It may not be quite the same thing, but this reminds me of Venkatesh Rao's "Posture talk" from his Gervais Principle series:
https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/11/11/the-gervais-principle-...
Corporate buzzwords are how workers pretend to be adults
21–30 of 115 posts
Re: Corporate buzzwords are how workers pretend to be adults
#22Well this is a mean spirited attempt at destroying words that have meaning. Some people use them incorrectly and the nature of business moves on making them ineffective. Attacking them on multiple levels without describing when they are used in a positive sense seems unnecessary.
Can you give an example of some words you feel are being unfairly criticized? I.e. words that actually carry more meaning then their "plain" alternatives.
‘Root cause’ is neither redundant nor simply a ‘corporate buzzword.’ It represents a clear concept of a causal chain with an underlying factor that gates all other contributing causes. The term has been around for a century and ‘root cause analysis’ is a formal construct in a number of professional contexts, including analysis of aviation incidents.
Re: Corporate buzzwords are how workers pretend to be adults
#23Well this is a mean spirited attempt at destroying words that have meaning. Some people use them incorrectly and the nature of business moves on making them ineffective. Attacking them on multiple levels without describing when they are used in a positive sense seems unnecessary.
Can you give an example of some words you feel are being unfairly criticized? I.e. words that actually carry more meaning then their "plain" alternatives.
The author sure lost me at "the delightfully redundant root cause" (the last two words in italics). Root cause might be redundant, perhaps even delightfully so, but only if causation chains didn't exist. Almost seems as if "delightfully redundant" might be a buzzword phrase that The Atlantic writers use to pretend to be adults. This may be a bit harsh, but a text about bad language is just asking for scrutiny. (and "glasshousian" would make a fine addition to the arsenal important-sounding words, as I'm sure this comment will end up an incomprehensible mess when I hit reply)
What disappointed me more, though, is that the examples are just not very strong. I was hoping for examples far more juicy and over the top than the tired "disrupt" and "pivot".
Re: Corporate buzzwords are how workers pretend to be adults
#24I’m curious when people swapped the word reply with revert. I keep seeing people use phrases like “I’ll revert” when what they mean is “I’ll look into that and get back to you”. Particularly working in software I always have to stop myself when the initial reaction is that they’ve just said they’ll undo what I’ve requested.
I believe that this usage is archaic in British business English rather than an innovation! However, it was conserved in business English in India and some other countries, and perhaps the increased interaction between Americans and Indians and in the software industry means you're just exposed to it more often?
Re: Corporate buzzwords are how workers pretend to be adults
#25A startup I worked for was constantly seeking to have everyone aligned on things. The original concept of having people pointed in the same direction was admirable, but it quickly became something like a capital-A ‘Aligned’ (meaning good) with the inverse capital-U ‘Unaligned’ being about the worst thing you could be. God help the person who found the word ‘Unaligned’ on their semester review...
It sounds like a cult !
Alignment: Chaotic Good!
Those places are fun to work in, especially if you have already found another job and you are counting the days before you walk out the door.
Re: Corporate buzzwords are how workers pretend to be adults
#26All areas of practice have their own jargon, words that superficially sound similar to regular English but actually have specific insider meaning that promotes faster in-group communication (and a degree of in-group signalling) - this is true for scientists, software engineers, yoga instructors and yes, business people.
> All areas of practice have their own jargon, words that superficially sound similar to regular English but actually have specific insider meaning
Related: coverage of the recent cum-ex scandals has often included the factoid that "cum-ex" is from the Latin for "with-without".
Of course this isn't true. While cum is Latin for "with", the Latin for "without" is sine -- ex is Latin for "from". Instead, as used in the name of the scandal and the operations behind it, ex is ordinary English financial jargon for "without".
Re: Corporate buzzwords are how workers pretend to be adults
#27A startup I worked for was constantly seeking to have everyone aligned on things. The original concept of having people pointed in the same direction was admirable, but it quickly became something like a capital-A ‘Aligned’ (meaning good) with the inverse capital-U ‘Unaligned’ being about the worst thing you could be. God help the person who found the word ‘Unaligned’ on their semester review...
It sounds like a cult !
That sounds unaligned. Please report to the Alignment Center at your earliest convenience. Escorts will be available for your use in 20 seconds.
Re: Corporate buzzwords are how workers pretend to be adults
#28This reminded me of the section about "Clutter" in the book "On writing well": > Clutter is the official language used by corporations to hide their mistakes. When the Digital Equipment Corporation eliminated 3,000 jobs its statement didn’t mention layoffs; those were “involuntary methodologies.” When an Air Force missile crashed, it “impacted with the ground prematurely.”
> When an Air Force missile crashed, it “impacted with the ground prematurely.”
When I was a youngster in the Army Cadets in Australia I was told by one of the regular Army seargeants that no one in his company was ever “lost”. They could be “temporarily spatially displaced” but getting lost was strictly forbidden.
Re: Corporate buzzwords are how workers pretend to be adults
#29Re: Corporate buzzwords are how workers pretend to be adults
#30I sometimes use business talk as a tool to make countering my points unattractive when having public discussions inside the company. For example - let's say your boss decides to introduce some mandatory meeting that everyone agrees is useless. Rather then complaining about it in normal language, I would say things like "well, one of our core values is delighting clients, which I would be able to do much more efficien…
> difficult for them to push back
Describing pushing back on push-back with "push back".