Bad language.

I had a slight case of contretemps with a client last week. She changed every instance of the word "phone" in my copy to "device." (Mind you, I grew up in an era when the Pentagon decided to sanitize the word bomb. They insisted on calling H-bombs nuclear devices.)

Anyway, the word device, I told them gently, is not a word normal humans use. I've never heard someone say, call me on your device. Or my device is ringing. Or I just got the iDevice 6.

"Please change the word phone to device," they said.

"No," I said. "It's marketing speak. It's not the way people talk."

"Please change the word phone to device," they repeated.

Then we came to a bit of instructional copy. It had read "click on the phone icon." Dutifully, I changed it to "click on the device icon."

"Change device to phone," they said.

"But you just told me to change phone to device."

And so it goes.