Local governments banned from using business jargon

[Wryel]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7948894.stm

I'm sad to see 'touching base' isn't in there. I hate that expression. A lot. Almost as much as when you squish your finger and get a bruise under your nail. Or when you bang your leg and hop around in agony and someone says 'are you alright?' Of course I'm not you ****, weren't you watching?

[Flibster]

Now that just blue sky thinking with vanilla reasoning.

I hate stuff like that. At my previous employer, one of the managers had a habit of using all possible jargon he could. We created some Management Bull**** Bingo cards and distributed them before any meeting that he was in.

[NokkonWud]

Really annoys me.

Singing from the same song sheet, grease the wheels, touching base and blue sky thinking are 3 I hate so much. In fact, next person I hear say them gets a punch in the larynx.

[Mark]

It's frightening just how many of those I use at work. I feel unclean.

[Fayshun]

Originally Posted by NokkonWud

Singing from the same song sheet, grease the wheels, touching base and blue sky thinking are 3 I hate so much.

That's 4

[Slinwagh]

Time to push the envelope.

[Rich_L]

Strange how when local government suggests removing pointless things like apostrophes from signs it's 'dumbing down' yet removing phrases from usage is a good thing - the vast majority of 'management speak' is often a more precise term than the 'common' phrase it replaces, it's just not understood as well by stupid people.

i.e.
benchmark - measuring
procure - buy
tranche - slice

Why are we catering to stupid people?

[NokkonWud]

Originally Posted by Fayshun

That's 4

Just testing ya!

[NokkonWud]

Originally Posted by Rich_L

i.e.
benchmark - measuring
procure - buy
tranche - slice

Why are we catering to stupid people?

In all 3 of those instances you could quite easily just use the regular word, or even an alternative word more suited to conversation though.

[Rich_L]

Not necessarily, to use the examples there:

Benchmark - implies that you are comparing against a set level, measuring - no comparison being undertaken

A tranche is specifically to do with paying a large financial sum in instalments, a slice is something you do to a cake (lol).

Also, procuring might not necessarily mean buying, the former means bringing something about whereas the latter means acquiring something, usually with money - two different meanings.

Surely a more desirable solution would be, if you don't understand, how about making the effort to look the word up rather than catering to the lowest common denominator.

I appreciate that, by over-use and appearing to 'look clever', some terms are incorrectly used as management speak, but equally, words shouldn't be taken out of the lexicon (or language, I should perhaps say) simply because the average person doesn't understand them.