It’s infuriating… but that’s how corporate types make their living. If you want to hide your real meaning these days, and want to confuse your readers/listeners (and at the same time, want them to think you’re so darn learned), try peppering your speech or email with jargon.
The more, the better.
The more bombastic words you stuff into your speech, the faster you speak, the more gestures you make - the more excellent you seem to be.
People stare agog at you, not wanting to raise their hands to ask you to clarify what you mean exactly, as they don’t want to look like idiots. They just accept the way things are. In this case, language is totally emasculated.
You can fool some people some times. But that’s if your audience is not very clever - or they like you immensely and think you’re their living god.
This reminds me of a friend who’s really a good example of a walking corporate jargon spouter. She writes her emails with gorgeous corporate jargon and speaks as if she’s here to save our sad, pitiful souls.
It reminds me of the Dilbert comics, which is my fave comic on Tuesdays and Thursday (techie types will know why). Why does Dilbert make sense (and leads the way in being anti-corporate?) Because every nuance, character and spoken language in Dilbert hit close to home - you would have seen and listened to such things in some corporate office at some point in your life and you’re recalling that memory!
Corporate types like to hide behind words! They don’t say what they mean, really. They just use words like some heroes use their light sabers, to mesmerize their enemies a bit, shine it in their eyes so they get befuddled and then deliver a whack. It’s cowardly.
As this world is full of such people bandying and using words like ‘professional’, ‘excellence’ and ‘quality’ disrespectfully, it is no wonder that we no longer believe what we read anymore.
I am sure you have sniggered inwardly when you read the mission statements of some companies. What do they mean exactly? Does the company even believe those few paragraphs which are supposed to imbue the ‘force’ in their staff? Doesn’t EVERY company want to be known for their excellence and quality?
It’s a sad world when we no longer mean what we say or when we use words to confuse, rather than clarify. Or we just use words blindly without understanding what it is that we want to say.
That’s why I try not to confuse or be vague when I write or speak. With clients, we use real words - not airy-fairy words which sound grand but mean nothing. With clients, we write real content too; not some mashed up corporate stuff which leaves you with a big question mark and a feeling that you’ve been cheated out of real understanding and labeled an idiot if you didn’t quite get it.
The hardest part for any writer or speaker is to clarify what one actually means. It’s much easier to bullshit one’s way through. That takes less effort.
Anyway, Robert Fisk writes about this sad state of using jargon to hide the real intention in this article titled “This Jargon Disease is Choking Language” over at http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/article2149736.ece
Enjoy it… it’s an eye-opener!