ABUSE OF WORDS IN THE BUSINESS WORLD<http://hunterfiftyfour.blogspot.com/2009/06/abuse-of-words-in-business-world.html> Some words have been abused so much in the Corporate World that they have become a joke. They just don’t mean anything anymore. Again, there is corporatese (here I go again, trying to mimic a pattern to invent a word; if there can be legalese why can’t there be coporatese?) where words are masqueraded as metaphors and idioms of life by tweaking (tweaking is another ugh!) their usage. But with overuse these notional words have degenerated to jargon. Here is a list compiled by David Silverman of Harvard Business Review. He gives the primordial meanings of these words. My own favorite, which did not make to David’s list, is ‘proactive’. I have added proactive in the end
Solution v. = put something in salty water Skill set n. = tools for carving wood Workshop v. = the using of skill sets in a room where you keep power tools Build n. = a presentation’s physique, i.e. “Look at the build on that PowerPoint slide” Deck n. = The thing that keeps you from falling into the boat Opportunity n. = blind luck Thought leader n. = the thing that comes before a thought, i.e. a blank expression Best of breed n. = A very fast horse Action item n. = An item with a racing stripe Out of the box adj. = Referring to a place on the counter where you put things after you take them out of the box Off the grid n. = Incautious crayon use Lessons learned n. = Lessons where the student was awake as opposed to unconscious On the other hand conj. = Where there are warts Going forward v. = To drive a car. “I will be going forward to home this afternoon.” Bandwidth n. = A stage or other performance area. Silo n. = A place for grain. Functional Silo n. = A working place for grain. Win-win n. = Sign on an extra-large slot machine Branding n. = Letters on cows Dialogue v. = Shakespeare rotating underground Look v. = to look at something and wonder what is there, but there isn’t anything at all Resources n. = bits of metal in rocks Roundtable v. = Serve food on a disc Offline n. = Another crayon error Impacted v. = Hit very, very hard. Let me be clear, conj = An attempt to confuse Diversity n. = Two versities (or one large versity cut in half) Low-hanging fruit n. = Fruit about to go rotten Mashup n. = A way to serve potatoes Meme n. = A catchphrase of Ms. Piggy. (technically, “memememememe”) Current status n. = Availability of electricity Stakeholder n. = A hand that shakes in relation to who’s holder the hammer. Utilize v. = no one knows Up shot n. = Whiskey, completed Preapproval n. = A time machine that can go back before logic existed. State of Preparedness n. = Kentucky Lifecycle n. = A bicycle that saves your life, i.e. by running into a building on fire Proactive adj. = of a tendency where activeness is professional Proactive n. = a person who is all for action (as in, ‘pro action’ and ‘against action’) --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "English Learner's Cafe" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/english_learners?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
