Actioning a blue-skies approach outside the box

michael

Bring out the vacuum
Mostly why this stuff grates so badly is because we're obscenely conservative about language change. Boring, but there you go. It's nothing innate in most of these words or their constructions that hurts, except that they're new.

I'd hope that no one rails against evil backformations like "escalate" or "burgle" (Americans use the correct "burglarise", which sounds horrific to my ears). Not to mention dirty, redundant neologisms like "foreword" and "afterword".

Having said that, associations with groups you don't respect much will certainly factor in as well. I feel as soiled when I hear schoolkids on the bus talking about how something "was pretty lol" (said like "loll") or prefacing opinions with "TBH" as I do around management speak.


All that said, let's get back to hating on this shit, because it's more fun. :D

John Ralston Saul has plenty of interesting stuff in Voltaire's Bastards on management speak, which expands on the guts of what's already been said about cliques / in crowds and out crowds. The thrust of his argument is that to get ahead as a technocrat you score points for how, not what you say. "How" will change in context - a la Sick Boy's mention of academia - but the general point is to demonstrate to those with power that you can communicate messages to them in the way they want to receive them. And that that is more important (in the sense of powerful) than the content. Have you got a presentation with charts and graphs? Can you talk about stats, regardless of how horseshit they are? Can you use the language those with more power than you want you to use? Then you're on your way.

I think he's overly simplistic, but OTOH any of us with work experience in reasonably big organisations has probably come across a lower level manager who you know is never going to be a director or what have you because they can't do this kind of patter. They might be great at their job in many respects, but they can't "present" in the wider sense.

One thing I find particularly sickening is slipping into using these terms myself. I do a lot of presentations and training sessions and I find it all too easy to fall into a certain mode. I trained 100s of staff on a new computer system and wanted to tell the trainees not to worry about work they'd already done - that the system was to be used "from now on". But the temptation to say "going forward" was weirdly strong! I had to work pro-actively to avoid slipping. I guess there was absolutely nothing disincentivising using business jargon. Luckily, my internal drivers won out every time and even when talking to some points offline with individual trainees I avoided saying anything so silly.

;)

Nah, but seriously, I do feel the gist of Saul's argument.
 
Last edited:

michael

Bring out the vacuum
Kind of on the same topic, but a little different is when customer services use the word "yourself" rather than you ie "we'll send that direct debit form to yourself to sign and send back". It's supposed to sound clever, but it sounds incredibly thick.

Just to add to this one, inconsistent use of pronouns is really common where there's more than one party involved. I'd hesitate to even say "incorrect" it sounds so normal.

You can talk to Paris or myself if you have any questions about this incident.

Was anyone besides Paris and yourself present when the coke was being chopped?

Do you want to do some lines with Paris and I?​

... You might read those as being a bit weird, but I reckon they'd breeze by in speech without even being noticed.
 

Lichen

Well-known member
The train company I travel with says:

"The next station stop will be Reading/Wherever"

I think they add the word "station" in there to cover themselves in the event of someone leaping out of the window at the signals just outside Reading, in the mistaken belief that they've properly arrived at Reading
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
"[X] is located in [Y]" where "[X] is in [Y]" would be perfectly adequate - yes, train anouncers, I'm looking at you. :mad:

"Going forward" does my fucking nut in. Surely when you talk about stuff you're going to do it's implicit that you're going to do it in the future, given that it's quite hard to plan to do things in the past?

Michael, I feel your pain about pronouns. I bitch about pronoun abuse so much I even bore myself, but it's just so hideous. I think people should be banned from using reflexive pronouns altogether until they've taken some sort of basic profficiency test.
 
Last edited:

Slothrop

Tight but Polite
The train company I travel with says:

"The next station stop will be Reading/Wherever"

I think they add the word "station" in there to cover themselves in the event of someone leaping out of the window at the signals just outside Reading, in the mistaken belief that they've properly arrived at Reading
Train companies are the worst. "Please ensure that you have all of your personal belongings with you..." Not to mention the fact that supermarkets now seem to have captains but trains have managers. Blech.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Not to mention the fact that supermarkets now seem to have captains but trains have managers. Blech.

What the fuck? When did this happen? I might have to stop reading this thread, I feel like I'm on the verge of tears. :(

Yeah, "personal belongings" is stupid - as opposed to impersonal belongings? Things that don't really belong to anyone but which you happen to be carrying for some reason? Stolen goods?
 

Slothrop

Tight but Polite
Interestingly, the Local Government Association has published a list of 250 words and phrases that are "banned" from any communications directed at the public... including a lot of the favourites from this thread. They don't try to lock down internal communications, though.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Interestingly, the Local Government Association has published a list of 250 words and phrases that are "banned" from any communications directed at the public... including a lot of the favourites from this thread.

I bet a lot of them are things like "don't say 'cut', say 're-structured'".
 

Slothrop

Tight but Polite
Plus the top secret George Osborne definition of "front line services" that means you can eg take 99% of doctors and nurses out the back and shoot them without "affecting front line services".
 

scottdisco

rip this joint please
if anyone is interested in parachuting out some blue-sky thinking outside the box, i am looking to touch base and move forward on the subject of putting a cap in the ass of that utter prick George Osborne.

i thank yew.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Disbenefits?! DISBENEFITS?!

I know, it's disbelievable!

25723.gif
 

mrfaucet

The Ideas Train
Something that is easily found or something that draws attention to itself?

Not getting the goldfish bowl conversation one.

I mostly find this stuff really funny, but then I've only ever had to put up with the use of 'actioning'.
 

michael

Bring out the vacuum
this is so great; it's management going meta; management making rules in order to talk about itself with itself, it's like watching the onset of schizophrenia within an entire system.

Nah, it's rules in order to talk about itself to the people these institutions are supposed to be serving. It's about external comms, not management.
 
Top