Whoa, already seen it about five times this morning. Hold on to your iterators, folks—this word is not the right one for whatever sentence you’re about to write.

Iteration is a term used in mathematics and computer science for what happens inside a repetition or loop. (I’m a programmer, so I get to use “iteration” all the time. Yippeee!)

Lately it’s been used to describe a revision of something, like a business document or an advertising layout. Apparently people like to think of writers and designers as computer programs that can churn out endless revisions without tiring.

But iteration is not a good metaphor for the work that goes into revisions, because you aren’t repeating the same actions each time you produce a new one. Most of the creative work goes into the first revision, while the followup work involves progressively more curse words as you comply with your client or boss’s uninformed demand that you “make that font bigger.”

Aside from that, correct use of “iteration” specifically refers to the work rather than the product, which isn’t as handy in conversation. So that distinction has been dropped in its newfound general use, and iteration is dumbly substituted for revision.

There’s some jargon that’s appropriate for that kind of pompously wrong business-speak: FUBAR.