Friday, November 16, 2007

Jargonistic

One of the things that I hate more than just about anything is lame business jargon. I'll list a couple of my least favorite later on, but it's like kudzu. It's a weed that was introduced by somebody who thought he was clever or doing a good thing but that has long since destroyed creativity and direct speech. Instead of writing and/or saying what you mean, you run it into a translator that chops it up and adds a bunch of padding that destroys all semblance of a good idea. We're going over our Purpose/Vision/Mission here in our management meeting today and that's what got me thinking about it. A-Rod is the king of business jargon and to try to combat that, I did a google search for business jargon, which led me to here. Take a look, it's awesome. As for my least favorite terms:
Quick and Dirty: What would be a better term? Rough draft, something that's been around for ages. Instead, we end up with a deviant sex act in the boardroom.
Interface/Download/Upload: How about "let's talk?" Instead you make me rue the day computers were invented because you're talking like we're a machine and we're just sending data bits back and forth.
Benchmark: What the crap. How about you just say standard like a normal human being. Instead you have to try to adjectify a noun that has no business being adjectified. I know I just made up that word, but that's just too bad.

4 comments:

Scott Roche said...

"Let's take this offline."

Beau Sorensen said...

That's one I should have included. It's another one of those computer terms that have no business being used elsewhere. Unless, of course, you are a computer nerd who can no longer use normal language.

Mar said...

Oooooh, my old boss used to say he'd be "out of pocket" whenever he got on a flight and it made me want to strangle somebody.

I also despise "shoot me an e-mail." How about I just shoot you instead?

Beau Sorensen said...

Mar, is your old boss my current boss?