Today, some random dispatches from the Word Front ...

—Dean Speak — Benjamin Ginsberg's recent book "The Fall of the Faculty" decries the rampant proliferation of university administrators — a bloated army of vice presidents, provosts, deans and what he calls "deanlets" and "deanlings."

But the worst thing about them? They spew torrents of jargon.

No campus pronouncement, Ginsberg says, is complete without a reference to "benchmarking," "best practices" or "outcome assessments." Almost every college president is hailed as a "visionary academic leader" who takes "bold action" to "engage in the team-building process to develop an action plan" — not to mention the "Process Management Steering Committees," "Culture Teams" and "Quality Enhancement Initiatives."

But, when communicating with students' parents, these obfuscating apparatchiks always manage to send a simple, straightforward message: "Amount Due."

—Yack to the Future — Faithful reader Dan Gergler emailed me to note a common practice of play-by-play sportscasters that I've noticed as well: using the future tense to describe something that just happened in a game, e.g., "Ray Allen will be whistled for the foul"; "Misty May-Treanor will make the kill to break the tie."

"My suspicion," Gergler writes, "is that the future tense somehow makes the narrative sound more exciting."

Similarly, sportscasters often use the indicative mood for the subjunctive mood in both the present and future tenses, e.g., "If he hits safely in three more games, he breaks the team record," instead of "If he were to hit safely in three more games, he'd break the team record."

—Meta Mix-ups — Readers have recently sent me a bumper crop of mixed metaphors from newspapers and magazines. Among my favorites:

"With the tidal wave of cases, (a prosecutor) was obviously avalanched with work to do."

"The city may have to pull the plug on a crown jewel: the biggest skate park in all of California."

"He knows how rust can accumulate when you don't regularly stoke the fire."

And, if you're going to use a sports metaphor, it helps to know something about the sports involved. Two examples: "Company fumbles at the finish line." "The ball was in your court, and frankly, I think you dropped it."

Rob Kyff, a teacher and writer in West Hartford, Conn., invites your language sightings. Send your reports of misuse and abuse, as well as examples of good writing, via e-mail to Wordguy@aol.com or by regular mail to Rob Kyff, Creators Syndicate, 737 3rd Street, Hermosa Beach, CA 90254.