It's organic, man!

I'm starting to hate the word 'organic', which is a shame because it's a lovely word. Organic comes to us from Greek via Latin and Middle English, and means 'of, pertaining to, or derived from living things'. I first became aware of 'organic' in the chemical sense: organic chemistry versus inorganic chemistry, where organic chem covers carbon based compounds and inorganic chem covers everything else.

Now-a-days though, organic is being used where it has no purpose and doesn't really belong, all so the person throwing it out can sound more clever and/or hip. For instance, I recently endured an episode of a home redecorating show where one of the hosts used the word 'organic' as an adjective...about a dozen times in three minutes.

Likewise a small pamphlet that was handed out at work a few days ago. It contains gems like "organic growth based on innovation" and "our ability to convert organic and aquired(sic) growth to value". 'Organic' is superfluous in the first statement. In the second statement 'organic growth' is being used for' the growth that happens when a company takes market share away from its competitors' (what I would call natural growth) as opposed to the 'growth' that occurs when a company acquires its competitors.

That's all for now, but I think I'll tell you more about this pamphlet (or spread card, as they call it, which we are encouraged to carry with us at all times!) tomorrow.