Business has a way of inventing its own vocabulary. Often, the results are disappointing—long, Latinate words like formalize and utilize and monetize, or Frankenspeak like impactful or learnings. Such words are often created to make the person who uses them sound clever and smart. But they are really nothing more than obese, bloated versions of themselves.

Of course, words can shift and expand in meaning, too. As E.B. White noted in the seminal The Elements of Style: "The language is perpetually in flux; it is a living stream, shifting, changing, receiving new strength from a thousand tributaries, losing old forms in the backwaters of time."

And perhaps nowhere has that flux been fluxing with more speed and agility than in the world of Marketing. Interestingly, social media and technology are driving much of the shift—particularly of common words that existed for generations with a single, specific meaning but now find themselves with a complexity of depth and meaning that might surprise even the words themselves—that is, if words had the capacity to self-reflect. Which, of course, they don't.

Take "friend," for example. For generations, a "friend" was simply an ally. A supporter. Someone to regard with affection and trust.

Then Facebook comes along, and suddenly the meaning of "friend" is called into question both in an existential way as a noun (Is someone a "friend" even if I've never met them, but only know them online?) as well as a verb (as in To add someone to your list of people you are connected to online).

What other words have expanded and morphed in our newly social world? A bunch, including tagging, recommend, traffic, search, link, viral, link, visitor, surf, blast, ping, feed, alert, tweet, find, status, stumble, troll, bandwidth, at, check-in, and vote. But probably these 12 are my favorites:

Share

Was: To use jointly, to partake, or to have in common. Implies giving half a candy bar to a friend, or two toddlers intent on a storybook straddling both their laps.

And also now: The broadcasting of our thoughts, likes, preferences and activities to answer the burning questions: What are you doing? Who are you doing it with? Where are you doing it? How much do you like it? What does it look like? Also: What do you think of what I'm doing and how much I'm enjoying it with the people I'm doing it with?

Curate (as a verb)

Was: To organize and maintain a collection of artworks, artifacts, or specimens, typically in a museum, library, or other esteemed and lofty institution. The person who handles said curating—a "curator" —often has a kind of higher directive or purpose (like to collect fragments of history or art in a specific time and place).

And also now: To continually identify, select, and share the best and most relevant online content and other online resources (articles, blog posts, videos, photos, tools, tweets, or whatever) on a specific subject to match the needs of a specific audience. Today, one might easily curate information about tankless water heaters, in fact.

Follow

Was: To travel or trail behind, or to come after. Conjures up small children, the spiritually devoted, and ducklings.

And also now: To opt into another person's social stream on one of several social networks, most popularly Twitter or Quora. Kind of like friending, but with less reciprocity implied.

Fail

Was: A verb that means to leave something undone; to be unsuccessful, undependable, insufficient.

And also now: A noun that means an error of colossal scale that exposes a significant, profound weakness and deficiency of a person, event, group, company, action … or just about anything else. Way worse when modified with "Epic."

Unlike

Was: An adjective that means dissimilar or different. Discerning the "unlike" object is a popular cognitive game for children.

And now also: A verb that means you regard a person, brand, or bit of content with disdain or derision. Similar to unfriend or unfollow.

Fan