Words and phrases... And navigating the corporate jargon.

[midnight]

Navigating workplace issues can be tricky enough without throwing flowery, clichéd or just plain made-up words and phrases in one another's faces. It only takes one brave person to turn "outside the box" into "creatively" or "let's circle back" to "I'll call you," and we can begin to peel back the layers of complexity and really talk honestly to one another.

Grasping for an original thought or non-business-speak term that describes what we want to achieve can be difficult, but it also makes it easier for others -- inside or outside our workplaces -- to understand us. It brings a fresh perspective to the same old "strategy planning session." And it can make tasks easier, not just for employees who have been with the company for some time and have deciphered the internal lingo, but for new employees, for whom clarity and simplicity is essential while getting used to a new role. Let's stop wasting one another's time with meaningless buzzwords and start saying what we really mean.


Here are a few examples of corporate jargon, each followed by an example of a simplified version. Dig around in your own emails -- you likely have some examples to work with, too. Sometimes, simpler words actually give us room to add context around a situation.

Jargon: "It's mission-critical that we do this."
Alternative: It's important that our company do this to reach our fourth-quarter sales goals."

http://msn.careerbuilder.com/Article/MSN-2900-Job-Info-and-Trends-Coaxing-outside-the-box-back-in-The-worst-corporate-jargon-offenders/?SiteId=cbmsnhp42900&sc_extcmp=JS_2900_home1&ocid=xnetr2-3

[unblock]

1. i learned long ago to avoid jargon words.

because i realized that more jargon words someone uses, the more they have no idea what they're talking about.
they use of jargon words starts off as a convenient shorthand, but winds up as a way to pass mere familiarity off as actual knowledge.

and the very first such jargon word i realized this about was "god".

as three people what "god" means and you'll get at least five opinions. people get really bent out of shape about slight differences when using words like "god". but get people to talk about what they actually believe in, without using the term "god", and you'll get surprising agreement, or at least much greater tolerance, particularly between atheists and internal-god believers. this is why i think using the term "god" is ill-advised in most contexts. it actually means different things to different people.

[dmallind]

2. Ahh more prescriptivism fighting vainly against descriptivism

Bemoaning "jargon" that contains no words above fifth grade level and is half as long as the "simplified" alternative doesn't help their cause.