.S. children living in poverty, and more than 3,000 warm coats to children in Afghanistan and the United States. Not too shabby!

GoodGuide – This app lets you to scan the barcode of a product while you’re shopping and immediately receive ratings regarding its healthfulness, environmental impact, and social responsibility. How cool is that? GoodGuide is the brainchild of Dara O’Rourke, a professor of environmental and labor policy at UC Berkeley. The goal of the service is to organize the world’s product information to give consumers important info about the products they bring into their homes every day.

MobileRice – This is a particular favorite of mine, as I used to go on the website all the time in high school. The MobileRice app tests your vocabulary skills while donating grains of rice through the World Hunger Program. Match words with their definition or synonyms and help diminish hunger worldwide. The app is connected to the website, which has collected 77 billion grains in 2 1/2 years—enough rice to feed millions. Download it and play next time you’re waiting for the Metro!

Give Work – The Give Work app asks users to complete simple tasks that check the work done by refugee workforce. It provides a sort of quality assurance while increasing the quality of life for Kenyan refugee workers.

Small gestures do make a big difference, so maybe try one of these apps out next time you feel like making a small change for the better. And if you want to continue to spread the word, post it on Facebook or tweet about it to others. And then you can change your profile picture, too.

This past week, our creative director, Kevin Vess, sent me an article by Bryan Garner of the Harvard Business Review that begins in much the same manner as my own 2011 composition, imitating the loathsome style and diction of modern business writing:

It’s mission-critical to be plain-spoken, whether you’re trying to be best-of-breed at outside-the-box thinking or simply incentivizing colleagues to achieve a paradigm shift in core-performance value-adds. Leading-edge leveraging of your plain-English skill set will ensure that your actionable items synergize future-proof assets with your global-knowledge repository.

I can, with some effort, descry the intended meaning of the two sentences above, but it ain’t easy! The problem is that the words in the excerpt are quite technical, to the detriment of their intelligibility. The use of this kind of language is a way for the speaker or writer to establish authority and indicate his or her competency, which should, in theory, convince the listener or reader of the validity of the statements being made. Unfortunately, in practice, the effect is usually to prevent the transmission of any actual information.

In an attempt to stem the tide of this trend, Garner has compiled for business writers what newspaper editors call an index expurgatorius, “a roster of words and phrases that under no circumstances . . . [should] find their way into print.” As I’m sure you’ve noticed, my own writing style is often affectedly pedantic, a stylistic choice that presents its own impediments to understanding. When, however, I write proposals or emails to clients and prospects, I notice an even bigger problem: my compositions are just littered with the offending words that Garner includes on the “Bizspeak Blacklist.”

Here are some of the ones that I know I use on a daily basis: “bandwidth,” “core competency,” “drill down,” “going forward,” “leverage,” “on the same page,” “optimize,” “paradigm shift,” “scalable,” and “seamless integration.” Friends, I am embarrassed.

Truth be told, I really don’t even consider the meaning of most of these terms when I see them, which kind of defeats the purpose of language, doesn’t it? If we can ban words like these from our daily intra- and interoffice communications, you and I can strike a blow for clear communication and, as one of my favorite ironic sayings has it, “eschew obfuscation and espouse elucidation.” If you have any additions to make to Garner’s list, let us know! I’m sure we can think of a term or two in desperate need of expurgation.

As a late adopter of this technology, I know that I’m seeing and experiencing things that are old news to most people; plenty of us have had years to grow accustomed to having these touchscreen computers in the palms of our hands. As Mashable’s Andrea Smith reports, 82% of respondents to a recent survey on mobile app behavior have indicated that there are mobile apps without which they couldn’t go for even a single day. In the US, 36% of users claim that they’d rather do without coffee forever than their smartphone apps. Is anyone else concerned about this?

When I see infographics like this one (courtesy of Apigee, the API Company), I wonder if we are perhaps growing too accustomed to being “wired” constantly. For me, it’s a relief to put my phone on silent, close my laptop, and sit reading an actual, physical book for hours. Perhaps we should consider taking one or two days each week to put away our various devices and engage with one another the old-fashioned way.

Who’s with me? I’m eager to read your thoughts on these matters, so please leave a comment below. In the interest of avoiding hypocrisy, I’d invite you to send me a letter or a postcard instead; nonetheless, that doesn’t seem terribly efficient.

If you’re anything like me, you probably first encountered this word in the context of the Oscar-worthy 1995 film Jury Duty, which stars the not at all annoying Pauly Shore as a jury foreman (perish the thought!) and Abe Vigoda (a.k.a. Sal Tessio) as a judge. This movie is built upon the moderately insane premise that a man of no means (viz. Juror No. 6, Monsieur “Weasel”) might sustain and enrich himself via the free room and board and $5 per diem stipend offered to jurors on a major murder trial. I won’t ruin the movie for you, but I will tell you that it’s at least as funny as In the Army Now, but not quite as good as Son in Law.

Anyway, Pauly Shore’s character seeks service on a lengthy, high-profile murder case, because unlike the rest of us, he actually wants to be plucked from his regular life and hidden away in a hotel. Juries are “sequestered” precisely to insulate them from any media exposure or other contact that might negatively impact their impartiality in deciding the outcome of a case. Sequestration seems to have something to do with hiding people away—why then is the selfsame word used to describe “across the board” budget cuts?

The English word “sequester” comes from the Latin noun sequester (How ‘bout that—they’re the same!), which means “trustee.” From this root, we get the legal term “sequestration,” which indicates the temporary removal of property from the possession of its owner until legal claims against the owner are satisfied. Given these origins, we can probably surmise that to sequester a jury is to entrust the jurors themselves to a third party for safekeeping. This is basically the same as what would happen in the event of budgetary sequestration, except instead of jurors, it’s money that’s to be held in trust.

Dr. Paul M. Johnson of Auburn University explains the situation thusly, and I paraphrase: If Congress appropriates more money to various programs and agencies than it originally budgeted in the annual Budget Resolution (Congress hasn’t actually passed an annual budget since 2009), there are automatic spending cuts, with the result that the difference between the official budget and the appropriated amount is held in trust, so to speak, by the Treasury Department. The tax monies, like the jurors, are put away for safekeeping.

Now you’ll be able to impress your friends at cocktail parties with your expansive knowledge of the origins of sequestration! If the preceding two paragraphs were a bit heavy and academic for your taste, never fear—here’s a clip of Pauly Shore explaining the fundamentals of nutrition to Brendan Fraser’s “Link” in Encino Man. Enjoy!

I’m sure that many of you have written and distributed web design requests for proposal in the past, only to find that the responses contained wildly varying quotes and markedly different approaches. The challenges inherent in evaluating such a diverse crop of responses are obvious; it’s almost impossible to judge such dissimilar proposals by the same criteria.

Hodgson’s approach to working with clients requires that we become more than just a “vendor” to the people we work with. Instead of looking at a project as a one-off opportunity to earn some business before moving on to the next job, we view each engagement as an opportunity to build a long-lasting relationship with a client. We also believe that it’s vitally important that there be a good “fit” between us and the client’s organization—if we know we can deliver what you need, we want to work with you.

With these issues in mind, we’ve developed a questionnaire of vendor selection criteria that is designed to help you write the perfect RFP for any web project. The questionnaire focuses on areas like experience, project management, developer capabilities, technology, resource availability, and many others. By using this document, you’ll be able to pinpoint exactly what’s most important as you develop your RFP. As a result, you’ll be able to “compare apples to apples” when you evaluate the proposals you receive, because they will be tailored to your specific requirements.

If you’d like a copy of this questionnaire, please contact us—we’ll send you one right away.

Anyhow, one of the ways in which President Obama has tried to make the machinery of government more accessible to the average American has been through offering people the ability to submit petitions directly to the White House via petitions.whitehouse.gov. After registering on the site, users follow a few simple steps: (1) enter their basic information; (2) look for similar petitions to avoid overlap with another person’s request; (3) provide additional details; and (4) preview, publish, and promote. After publication, other users can sign the petition, and—here’s the really important part—if the petition garners at least 25,000 signatures, it will receive an official White House response.

Unsurprisingly, this website seems to leave the door open for well-organized jokers to induce the President’s staff to respond directly to nonsensical or laughable appeals. Enter the Death Star petition: “Those who sign here petition the United States government to secure funding and resources, and begin construction on a Death Star by 2016.” If you follow the link to the petition itself, you’ll notice that it’s well beyond the 25,000 signature threshold, which means that the President will have to explain why we can or cannot embark on this project (menacing name aside, the cost of building an actual Death Star might make these “fiscal cliff” negotiations seem like arguments over lunch money).

As Mashable’s Chris Taylor points out, if the government does build a Death Star, we should hope that the engineers remember not to include thermal exhaust ports that lead directly from the surface of the space station to its Achilles’ heel, the main reactor. Contrary to expectation, such design flaws are remarkably common in the most imposing weapons systems of the Galactic Empire. Take, for example, the AT-AT Imperial Walker that so thoroughly terrifies the forces of the Rebel Alliance on Hoth in The Empire Strikes Back. This “All Terrain Armored Transport” is not only slower than molasses; it also features a massive blind spot, complete with a severe vulnerability to fast-moving, low-flying attackers like, say, a group of Rogue Squadron Snowspeeders.

At any rate, while I think it’s highly unlikely that the White House will instruct NASA to begin work on a planet-obliterating super weapon, I am eagerly awaiting the President’s response to this petition. Until then, we’ll have to content ourselves with suggesting other ludicrous projects and initiatives to the government. Any ideas? I’ll start: the President should establish as a cabinet post the position of Secretary of Balloon Doggies.

What changed? I finally signed up for HootSuite.

Born in 2008, HootSuite and other social media management applications are not exactly new to the market. What has changed, however, is the number of social media platforms and the number of users on each of those platforms. Other options available include TweetDeck, Seesmic (which was just purchased by HootSuite in September 2012), and Heyo. They take all of your accounts—which, for me, would include Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, WordPress, and Instagram—and combine them into one easy-to-navigate dashboard.

At the top, you can see my different tabs for each platform, and then within each, HootSuite gives you the ability to filter what you see. I only have New Feeds recent posts, Wall Posts, and News Feed photos (because those are the most interesting things to look at anyways!), but should I want to only see posts about “holiday shopping” or only from my 5 closest friends, those options are available, too—I can easily add in a new filter.

Twitter is one of the best platforms on which to use a filter, because among the many different news sources, celebrities, and people I actually know, stories can get lost in the mix. I can easily put up one filter for important news stories, one for my friends, and one for everybody else—Voila! Instant organization!

HootSuite also gives you an analytics option, so you can see whom your tweets and Facebook posts are reaching, if they’re being shared, if they’ve gone viral, etc. They have a corporate option, giving Social Media Managers the option to easily track their presence with the help of Google Analytics and Facebook insight. It also has a timer function, meaning that you can set a time to tweet a bit of important information for your followers, say, three times per day every day, and that information will go out automatically.

Perhaps my presence was not large enough before now, or I wasn’t really concerned with time and filters when scrolling through my news feed, but I had heard of these social media management applications for a long time before I decided to try them out. The current add-on options are seemingly endless if you have other platforms you’d like to incorporate, so if you find your head spinning with the number of social media applications you have to manage (both on a personal and professional level), I urge you to check out HootSuite!

With his devastatingly handsome, round face, his boyish charm, and his strong, sturdy frame, this Pyongyang-bred heartthrob is every woman’s dream come true. Blessed with an air of power that masks an unmistakable cute, cuddly side, Kim made this newspaper’s editorial board swoon with his impeccable fashion sense, chic short hairstyle, and, of course, that famous smile.

“He has that rare ability to somehow be completely adorable and completely macho at the same time,” Onion Style and Entertainment editor Marissa Blake-Zweibel said. “And that’s the quality that makes him the sort of man women want, and men want to be. He’s a real hunk with real intensity who also knows how to cut loose and let his hair down.”

Yes, it appears that Sandy, a monstrous hurricane-cum-nor’easter, is upon us, and she is drenching the entire eastern United States in torrents of rain, which are soon to be accompanied by gale-force winds and yet another return to life before the advent of the modern power grid. In other words, it’s time to get used to candlelight, folks. My personal plan is not to lose power: I’m banking on the apparent imperviousness of the underground lines in my heavily populated DC neighborhood.

While we still have power in the DC area, Hodgson will keep working on your websites, for such is our dedication to providing top notch service to our clients. Although some of us are laboring remotely today, the more intrepid members of our staff (myself included) have braved the weather to work from our offices in Kensington. I think that Steve Mallory, one of our senior developers, is deserving of special recognition, as he not only came into the office on time today, but also did so on a bicycle. I think he really just enjoys the challenge of riding against 60 mph winds.

At any rate, we want to wish you best of luck, especially those of you who live in the areas most heavily affected by Sandy. Let’s hope that we’re all able to weather the “Frankenstorm” (a cringe-worthy appellation, to be sure) without cursing the very names of our electric power providers and elected officials.