It should be as plain as the ventilation facility on your visage, old chap

Jul 4 2008 by Valerie Hill, Liverpool Daily Post

AS A bit of a Jane Austen-wallah, I am probably rather over-tuned to the nuance of speech, but realise I do have to force myself to make concessions to the 19th, 20th and now, heaven forbid, the 21st century.

However, having crept into the dizzy realms of management, I find myself having to grapple with a whole new lexicon of jargon and I don’t like it one bit.

I realise that upper middle class Regency expressions have their limitations in dealing with the technological world which we now live in, but I find that there is almost a desire to bamboozle the uninitiated.

Usually, what is being described is quite simple, but it aids the speaker to puff up the importance of their message.

Nothing is now safe from marketing and management speak.

Working in education, I can confirm this sector fell victim to the market economy several years back with both parties insisting that we go out and sell ourselves to parents, pupils and each other.

As English is my specialist subject area, I’m probably too sensitive for the gear change necessary to switch from the language of Shakespeare, Milton and Auden to some hideously expressed hand-out on best practices.

I think the rot set in with the phrase “state of the art” which seems applicable to everything from rocket motors and electron microscopes to fairy cakes.

What users of this frightful term mean is simply “latest” or “advanced”.

How such a clumsy and lengthy phrase that stinks of the worst kind of Americanism became credible is a mystery lost in the 1970s, the decade that style forgot.

You can almost sense the chrome and sharp angles glinting off the words – or is this the very appeal that I’m blind to? Answering my question, I suppose this flashiness is what made it so attractive to the advertising copy-writing industry that spawned its use.

Since then, the proliferation of clod-hopping metaphor and heavy-handed euphemism has been unstoppable.

I can’t believe it when I hear apparently intelligent people in senior positions use expressions such as “my door is open on this issue” (meaning: “I’m undecided”) or “come to the party” (translation: “get involved”).

When I look around, a sardonic smile playing on my lips, I realise that everyone else in the room seems to be taking this hogwash seriously.

It’s as if they are so keen to be initiated into the arcane rites of business that they willingly suspend their judgment.

Thankfully, I find I am not alone in my exasperation. A BBC online survey reports the 50 most ridiculous examples of management speak submitted by office workers.

These include words that range from those sneaking in under the language limbo bar, such as “actioning” (doing) through to the truly ridiculous like “product evangelist”. This is far more exciting and glamorous than saying salesmen, with all its slippery connotations, but is still sufficiently over the top to warrant raising an eye-brow by those who remain grounded. (Sorry, is “grounded” jargonistic?)

Then there are “heading up” and “freeing up”, when it would be better to say heading and freeing as a clearer way of expressing exactly the same thing.

Tautological words that particularly vex me are “pre-prepare” and “forward planning”, when prepare and planning are all that is needed.

Fancy substitutes such as “incentivise” pointlessly elbow the perfectly satisfactory “reward”, but worse still is “conversate” instead of talk.

Considering the derision heaped upon President Bush, I don’t see why we have to compensate by copying his strangulated vocabulary.

Political correctness has also been stirred into the brew with nonsense like “idea shower” now replacing “brainstorm”, in case the latter could perhaps infer mental illness.

Anyway, I’ve got to start and prepare to charm my clients with some clever thinking, unless they want a private chat, but remember without rewards it can’t be done.

Or do I mean, I’ve got to get go with all my ducks in a row to sprinkle my magic with 360º thinking, unless they want to touch base offline, but remember without incentivisations you can’t turn a tanker round with a speedboat change.