At this point in time, nonprofits are high on our radar screen, and all of us would like to see them succeed going forward. At least, its (sic) what we believe at the end of the day.

Recently an interviewee on National Public Radio talked about her fruitless quest to end useless speech in the corporate world:

• "At this point in time." How about "period"; we know you mean "now."

• "Our radar screen." What? Are we all flying 737s?

• "Going forward." So where else are we going — backward?

• "Full court press." Are we playing basketball or managing companies and nonprofits?

• "At the end of the day." This useless addition to the conversation merits no translation.

After attending several presentations by large and sophisticated nonprofits in the past few weeks, I have found the misuse of the English language by well-educated people astonishing. The nonprofits shall remain nameless to protect their reputations.

Call me a language curmudgeon. Also call me on making the most egregious mistake of all in the December "Caring for Santa Fe" column and renaming Robin Jones, a volunteer for New Mexico CultureNet, "Robin Smith." As writer Ellen Goodman would say at the year's dawning, mea culpa.

But educated speakers do not seem to know that "who" refers to a person. Or when to use the objective pronoun, as in, "I went with Jane and her." They do not know that a board is an "it", and its members are "they." They do not know that the Legislature is not a "who"; it is big governing body. If anything should be called "it," then that should be the Legislature.

God forbid anyone should understand the difference between "which" and "that" in the 21st century. Whatever happened to Strunk and White and their thin little book, The Elements of Style, which tells the reader everything he needs to know about grammatical construction?

Ah, and we are now so concerned about sexism and not using the masculine pronoun that we convolute sentences or twist a statement into the incorrect "each member should have their ..."

The "its" comes from a nonprofit e-mail correspondence. Spell check won't tell you if you've mistakenly left out the apostrophe for the contraction for "it is." So just let it go.

Is the work we are doing so important that we cannot be troubled to speak and write like well educated New Mexicans? I don't know about you, but like Miss Manners, I am not giving up.

Like many nonprofit employees, I also refuse to give up on the term "RSVP." We don't have to know how it translates in French, but for goodness sakes, can we just let nonprofits know when we are attending an event and when we aren't? Are we all waiting for better offers for that evening?

Judith Martin, the humor columnist known as "Miss Manners," writes that "RSVP is not a request that may be ignored; it is a command."

Apparently the same does not hold true for the correct use of the English language.

Billie Blair, President of the Santa Fe Community Foundation can be reached at bblair@santafecf.org.