I try not to let language peeves annoy me, as life's too short, although I can't stop myself from grunting "whom" when people use "who" as the object, or "fewer" when "less" is used incorrectly. And anyway, my English isn't so hot, despite a grammer skool educashun. I've also become used to the ubiquitous "hopefully", used instead of the more correct "I hope". Or, if you prefer it, "one hopes".

But I'll never get used to "proactive", which, as far as I am concerned, is a word invented for people who do not know the meaning of the word "active". Possibly this is a pet peeve because it was popular with people whom (who) I worked with in marketing (an industry from which I escaped), who also loved terms like "blue sky thinking", "ideas shower" and "brainstorming". At the end of one ideas shower I remarked that each and every idea in the shower was golden, but not one person picked up on it. Too subtle, me, by half.