Paradigm Shift

I hear it often at meetings. I read it in the literature of my chosen profession. It's used so frequently that it's almost always misused. Don't say it; chose another word or phrase instead. It doesn't make you look smart and well read, it makes you look like a child who is repeating something she doesn't quite understand in an effort to gain the approval of her parents.

An examination of the raw data (see below) reveals that there were but 3 mentions of "paradigm shift" in the 1990 volume year of a noted national news publication. This has increased steadily over the course of two decades. There were 42 paradigm shift bombs dropped in 2009. And so far in 2010 we have seen 31 PS bombs -- that's a record pace of 46.5 moving forward.

year....... # of "paradigm shifts"
1990....... 3
1991....... 7
1992....... 4
1993....... 7
1994....... 12
1995....... 7
1996....... 13
1997....... 17
1998....... 15
1999....... 27
2000....... 30
2001....... 24
2002....... 25
2003....... 16
2004....... 27
2005....... 34
2006....... 30
2007....... 40
2008....... 37
2009....... 42
2010....... 31

(data collected from noted national news publication on 08/23/2010)