These are not common enough words to lean into. Corporate speak will just incorporate them into the new normal and we're going to have to pivot to something else. How about we streamline to just basic english words that encourage open communication?
I like the idea to try to improve these. But it may be a lot like suggesting updates to a coding style guide. Sometimes you can find some changes that improve utility value, and are worth the effort to collectively migrate to, but largely, the value comes from everyone understanding the standardized practices/terms. Whereby, I can join a company and quickly understand everyone’s intent.
So basically, let’s circle back on this and keep a holding pattern.
The funnest part is the corporate jargon resulting from history or just the vertical they are in. I worked at one company that had used teletypes to location that had a charge per character. This lead to an official abbreviation sheet. This had two effects later on. One, old timers kept using the abbreviations into the e-mail age. The second was some of the abbreviated words became part of the corporate jargon. This lead to some serious confusion when spoken abbreviations are used in place of the full words. Some actions were abbreviated and said in a couple of syllables.
Well, "CAK" for contract and "CAKAPP" for the whole applying stuff to a contract are two I remember. It was hella confusing for the later one for multiple weeks. Plus, I got an email that I literally felt like I was using a Captain Crunch Decoder Ring to translate into English. It was a trip.
maybe I'm in too deep already, but none of the things on the list sound like jargon to me. I'm pretty sure they are just common english idioms. idioms in general tend to be tough for non-native speakers, but is the meaning of "circle back" really that opaque? and how is it corporate jargon? you would be as likely to hear that phrase from a hiker as from an office drone.
I think they all originated in business as jargon, but the American media drug them out to prime time. Probably the only true jargon left are industries / verticals that have their own business language that isn't seen in sitcoms or procedurals. I have always thought those verticals should really be the origin of any DSL used for those companies.
To me, the problem with both corporate jargon and this list are that they're each an odd affectation that doesn't make communication clearer.
Just because something is bad doesn't mean that suggestions about replacing said thing would lead to improvement. I'm somewhat annoyed by programming languages where whitespace matters, but it would be wildly missing the point to propose a language where underscores serve the same purpose as whitespace, and one must indent with the correct number of leading underscores at the start of a line, etc.
Corporate jargon isn't supposed to make communication clearer. It's a kind of stock verbal filler used for status signalling by people who aren't articulate enough to communicate clearly.
Linguists call this register. It's linked to social status, general social context, and specific situational context.
There's even an ISO standard for different linguistic registers. Language translation systems have to worry about this, because if they get it wrong, hilarity ensues.
I wonder about how much corporate jargon is a signal of belonging to an in group, and how that might contribute to discrimination on the basis of race or social class.
I think we should save jargon for things that we don't already have easy terms for, and explain them clearly and regularly. I don't really care who supposedly "belongs" in coding or startup or corporate culture.
I care what people can do when they are actively included. Anything that makes that harder seems like being intentionally inefficient in a way that rewards people on the basis of social affiliation instead of merit.
Your first point nails it. I'm in exec meetings where this stuff is so thick you could choke and that is EXACTLY what is going on. New things go viral as everyone clamours to talk like the big gorilla.
Yes! In addition, "utilize" -> "use". Apparently "utilize" connotes use beyond what is typical, but I doubt most people pick the word based on that, versus it just sounding fancier.
I worked with a lawyer who I would redline “utilize” anywhere it appeared in a document. I pointed out that it has a slightly different meaning than “use”, in that it implies ingenuity or unexpected use.
He ended up agreeing that it could be used (not utilized!), but only rarely.
I will admit that my current favorite is going forward. Story time. My direct report likes to challenge things. There is value to it, but it can and does get exhausting since he challenges relatively pointless things apart from occasional useful thing. This one time he challenged my boss over some minor interpretation of procedures, where boss was the final recipient of a report. I tried to gently steer him away, but no go. Anyway, eventually my boss got tired of the back and forth of challenges and said "going forward, this is how it will be done". The report, not yet fluent in corporate speak did not get the hint and responded with an equivalent of "no. stupid. we should only do it the way we have always done it." Going forward, he challenges me a little less now too.
Absolutely accurate. In my little corner of the world, there is an additional hint of meaning there along the lines of "Whatever was done previously was done incorrectly/wrong/not the way I like it, but(/and) I am not willing to spend more time on it so here is what I want to do it instead." People can get defensive when you say things were done the wrong way directly. Hence, 'going forward' and not 'This is wrong'.
And the corporate-speak stays in use because having all that subtext immediately understood is helpful. For your everyday issues, it’s good teamwork and emotionally intelligent to let past mistakes go, avoid pointing out others’ mistakes, and set a new goal.
I don't think the alternatives given are necessarily synonymous though, so simply increase the amount of jargon.
> Abundance of caution -> Circumspection
To me 'Abundance of caution' euphemistically implies being rather too cautious
> ASAP -> Betimes
ASAP is in such common usage it hardly qualifies as jargon at all.
> Change agent -> Efficient cause
To me a change agent is someone else you bring in to be a positive voice for change, often because the person wanting change is outnumbered by naysayers. It is funny how when the consultant says exactly what you were shot down for saying it carries more weight, for instance. I think the agency is important in the meaning.
> Holding pattern -> Keeping watch
I don't think these mean the same thing at all. This is a mixture of aviation and military metaphor. A squadron of jets ready to bomb a target, but told to delay, might fly a holding pattern, ready to attack when told without further preparation. A sentry back at base is keeping watch, but would require significant preperation, and a long walk, before She could mount an attack on an enemy base. Imagine a product launch gets pushed back a few hours, and you want the web developers to pause, but not move on to other things, that is analogous to the jets, but not the sentry.
Likewise, to repent suggests a level of reproach or regret not indicated in a pivot.
Streamlining an aircraft, by adding retractable landing gear for instance, can make it rather more complicated not simpler. It may make it faster and more manoeuvrable whilst giving it greater fuel economy. Adding an ERP at a company may make it much more complicated (even though that complication is rather hidden from many users) but it may also allow for lower inventory by allowing advanced JIT or Throughput Accounting techniques. That is a streamlined operation, not a simpler one. I'm sure some people misuse the analogy to say 'Streamlined' when they mean, 'we fired half of them', but that is no reason to restrict it.
It usually is used to convey a sense of urgency, so why wouldn't that be desirable? Perhaps you have one of those unfortunate people in your organisation for which every directive is urgent?
I once worked with someone who used the abbreviation GMTA for “great minds think alike”. It was a particularly funny habit, seeing as how no one ever deciphered it without help.
ASAP, to my ears, always connotes urgency, and I'd even go so far as to say that its usage without this sense is universally dispreferred, if not outright misusage. Or at least I used to think so ... until a misunderstanding arose because our CEO did, in fact, use it in such a way (i.e. "whenever you are able").
H. Paul Grice (the four maxims guy) calls connotations like these implicatures, extra propositions which are "implicated" (implied) in addition to "what is said" (the utterance), and they can be conversational or conventional. Conversational implicatures are cancellable, meaning that they can be disavowed, whereas conventional implicatures cannot. So for instance, "I used to do a lot of drugs. I still do, but I used to too" cancels the implicature which arises from "used to" ("not anymore"). After consistent usage, however, conversational implicatures may become conventional and cannot be cancelled - they have moved from the pragmatic level to the semantic level (i.e. they're part of the meaning of the utterance itself rather than derived contextually).
The point being, is it even possible to cancel the urgency connotation of ASAP? Is it not just outright weird to say, "I want these TPS reports done ASAP - but no rush"?
My intuition says that ASAP necessarily connotes urgency, due to its consistent usage in this sense, whereas "as soon as possible" only optionally does (so it's much more acceptable to say, "I want these GPS reports done as soon as possible - but no rush").
Super weird coming from our CEO, because otherwise everything is in fact urgent (sigh...).
My job involves meetings with waaaay too much of this all the time. The most recent that seems to be going viral (new this year as far as I can tell, but spreading like syphilis at spring break) is "revert back to you" instead of "get back". I guess circle back is too last year already.
DID YOU USED TO BE ME??? WTF.
'Revert back to you' implies giving you an answer and passing control back to you. For instance you could send me something to proof, now I am in control. When I am finished, and if you have subsequent work to do, control may revert to you. If people say this when they appear to mean 'answer' then they are just communicating badly, not using jargon. Stop them and ask them to explain what is being reverted. If you see it in written form then suggest a correction. If the senior people pick up on this stuff it is possible to stop it quickly.
It’s Indian English? As an American, I have mostly heard it used by people in England (where I have more contacts than in India). Is it not originally from England? (If not, funny how it has reverted back from India.)
I reported a bug to a neighboring team. They responded to try again and they would revert back tomorrow. So I asked whether they had applied a quick fix and they would undo the fix tomorrow?
So then I learned a new meaning of revert that is not related to “svn revert”.
I think the worst problems with corporate jargon are when a company has built up a culture of misusing words, or using jargon that other organisations use, but using it differently. I can recall several occasions where sales people have tried to correct me (trained accountant) over the use of the terms 'margin' and 'gross profit', one insisting gp must be a %, for instance, because his team worked with sales and %gp margin.
I get a laugh out of the CEO of my current employer praising about the “multi-threaded” efforts of our marketing team. And here I thought the whole team blocked, slack-jawed, after each email, waiting mindlessly for Outlook to show that “new mail” icon so that they could get back to work.
99 comments
[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 193 ms ] threadBut I wonder what intracourse consists of?
Thinking or, alternatively, fluids moving inside your body.
*to it
You and I can talk like humans, but corporate yuppies trying to talk like humans will always just ruin human words too.
Maybe we should just get the duct tape and not let the corporate clones go full mission-statement?
So basically, let’s circle back on this and keep a holding pattern.
> Lest we repent this foregone plan, we shall meet ruin.
Just because something is bad doesn't mean that suggestions about replacing said thing would lead to improvement. I'm somewhat annoyed by programming languages where whitespace matters, but it would be wildly missing the point to propose a language where underscores serve the same purpose as whitespace, and one must indent with the correct number of leading underscores at the start of a line, etc.
Linguists call this register. It's linked to social status, general social context, and specific situational context.
There's even an ISO standard for different linguistic registers. Language translation systems have to worry about this, because if they get it wrong, hilarity ensues.
Or in the alternative, vespers.
I think we should save jargon for things that we don't already have easy terms for, and explain them clearly and regularly. I don't really care who supposedly "belongs" in coding or startup or corporate culture.
I care what people can do when they are actively included. Anything that makes that harder seems like being intentionally inefficient in a way that rewards people on the basis of social affiliation instead of merit.
https://grammarist.com/grammar/use-vs-utilize/
He ended up agreeing that it could be used (not utilized!), but only rarely.
“Henceforth, I decree procedures shall be as such:”
- Tailwinds and headwinds
- Can you add a little bit of color to that?
- In terms of
- Geopolitical
- Lagging indicators
- ARPU and DAU
- Year over year, quarter over quarter
- We continue to double down on _____ as we hedge against _____
Reply: "Yes, let me double-click on that topic so we can do a deep-dive."
> Abundance of caution -> Circumspection
To me 'Abundance of caution' euphemistically implies being rather too cautious
> ASAP -> Betimes
ASAP is in such common usage it hardly qualifies as jargon at all.
> Change agent -> Efficient cause
To me a change agent is someone else you bring in to be a positive voice for change, often because the person wanting change is outnumbered by naysayers. It is funny how when the consultant says exactly what you were shot down for saying it carries more weight, for instance. I think the agency is important in the meaning.
> Holding pattern -> Keeping watch
I don't think these mean the same thing at all. This is a mixture of aviation and military metaphor. A squadron of jets ready to bomb a target, but told to delay, might fly a holding pattern, ready to attack when told without further preparation. A sentry back at base is keeping watch, but would require significant preperation, and a long walk, before She could mount an attack on an enemy base. Imagine a product launch gets pushed back a few hours, and you want the web developers to pause, but not move on to other things, that is analogous to the jets, but not the sentry.
Likewise, to repent suggests a level of reproach or regret not indicated in a pivot.
Streamlining an aircraft, by adding retractable landing gear for instance, can make it rather more complicated not simpler. It may make it faster and more manoeuvrable whilst giving it greater fuel economy. Adding an ERP at a company may make it much more complicated (even though that complication is rather hidden from many users) but it may also allow for lower inventory by allowing advanced JIT or Throughput Accounting techniques. That is a streamlined operation, not a simpler one. I'm sure some people misuse the analogy to say 'Streamlined' when they mean, 'we fired half of them', but that is no reason to restrict it.
H. Paul Grice (the four maxims guy) calls connotations like these implicatures, extra propositions which are "implicated" (implied) in addition to "what is said" (the utterance), and they can be conversational or conventional. Conversational implicatures are cancellable, meaning that they can be disavowed, whereas conventional implicatures cannot. So for instance, "I used to do a lot of drugs. I still do, but I used to too" cancels the implicature which arises from "used to" ("not anymore"). After consistent usage, however, conversational implicatures may become conventional and cannot be cancelled - they have moved from the pragmatic level to the semantic level (i.e. they're part of the meaning of the utterance itself rather than derived contextually).
The point being, is it even possible to cancel the urgency connotation of ASAP? Is it not just outright weird to say, "I want these TPS reports done ASAP - but no rush"?
My intuition says that ASAP necessarily connotes urgency, due to its consistent usage in this sense, whereas "as soon as possible" only optionally does (so it's much more acceptable to say, "I want these GPS reports done as soon as possible - but no rush").
Super weird coming from our CEO, because otherwise everything is in fact urgent (sigh...).
So then I learned a new meaning of revert that is not related to “svn revert”.
https://www.businessguysonbusinesstrips.com/art/pad4.jpg
https://www.businessguysonbusinesstrips.com/art/pad3.jpg
https://www.businessguysonbusinesstrips.com/art/pad5.jpg
https://www.businessguysonbusinesstrips.com/art/pad7.jpg
https://www.businessguysonbusinesstrips.com/art/pad6.jpg
---
A few of my favorite ones:
> Lead the effort -> Do it
> Flow in text -> Copy and paste
> Digital Workload -> Workload
> Take this offline -> Talk to me later when these people are not around
> Latest trends -> What everyone else is doing
> Online presence -> You have a website
Where’s that article on ‘big boat stuck’ again?
Here’s my favorite corporate response I use regularly:
‘Interesting, that’s very interesting.’
Seems to always work.
https://randsinrepose.com/archives/managementese/