Something I learned the hard way at the student newspaper is that the word "Fired" has some very strong psychological implications in US English -- it implies s

Something I learned the hard way at the student newspaper is that the word "Fired" has some very strong psychological implications in US English -- it implies someone no longer has a job because of something bad they did. We got some strong negative feedback about a headline saying that people had been "fired" when the story was that a kind of lab technology had become obsolete and a number of lab technicians had been laid off. I had signed off on the headline, was responsible, and have never forgotten. People take their jobs very seriously; it's the thing we choose to do -- or have to do -- instead of being with our families and friends. And "fired" is one of the strongest words in our language. We need to be sure we understand what we are doing when we use it.