Regular reader Alan emailed me details of a book he'd found in his local library - Power Verbs for Job Seekers. I'm grateful to Alan - especially as this blog post is mostly the result of cutting and pasting from his email.
The right verbs, according to the author (a business school professor):
• make you unforgettable
• powerfully demonstrate your value
• attract employers like moths to flame
Some of the verbs, eg abound, earmark, postulate could be described as useful to know - although whether they are 'power verbs' as such is a different matter. However, I cannot help imagining that the likeliest response to someone using some of the verbs or sentences in the book would be 'what a pretentious berk!' Here are some of the examples, kindly supplied by Alan:
One good quarterly report has not absterged the concern of investors
He lucubrated by dedicating himself to nearly constant learning
The external auditors oppunged our accounting records
The emergency data centre imbricated out in-house data centre during the blackout
Too many people have styleflexed their communications styles (a comment which, as Alan says, can be made of the author of this book!)
This ingenious marketing plan recrudesced this slumbering organisation
If she had not titivated she would not have felt as confident for the presentation
Alan kindly looked up some of these words in the dictionary, but couldn't find some, even in the OED (eg oppunge and lucubrate). The only one of the above group I had heard of - and probably used - is titivate, but when I think of someone titivating I think of them standing in front of a mirror fussily patting their hair or powdering their nose. This book claims 'titivate' means 'dress up smartly'.