Leveraging my fly to the awesome, I avoid fail

Are there words that, exhausted from overuse, should be retired at the end of each year? If so, as 2009 comes to a close, you could easily make the case that "leverage" and "fail" are among the recent buzzwords that need to be swatted.

Mighty Bargain Hunter highlights those words (as well as "awesome" and "fly") for what he calls "parts-of-speech abuse" -- and has chosen that as the theme for the latest edition of the Carnival of Personal Finance, which features a collection of PF blog posts hosted at a different site each week. MB Hunter explains the current carnival's theme:

"What is parts-of-speech abuse, you might ask? Well, it means taking a word with a perfectly good part of speech (as most words have) and changing it to a completely different, less well-known, possibly buzzwordy part of speech."

While it may not include any of the "speech abuse" words, my blog post, "Use payment cards to keep your New Year's resolutions," does make a carnival appearance. It's featured in the "Credit, debt, and finance" section -- right between "leverage" and "fly."