The most overused business phrase this year:

"At the end of the day", is the most overused business cliche, according to Factiva, owned by Dow Jones Reuters Business Interactive L.L.C.

For the first six months of the year, Factiva combed through the nation's major media outlets and discovered that the top business cliche was at the end of the day - used 12,460 times. Runners-up were in the black at 4,876 and its colorful cousin in the red at 4,628.

In the 10 years I've been covering business, there is no phrase I hate more than at the end of the day, the New Agey replacement for the Old Biz stalwart bottom line. Bottom line at least sounded like business, not like some guru pontificating.
Bottom line didn't even make this year's list of business cliches. It has been replaced by others - level playing field, time and again, and wealth of experience, none of which is particularly painful.

Mercifully, we are no longer running ideas up the flagpole. However, the Factiva survey found, we're still trying to think outside the box.

Actually, the box thing intrigues me. People treat the box as evil - they always want to think outside of it. I prefer to embrace the box - paint it purple, turn it on its corner, add feathers. Why, at the end of the day, are outside and inside the only box choices? Article here.