I spoke to a journalist the other day who is doing a story on words that are over-used and should be avoided etc.
Basically, I told her that people tend to use big words and buzz words and dull, passive phraseology because it makes them feel as if they are saying something important and that they are of the cogniscenti. It also allows them to speak volumes without saying much and without confronting people or issues in a direct way.
Buzz words quickly become cliched and cliches kill communication. They turn communication into mutual masturbation.
Anyway her call prompted me to compile this list, my top ten most hated words and phrases (at the moment):
1. Solution - a (tech?) marketing invention a few years back and now
everything is a solution. In fact, there seem to be many more
solutions than problems these days. One of my local butchers offers
'meal solutions', good grief.
2. Flexible - Doesn't mean anything. Better to say what choice you offer or how you will be flexible rather than just a bland 'we're flexible'. Internally, of
course, flexible is code for "I'm now going to make you do part of
someone else's job as well as your own'.
3. Customer focused - golly gee, isn't everyone? Much better to say
what you do and let the customers decide how focused you are. This is
a classic example of a corporate expression which seems to carry great
meaning for the managers and their advisers but leaves the customers
none the wiser.
4. Best practice - OK at first but worked to death. Replaced
'continuous improvement' another shocker. Management consultants are
always coming up with new buzz phrases to make the tasks involved in
increasing sales while reducing costs seem more mysterious than they
really are.
5. Going forwards - There is a special dark spot of antagonism in my
heart for this shocker. My blood runs cold. I suspect it has its
origins in the US military. Especially when people talk about 'our
strategy going forwards' as opposed, one fancies, to our 'strategy
going backwards'.
6. Anything that compares people to assets - as in we value our
people, our people are our biggest asset. People ARE not assets, they
are people. People feel diminished when they are described as assets,
it puts you on a par with a building or a metal implement.
7. Value-add - stale and dated. Contribution does just fine.
8. Aim, intend, etc - words that avoid responsibility while looking
like they might sound purposeful. Similarly passive phrases presented
pompously like 'The decision to reduce overheads followed a detailed
consideration of the balance sheet going forwards' instead of 'this
factory is losing money hand over fist and we need to cut some costs'.
9. American sporting analogies - 'playbook', 'game plan' and so on. Yuck.
10. Globalisation - no-one knows what it means, all definitions are
vacuous. Its a real turn off for ordinary people - it is either
meaningless or negative (as in job losses). Most people are primarily
interested in family, friends, local community and workplace.
Globalisation holds no appeal whatsoever.
See also this article on buzzwords, and my article on corporate speak (under articles in the sidebar of this blog)
Some of my pet hates: "joined-up thinking", "engage in dialogue" (why not say TALK?) and "the socially excluded" (why not say POOR?)
Posted by: kimbofo | 23 January 2005 at 03:01 AM