>One thing that REALLY bugs me lately is: "Interest rates have gone up by one half of a percentage point"
>Now what's that if not "... half a percent"? Talk about verbosity!

Among the words missing in English I have listed "promile". Just as "pro centum" is the Latin for "percent", so is "pro milla" (or whatever the spelling is) for "promile", which is 1/1000. I can't find the word in my desktop dictionary, which is weird. Everyone back home knows the word, because your blood alcohol level is expressed in promiles. In economic news here, it's always "tenth of one percent" (never "of a percent").

Another lost word is "now". It's become "at this time", which most often can be translated back to "". An example is "...has no comment at this time". As if they'd care to have one later.