Despite our efforts to identify and exterminate them, business cliches and jargon just keep coming back, and they’ve developed greater immunity to our only antidote: public shame.
Loyal readers probably recall a list that BizSense compiled in June of business cliches and jargon. Perhaps you laughed.
We have a few more we’d like to submit for retirement.
And just as BizSense asked of its loyal readers the first time around, please send us more of your own examples in the comments section below.
1. The new normal – This one should be thrown in the same bag as “pink is the new black” or “50 is the new 30.” Exactly what was the old normal, and how is it different from the new normal? Sure, it dulls the pain of saying what you really mean: When people can’t borrow against their houses and spend all over town, everyone’s salary fell 30 percent.
2. Results-driven – If you want to keep your job, you’d better come up with something results-driven. Isn’t every task results-driven?
3. Mission critical solutions – What is this, NASA?
4. Money on the sidelines – If there’s all this money on the sidelines, it’s only a matter of time before these sidelines are located and looted. Plus, on the sidelines isn’t out of the game quite like the phrase suggests. It’s just being safe, like in a savings account instead of betting on derivatives.
5. Best in breed – This expression is one dog that needs to be put down.
6. Thinking outside the box – Usually people start this one with, “Not to be cliche, but … ” That’s the grown-up equivalent of starting an insult with, “No offense, but .. ” Plus, the very expression is now thoroughly inside the box. Someone who is really original would have a better word choice. Like thinking outside the polyhedron — now that’s original.
7. In these economic times/in today’s economic climate – It might not garner as much attention as unemployment, foreclosures or bank failures, but of all the bad things that have come as a result of the recession, having to hear people use this phrase over and over is a real bummer. Someone needs to come up with a game-changing (cliche alert!) new way to say this.
8. Drink from the fire hose – You’d have to be an idiot to try to drink from a fire hose when there are plenty of water coolers around the office.
9. Play in that space – There really are people who say this. We’ve noticed venture capitalists can’t get enough of it. What gives? And what exactly are they playing with?
10. Incent or incentivize – These ugly cousins are so painful on the ears that they cause temporary deafness. Or at minimum a ringing. The word “incentivize” just looks like someone added “ize” to the end so they could use it at a morning meeting. There must be a way to incentivize people to stop using it.
Michael Schwartz is a BizSense reporter. Please send news tips to [email protected].
Despite our efforts to identify and exterminate them, business cliches and jargon just keep coming back, and they’ve developed greater immunity to our only antidote: public shame.
Loyal readers probably recall a list that BizSense compiled in June of business cliches and jargon. Perhaps you laughed.
We have a few more we’d like to submit for retirement.
And just as BizSense asked of its loyal readers the first time around, please send us more of your own examples in the comments section below.
1. The new normal – This one should be thrown in the same bag as “pink is the new black” or “50 is the new 30.” Exactly what was the old normal, and how is it different from the new normal? Sure, it dulls the pain of saying what you really mean: When people can’t borrow against their houses and spend all over town, everyone’s salary fell 30 percent.
2. Results-driven – If you want to keep your job, you’d better come up with something results-driven. Isn’t every task results-driven?
3. Mission critical solutions – What is this, NASA?
4. Money on the sidelines – If there’s all this money on the sidelines, it’s only a matter of time before these sidelines are located and looted. Plus, on the sidelines isn’t out of the game quite like the phrase suggests. It’s just being safe, like in a savings account instead of betting on derivatives.
5. Best in breed – This expression is one dog that needs to be put down.
6. Thinking outside the box – Usually people start this one with, “Not to be cliche, but … ” That’s the grown-up equivalent of starting an insult with, “No offense, but .. ” Plus, the very expression is now thoroughly inside the box. Someone who is really original would have a better word choice. Like thinking outside the polyhedron — now that’s original.
7. In these economic times/in today’s economic climate – It might not garner as much attention as unemployment, foreclosures or bank failures, but of all the bad things that have come as a result of the recession, having to hear people use this phrase over and over is a real bummer. Someone needs to come up with a game-changing (cliche alert!) new way to say this.
8. Drink from the fire hose – You’d have to be an idiot to try to drink from a fire hose when there are plenty of water coolers around the office.
9. Play in that space – There really are people who say this. We’ve noticed venture capitalists can’t get enough of it. What gives? And what exactly are they playing with?
10. Incent or incentivize – These ugly cousins are so painful on the ears that they cause temporary deafness. Or at minimum a ringing. The word “incentivize” just looks like someone added “ize” to the end so they could use it at a morning meeting. There must be a way to incentivize people to stop using it.
Michael Schwartz is a BizSense reporter. Please send news tips to [email protected].
My candidate: “thrown under the bus.”
George Orwell comments on this exasperating problem in his classic essay: “Politics and the English Language.” He says: “…there is a huge dump of worn-out metaphors which have lost all evocative power and are merely used because they save people the trouble of inventing phrases for themselves.” Tired and worn out cliches are an excuse for not thinking. We suppose by using them that everyone will know what we mean but they have become meaningless, or worse, they mean whatever anyone thinks they mean.
A couple of years a go, most sentances began with “Basically”…it makes you feel like they are trying to make themselves clear enough for a chimp to comprehend.
Now, the trend is to use “That being said”. WHO STARTS THESE THINGS? stop…please!
If one more person tells me they are going to reach out to me, or have someone reach out to me, I wil scream.
I have been trying to banish #7 from the lexicon for over a year (just ask M.E!). I’m happy to stop putting lipstick on that pig and think we should run the whole list up the flagpole and see who salutes!
I don’t have the bandwidth for this right now. Can we take it offline?
I.Hate.It.When.People.Put.A.Period.After.Every.Word.
I also strongly dislike “I’m just sayin…”
Another pet peeve: Impact, the verb. Much overused, resulting in loss of impact.
Put away “At the end of the day…” Pretentious, but a favorite of investment bankers, traders, etc.
“At the end of the day…” Sheesh, kill it..
How ’bout the “Irony” of it all…
@Bill – Good one.
If we banned these cliches, consulting firms would be out of business. Their sole job is to fill hundreds of pages with this crap and then bill your business 10K/hour to do so.
“My plate is full” should be put in the disposal.
This probably won’t sit well with many of my associates in the commercial real estate field, but the most OFFENSIVE description of the primary area for a site is often described as “Ground Zero”. Using “Ground Zero” as a term to identify a client’s preferred area is just unbelievable to me (And it’s used all the time in “e-mail blasts”.) This was arguably the worst day in American history, but we’ve managed to attenpt to “coyly” capitalize on a phrase that in my mind is associated with a horriffic morning; the beginning of a new way of life (not for… Read more »
I always dreamed of a single paragraph, so vibrantly powerful in biz-school speak that to merely utter it would be grounds for granting a MBA.
It was from the 80’s, so all I remember is something from the first sentence, that we were “fully empowered to leverage our core synergies”.
Needless to say, I stayed in science and engineering.
@ Peter Bunin.
The phrase “ground zero” to describe a particular location/property was in use well before the September 11th attacks.
“The new normal” is also an oxymoron because if it is new, it can’t be normal. (and if it’s normal…it has been occuring for a long time.) Does using that phrase qualify one as oxymoronic? Be afraid…be very afraid: It’s replacement will be: “Flat is the new up!” “Mission-critical solutions” are an important disctinction – otherwise how would we sort out real answers from nuisance input or the dreaded “top of mind” contribution? “Thinking outside the box”: I wonder why “they” climbed into to the box to do their thinking in the first place? Is this a friendly alternative to… Read more »
Look at the article on Insider Trading in this same issue. A Director bought phantom stock. I wonder what incentivized him to take his money off the sidelines and play in that space at the end of the day? Is phantom stock the new normal in wealth accumulation in these economic times? Let’s hope the corporation invests in out-of-the-box mission-critical solutions instead of drinking from the the fire hose of current best-of-breed business wisdom. P.S. – If Phantom Stock is being sold by the same people who brought you TARP and other economic stimulus programs – just say “no”! Linda… Read more »
If Jay is correct,,my apologies. I may just have been more sensitive to it & began noticing it AFTER the event, It’s such an incorporated part of the industry vernacular, now that it seemed TO ME that’s when the the use came ad naseaum, to the point of becoming a distateful cliche.