Mar 19th 2009 By Adam K. Raymond

What Corporate Jargon Annoys You Most?

Those kooky Brits are so grumpy and, yet, so justified. Example: The Local Government Association has banned a list of 200 meaningless words and phrases that business folks are constantly using. Which got us thinking -- America could really use a ban on some of our own annoying corporate jargon.

Check out some of the worst offenders in the gallery, then "think outside the box" and "ping" us so we can "touch base" on what other corp-speak drives you crazy.

Corporate Slang Flashcards

"Swag"

"Sheeple"

"Scooby Snack"

"Same Page"

"Results-driven"

"Repurpose"

"Proof of Concept"

"Proactive"

"Ping"

"Paradigm Shift"

Tags: corporate jargon - CorporateJargon

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Saturday 21 March

By Val

Neutral

I hate em all also, the slang words that is. But what gets me madder then a wet hen is putting any word in front of American. I am NOT prejudice I really am not but to my way of thinking your either AMERICAN or your not. The only race that has the right to say anything other than American is the Native American Indian. I am adopted I have no idea what kind of blood other then red runs throgh my veins but first and foremost I am AMERICAN and darn proud of it.

Saturday 21 March

By Gary K

Neutral

You people are lucky. How would you like to work in an office where the people make as much sense as the sandpeople in Star Wars?

Saturday 21 March

By cjsperl

Neutral

In the health care business they have a word that is used if the schedule or census is light and they want you not to come to work. Take time off using a vacation day or no pay:

"Staff leveling"

Had a manager actually said "lets dialogue" when she wanted to talk.

Saturday 21 March

By Pat

Neutral

You know, yes, YOU KNOW, drives me crazy. It's worse than UM, you know?

Saturday 21 March

By Mikey D

Neutral

Not corporate stuff but, I HATE hearing the following:
"me and Susan ate lunch" instead of "Susan and I ate lunch"
"Send it to Susan or myself" for "Send it to Susan or me"
"nucular" instead of "nuclear"
"simular" instead of "similar"
"Where you at?" should be "Where are you?"
"3 a.m. in the morning" like 3 a.m. could be other than morning..??
"leave out" No, it's just leave.
"I seen" instead of "I saw"
"I found a myriad of ..." Wow that's wrong...'myriad' basically means 'a lot of' so 'a myriad of' is like saying 'a a lot of of'
"African-American" or any other hyphenated American. PICK ONE, and be that! You're one or the other, but not both!
"An historic ..." This is an accidental carryover from the King's English. The rule is that if a word begins with a vowel sound, it is preceded by 'AN', otherwise it gets 'A' Across the pond, they drop the beginning "H" so house is pronounced ouse, home is ome, etc...but here in America where we pronounce the H, it is correctly stated "A historic election..." not AN, that sound stupid and makes the speaker look stupid.

Saturday 21 March

By zip

Neutral

Sarah Palin using the word "shocked" over and over again.Has she been around the block to really know what a real "shock" is?

Saturday 21 March

By Pam

Neutral

I can't stand when people say "props" instead of praise, "axed" instead of asked and middle class kids who talk like they were born in the projects. (So phoney!) I also hate the "f" word being used as an adjective.

Friday 01 May

By cali

Neutral

I can't stand when I her people say the word idea pronounced like idear! What is up with that??????

Saturday 21 March

By sean

Neutral

I find it remarkable (amazing?) that not one person has noticed the wide-spread incorrect use of the word "unique." As in:
really unique
very unique
most unique

And my personal favorite: one of the most unique.

As soon as you say "one of the most," you've kind of left "unique" behind.
It isn't so bad when regular people do it. After all, they here journalists and such use it that way. But that's the problem; people whose job it is to use the English language, and who took more years of English than I did of everything, say idiotic things like "one of the most unique."
Was it uniquer than the other one? Was it one of the most uniquest of all?

And it seems I'm the only one bothered by this. I suppose that makes me the uniquyestest one here.

Saturday 28 March

By gtascode

Neutral

I hate these non-words: "Strategizing" and a new on used recently by a new senior executive, "actionable." Plus, I hate the misuse and/or overuse of "empowering, metrics, paradigm, synergies, quality, solutions, leverage, mission, vision" and all the other secret-corporate-handshake jargon that's only real purpose is to keep the general working population in the dark, while pretending to have some grandiose business insight. Please speak coherent, understandable English, unless you have something to hide, like incompetence or stupidity.

Tuesday 31 March

By Jonathan

Neutral

Um...strategizing is a word. It's simply turning the noun strategy into a verb. You understand what it means, it's perfectly clear, so thus the purpose of language is satisfied. In fact that's how the English language evolves. Words are made up, often formed from existing words and become part of every day speech. Being pointlessly old fashioned and annoying when the word isn't somehow ambiguous or confusing just makes you kind of an a-hole. Our language is not one that stays frozen in time, new words emerge into it all the time, it's part of the beauty of the whole thing. In fact many words I just typed were at one time 'not real words.' Also actionable is definitely a word. It is an unquestionably acceptable legal term which applies often in tort law as in conduct that is actionable. Punching someone is actionable, it gives rise to a valid cause of action. Trust me, you really shouldn't go around complaining about words like actionable because you just make yourself look foolish. It is clear, coherent, understandable English and some of that 'jargon' you allude to is the best word for a given context. Why should people have to strain to talk around certain words simply because you aren't educated?

Saturday 28 March

By gtascode

Neutral

In addition, I hate the sentences "Let's do a little brainstorming." These people never even had a braindrizzle, let alone storm.

"I just want to bounce this off of you." Better not if you know what's good for you.

"I just want to pick your brain on this." OW! My brain hurts enough from listening to your stupidity.

Monday 30 March

By bmschramke

Neutral

My pet peeve is "basically." Why is it you cannot be specific and need to generalize? Or do you think I'm too intellectually inferior that you need to simplify it for me?

Wednesday 01 April

By gtascode

Neutral

Jonathan-There will always be disagreements regarding neologisms, as most used in business today are coined by morons with no grasp of the English language, then parroted by corporate brown-nosers, undoubtedly much like you. “Strategizing” and your birth are bastardizations, both with no apparent redeeming qualities. In fact, the latter resulted in a full point reduction in the collective IQ of this country, due entirely to your black-hole lack of intellect.
I didn’t complain about the usage of all neologisms, nor all previously established words, just the misuse and overuse of some by poseurs like you. Nor am I a linguistic Luddite. Without the use of new terminology, how else could we verbalize and explain recent discoveries and phenomena?
Only two things are worse than a total imbecile: an imbecile who imagines he or she actually knows anything, and that imbecile who imagines he knows something and is in some position of power. Hopefully, the only things you manage are burgers on the grill at the local McDonald’s. There’s only one dipstick in this exchange, and you see him everyday in the mirror.
Finally, this was a “triatribe,” one up on a diatribe. Stuff that neologism where I know you’ll enjoy it. Adios, peasant.