Thinking outside the dictionary
Do you seek to impress the boss by wheeling out the jargon? According to a recent survey by YouGov, 49% of us do just that, and almost as many admit to using the same phrases outside the workplace to impress friends and family.
The computer industry is guilty of using too much jargon, and all too often hiding behind a wall of obscurity, but when asked what terms and phrases irritate us most, top of the list was that management favourite, "Thinking outside of the box", closely followed by "touch base" and "at the end of the day". Here is the Top 20 pointless phrases which sound impressive but say very little:
Thinking outside of the box
Touch base
At the end of the day
Going forward
All of it
Blue sky thinking
Out of the box
Credit crunch
Heads up
Singing from the same hymn sheet
Pro-active
Downsizing
Ducks in a row
Brainstorming
Thought shower
360° thinking
Flag it up
Pushing the envelope
At this moment in time
In the loop
If I had been surveyed I would probably have offered that word that has become a favourite of unimaginative journalists, speech writers and politicians, and that word is "unprecedented". I first remember it being used in a headline back in 1990 when Geoffrey Howe made his famous "unprecedented attack" on the then Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher. It was a powerful use of the English language at the time, but since then the word has become a staple of writers and speakers who increasingly use it as a substitute for "unusual", perhaps because they think it makes them sound more sophisticated, more educated, more insightful.
Now that I've brought it to your attention you will begin to notice just how often it used. The BBC reported that it had received an unprecedented number of complaints during the Ross/Brand affair, whilst the Pentagon went one better when it said an unprecedented cyber-attack meant it was taking the unprecedented step of banning the use of Flash USB drives. Sports journalists use it with abandon, such as the Daily Express which earlier this year described the surprising defeat at Wimbledon of Maria Sharapova by her younger and less well known compatriot, Kudryavtseva, as an unprecedented victory for the 20 year old.
Recently I've heard the word used three times in three different new items during a single five minute news round-up. The latest downturn in the economy is invariably described as unprecedented, but describing the current flu epidemic as unprecedented is just plain wrong, and whoever decided to say that the rail network was suffering unprecedented delays clearly doesn't travel by train too often.
22nd December 2008
This article comes from the SKILLZONE email newsletter, published monthly since January 2008, and covering topics related to technology and the internet. All articles and artwork in the SKILLZONE newsletter are orignal content.