Twitter followers of @graeme_brown and @alunthorne, two giants of the BPM Media coffee room, will be accustomed to tweets bemoaning lazy press releasing.

“Why is creative sector so utterly uncreative when it comes to press releases? Three “delighteds already today. #delete” Alun mocked.

“I thought I’d reward your PR *ss for managing 1,000 words without a single ‘delighted’,” jested Graeme.

Fair’s fair – and I’m whispering the next bit – they’re right. When flacks rack up a press release, we’re prone to relying on multi-purpose cliché to get us through a few hundred words – if senior managers were really as ‘delighted’ as the PR industry repeatedly suggests, the NHS would be prescribing their aura as an alternative to Prozac.

In our defence, we’re no worse than the hacks themselves.

We PRs know the Great British media, primary destination for our press releases, is a lair of lexicological labour-saving, a kingdom of cliché.

The media casually falls back on a stockpile of terms rarely used in general conversation, unless you happen to be Kelvin MacKenzie.

Personally, I love them: it saves me having to think too hard when reading a newspaper.

Once I see someone described as “cuddly”, or “jolly” that’s it – I can immediately recognise the shorthand for “overweight comedian or comedienne”. My other favourites, and I’m sure you have your own, can be categorised within the following headings…

Celebrity

The blood that moves the media body. If you read any newspaper, you are never allowed to forget that celebrity is very important.

Put it this way: missed a mortgage payment? Get over it. Broken a limb moments before a life changing job interview? Who do you think you are – Joan of Arc? Ejected an unruly noise pollutant from a reality TV cash cow? Crisis! It’s a crisis people! Man the lifeboats! Women, children and multi-millionaire smarmbuckets first!

If you’re a celebrity couple disagreeing over the colour of your Cath Kidston tablecloth, have my condolences for suffering a full-blown row.

If you’ve appeared on a TV programme for more than five years, or shown loyalty to a football club for more than five minutes – you may also charmingly know this as “doing your job” – this qualifies you as a legend.

Anyone with an addiction a notch or so below ‘Ardennes Pate dependency’ can be deemed as troubled.

And, celebrities don’t lose their job, nor do television series ‘end’. Where’s the drama in that? They’re axed, like an unsightly Dutch Elm-diseased tree.

Sports

To labour an analogy further, where celebrity is the blood moving the media body, sports is the liver. Possibly the kidneys.

That’s why even the most leaden-footed clodhopper in football is called an ace, represent your country in a sport you’re paid handsomely to play and you’re potentially a hero, and continue playing your sport into the hinterland known as ‘your 30s’, you’re classed as a veteran. I’m in my thirties having worked in PR for 15 years-ish now, and let me tell you this – if you call me a veteran, I will punish you.