A survey of 2,520 executive made by a New York-based online job search website said office cursing topped the reasons why bosses fire employees. According to TheLadders. com, 38 percent of the respondents to the online survey pointed to violation of office etiquette, primarily using cuss words, as their number one reason for terminating workers.

Education Minister Kathleen Wynne had sent an investigator to review the books of the Toronto Catholic School Board over its inability to manage its expenses. The probe comes in the aftermath of a report that the board's trustees spent excessively, particularly on benefit packages that cost taxpayers on the average $107,218 per trustee. Heading the investigation team will be Pierre Filitrault, a former senior business official of the same board. Wynne gave Filitrault one week to go over the books and management practices of the school board.

British magazine Bookseller recently published poll results that revealed the past year's three strangest book titles, continuing the magazine's annual trend. The award, named the Diagram Prize, for the oddest book title for 2007 was given to one titled "If You Want Closure In Your Relationship, Start With Your Legs. "

Technology is displacing the telephone directory from American households. Environmentalists and households, among others, are now questioning the wisdom of printing 2,000 pages of phone numbers hardly touched by consumers who prefer speed dialing features of their mobile units or Internet search engines to find a contact number. A number of apartment buildings in South Boston reported 2008 editions of newly delivered phone books remain untouched in foyers.

More libraries in Kentucky's Kenton County are letting kids and teens pay library fines by reading books. Under the plan called Fresh Start Club, introduced years ago by the Mary Ann Mongan Library in Covington, children up to 17 years old who incurred fines for not returning borrowed books on time can pay off the debt at a rate of 10 cents for every minute that he or she reads a book at the library. The reading is monitored.