This is the latest entry in a series that examines business buzzwords, helps readers understand them and offers alternatives.

Some buzzwords don't really bother me until someone points them out. That's certainly the case with "trending." At first it seemed innocent enough, just adding an "-ing" to "trend" — the kind of thing we see in a sentence like, "The market is trending downward."

But then I noticed another usage, where something is said to be trending, not up or down, just showing up a lot as if it were a new fashion trend, i.e. "Bermuda shorts are trending this week."

Apparently, this new usage drives some people nuts. A contributor to the Urban Dictionary wrote that "trending" when used to mean something is showing up a lot on social media is "a mutilation of the English language [that] derives from a sad understanding of the verb 'to trend' as meaning 'to become a trend.'"

This anonymous critic speculates that the social media site Twitter "probably contributed to this degeneration" with its Trending Topics list. Ironically, the Urban Dictionary site has added a "trending" box to its site, with terms such as "Trumpophobia" showing up. I noticed my cellphone provider's website has a list of trending topics as well.

After all this analysis and research, I'm beginning to think the battle is over concerning "trending." We must get with the trend so that when something is the subject of an abundance of posts, we can say it is trending and be understood.

Of course, I wouldn't be me if I didn't offer some classic alternatives to "trending," such as moving, going, swinging, gravitating, heading ... you get my drift.

Note: For old-school prescriptionists who paid attention in English class, adding "-ing" to a verb makes it a gerund that functions as a noun, or a present participle, which is too complex for this column and won't be on the quiz.

Speaking of "trending" topics, perhaps you shared my amazement during the recent presidential election at how wrong most of the opinion polls were about Hillary Clinton's supposed lead over Donald Trump. Well, it's not so much they were wrong as it is they were misinterpreted and misrepresented by the media.

All proper polls include a factor called the margin of error, and these are not buzzwords; they mean exactly what they say. There is always a gray area, a fuzzy band of possibilities generated by the sample size and randomness of a poll.

Getting this margin within three to five percentage points is pretty good work, and what it means is that two candidates with a six-point gap could actually be tied if one is three points lower and the other three points higher, or even switch places with a five-point error.

So let's remember that when you hear the word "poll," you always ask, "What's the margin of error?" As for my humble column, it is purely opinion, and the sample size is one, so I believe that makes the margin of error 100 percent.

Next month, we should have some lists of buzzwords of the year to examine.