(Issue 26: March, 2010) by Mary Cullen
I sat in on a conference call yesterday, and heard the phrase "authenticity parameter" used. I was puzzled. Did this mean the edges of truth? Later in the call, the same speaker said his company was built by "authentic people." I hope so. Can fake people build a company?
Business-speak and jargon are the terms I use to describe overused, meaningless words which hide honest communication. Business-speak hurts communication, customer perception, and clouds meaning. "Authentic" was once a lovely word that meant genuine and real. No longer. It's applied to everything from staff to servers to company profiles, and it is parroted so often it has lost meaning.
Oxford University's Top Ten Irritating Business Phrases for 2009:
1 - At the end of the day
2 - Fairly unique
3 - I personally
4 - At this moment in time
5 - With all due respect
6 - Absolutely
7 - It's a nightmare
8 - Shouldn't of
9 - 24/7
10 - It's not rocket science
Our business writing blog
readers shared terms that irritate them:
"We're a truly global business in every sense of the word." (Truly global? What? As opposed to only partially global? And in every sense of what word? Global? Oh, like "spherical"?)
"Going forward." (What other direction is possible?)
"Reach out" to someone. (As in "We reached out to our stakeholders.")
"Stakeholders"
"Additionally" (What happened to "and" and "also?")
"To bite the bullet" (I hear it used all the time and it evokes these images of the War of Independence and it usually is being used by city-types who don't look like they've been outdoors recently.)
"First and foremost," and "first of all." (These are already written on the first part of the letter, there's no need to say "first...")
"It is what it is." (I suspect this masks "I don't know what it is.")
"No problem." (It should never be a problem to do your job.)
"I'm just saying."
Synthesizing new verbs simply by adding the -ize suffix, e.g. "incentivize".
"Circle Back" (As in, once you have completed this project, circle back and we'll go over it. Really? I can't just "get back to you"? You want me to literally do a circle dance first!)
"Please find enclosed..." (Am I being told it is enclosed because they assume I am blind?)
ASAP (makes me want to scream! Please give me a real date.)
Notice how irked our readers were with these phrases. I think this is not merely because they hear them too often. Business communication is human to human communication. Hiding behind meaningless, bantered-about terms makes your reader feel ignored, disconnected, and talked down.
Business writers are sometimes hesitant to let their own personalities shine in their writing. That is a mistake. Use your natural writer's voice and your own words.
That is real authenticity.
Error: Hunt and Correct
This paragraph contains an error. Find and correct it.
Budgets were reduced by 15% in 2009, yet our workload increased 34%. Even with the increased workload, I shouldn't of hired additional staff.
The answer is here.
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(Issue 15: February, 2009) by Mary Cullen
Why is so much business writing inscrutable? After all, its function is to convey information to grow business, so surely we want to connect with our reader and present clear, easily understood documents that readers can readily act on.
This issue looks at clarity, the essential ingredient that links writing to your company's revenue.
Because bloated, overwritten business language is so common, there are many terms to describe it: balderdash, poppycock, claptrap, bunk, rubbish, waffle, drivel, fluff, deadwood, gobbledygook and jargon.
David Meerman Scott, author of the New Rules for Marketing and PR, working with Factiva, analyzed 388,000 news releases over a nine-month period. The results were astounding:
"Next generation" was used 9,895 times!
There were over 5,000 uses of these beaten-to-death terms: "flexible," "robust," "world class," and "scalable." Other notably overused phrases were: "cutting edge," "mission critical," "market leading," "industry standard," "turnkey," "groundbreaking," "interoperable," "best of breed," and "user friendly."
Humor columnist, Nancy Crochiere, just published a very funny column about returning to corporate work after working as a freelancer for ten years, encountering new jargon:
I've noticed that almost everything in the business world has to be "leveraged." If you're not busy leveraging something, you're not doing your job. Whenever I talk to my boss, I make sure to use the word "leverage" at least once in every conversation, and it seems to keep me employed.
In addition, whenever our department has something new to present, like a new procedure or policy, we say we're going to "roll it out," as if it were some kind of enormous pie crust. This is an image I like, especially right after lunch.
While in the process of rolling out and leveraging, however, it's important that we have "transparency" - meaning, I guess, that everyone knows what you're rolling and leveraging. It took me almost three years to learn all this.
Other terms ready for retirement are:
- Synergy
- Starting a dialog (can't we just talk?)
- Thinking outside the box
- Best practices
- Paradigm shift
How to Stop This Bloat
Most overwritten business documents are written to impress, rather than to communicate. Instead,- Envision your audience. Create a persona of them in your mind.
- Shape your content based on what this audience wants or needs to know.
- Use language that matches this audience.
Tip:
Remember these five rules from George Orwell's "Politics and the English Language:"
- Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
- Never use a long word where a short one will do.
- If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
- Never use the passive where you can use the active.
- Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
Do you recognize this company, from its corporate overview page?
[Company X] has remained faithful in its commitment to producing unparalleled entertainment experiences based on its rich legacy of quality creative content and exceptional storytelling. Today, [Company X] is divided into four major business segments...Each segment consists of integrated, well-connected businesses that operate in concert to maximize exposure and growth worldwide.
This is a lot of jargon to describe Disney!
Business Writing Grammar Error: Hunt and Correct
Rewrite this bloated paragraph into three words:
It is the opinion of the group assembled for the purpose of determining a probability of the likelihood of the meteorological-related results and outcome for the period encompassing the next working day that the odds of precipitation in the near-term are positive and reasonably expected.
The answer is here.
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