The root of all business-speak

So they've seen the concept, but we got you involved so we can make sure they have the ability to do what we've ... concepted.

I just hope they don't learn this new term. Ever since I told them I would run a session on weed (identification of exotic plants) I have been at risk of cruel laughter.

"We got you involved so we can make sure they have the ability to do what ... we've conceived."

"Oh wow, congratulations, I didn't even know you were seeing anyone!"

??

Not as exciting as it sounded at first - she was just agreeing to arrange a meeting.

Thomas Nashe, the English minor poet and satirist, thrown out of Cambridge University in the 16th century for an unknown reason, felt the need — as a modern Merriam-Webster lexicographer put it — “to remedy the surplus of monosyllabic words.” To meet this need for longer locutions, he claimed credit for inventing the suffix -ize, but in 1591, Nashe found himself criticized (as he would put it) for starting the polysyllabic parade.

The -ize still have it. Whenever a new verb is launched using Nashe’s little trick, traditionalists are shocked. Only a generation ago, some academic jargonaut coined prioritize, meaning “give priority to” or “rank in order of importance,” and stiffs like me ran to the ramparts to denounce it as ugly, bureaucratic and unnecessary. Before that, we language mavens gnashed our teeth at the replacement of the simple finish with the pompous finalize, to no avail; both those -izes, and dozens of others, usaged their way into dictionaries.

Now we are faced with the rise of operationalize. Implement was bureaucratic enough as a substitute tool for “carry out,” but the vogue to Nashe-ize the phrase “to make operational” has seized the realm of academe and politics with a rush of just over a million Google citations. “That’s a good goal,” said Senator Hillary Clinton recently about the Bush doctrine to rid the world of tyranny, “now how do you operationalize that in a sensible way.”

My job is to hoot at this Nashe-ization for a few years, supported by the dwindling legion of those determined to stay the course, and then to cut and run with the usage antelopes. But wait: an exception. I am a happy resident of Nashe-ville about the usage — already at the quarter-million mark— of anonymize. Eric Schmidt, C.E.O. of Google, was quoted last month deploring a leak of subscribers’ private data by AOL with “The data as released was obviously not anonymized enough.”

What’s the matter with privatize? Here’s what: that verb was used by some politicians to torpedo what other politicians called “personal accounts” in Social Security. With privatize scaring people away, we privacy nuts needed a new Nasher. It is now provided by anonymize, soon to be followed by anonymization-resistant, the coiner of which prefers to masquerade as a sock puppet.

"gift" is not a verb

says the guy who obviously hates "Night Shift" by the Commodores

It might sound like "gifted us," but it's actually an arcane and clever pronunciation of "gave it to us."

gave it to us
geff itta us
gefftta us
giftad us
gifted us

Also I do not allow for poetic license or rhyme scheme cheating in the legal fine print on a brochure

let's table this discussion and take it off-line.

when/why did this stuff start? i mean, i can't imagine businessmen in the 19th century talked like this.

let us acquisitione that spende

actually I think Disraeli has several industrialist characters in his novels that talk like the 19th-century version of this

'It's a booked place though,' said the stranger, 'and no mistake. We have
all of us a very great respect for Manchester, of course; look upon her as
a sort of mother, and all that sort of thing. But she is behind the times,
sir, and that won't do in this age. The long and short of it is,
Manchester is gone by.'

'I thought her only fault might be she was too much in advance of the rest
of the country,' said Coningsby, innocently.

'If you want to see life,' said the stranger, 'go to Staleybridge or
Bolton. There's high pressure.'

'But the population of Manchester is increasing,' said Coningsby.

'Why, yes; not a doubt. You see we have all of us a great respect for the
town. It is a sort of metropolis of this district, and there is a good
deal of capital in the place. And it has some firstrate institutions.
There's the Manchester Bank. That's a noble institution, full of
commercial enterprise; understands the age, sir; high-pressure to the
backbone. I came up to town to see the manager to-day. I am building a new
mill now myself at Staleybridge, and mean to open it by January, and when
I do, I'll give you leave to pay another visit to Mr. Birley's weaving-
room, with my compliments.'

and is it wrong of me to also think of the the efforts that go into the decoding of dealer-speak by the cops in The Wire?

watch me superman dat hoe

^^^ is no noun sacred??

nsfw, obv

like, any trade is full of coded chatter and jargon; is managerial/MBA-jargon really so different from the way colleagues in various other professions talk to one another? Isn't the problem rooted in the fact that managers have to communicate with other workers outside of their typical sphere more often, so us non-managers have to listen to what sounds like insane babble?

that is if you separate management/public affairs/general counsel ass-covering neutralized bullshit speak from the conversation. that type of "business-speak" is a whole beast unto itself and has been covered in depth elsewhere

I was trying to get at this above -- I actually like word-repurposing when it's interesting or convenient or fun, but a lot of managerial stuff gets to the point where it's making up words to fill in for words that already exist (e.g., the bit about "orientate" upthread). Using "spend" as a noun that means "spending" is just weird.

I'm trying to think of verbs and nouns that get repurposed or abused in my area of work in a similar fashion

"Coming down the pike" is bad enough, but when they say "Coming down the pipe" I want to mini-gun the conference room.

toe the line
tow the line
tuff row to hoe

Or when they repeat words like "incent" because they don't want to use the actual word "incite" because it has negative connotations - it would be interesting if they made it up, but they didn't and they just sound like idiots for repeating a word that doesn't exist.

drop the lime

"Deliverables"?

I don't think there's a general rule about the goodness or badness of business speak, I have to say. During a big upheaval at the care facility where I worked until '03, we had a lot of meetings where we talked about the "culture" of the organization. I was pretty put off by this at first, but I came to see it as useful shorthand for "the various habits the whole team develops in going about their work, and the assumptions that like behind them, and the prevailing mood that those assumptions and habits help to build."

I am now defending some of the stuff that used to make my daily life completely insufferable, but what the hell.

when did "in silo" become a thing? can fuck right off again imo.

'in silo' comes from some sort of company structure diagram, right?

that would indeed be the context in which it appeared. repeatedly.

Had not heard before, was investigating, looked at this wiki page (which may help explain - it looks like it comes from that world of ISO-numbered management structures) and read that 'systems thinking promotes a foaminess of collaboration'.

that'll get rolled out in the next sprint

i love the word "monetize"

something so creepy and sinister about it

"in silo" sounds like an awesome horror movie I haven't seen yet

"in silo" was the finnish release name for 'Witness' iirc.

Where's nabisco been lately, anyway?

people like you find it easy,
naked to see
walking on air

don't walk away
in silo
don't walk away

transmission me that asap

Nabisco was so OTM on this thread, even using ("utilizing") the very orientate/conversate analogy I always rely upon myself. Dunno what people have against the word "orient" - maybe it's considered non-PC in some convoluted way.

xpost - First place I ever encountered the word "monetize" was on ILM, courtesy of a poster then calling himself "Monetizing Eyeballs". "Monetize" suggested some portmanteau of "vandalize" and "Monet" - blurring up a completed painting after the fashion of an Impressionist, and "Eyeballs" reinforced the visual aspect, so I got a fully unique (and completely wrong) interpretation of what the name meant. Wasn't until some months afterward that I began to encounter the word "monetize" in its usual context.

I've certainly heard of "silo structure" or "silo mentality" in a workplace - the idea that every deparment is a world unto itself and wont cross-communicate with the rest of the company, to its supposed detriment. These days its all about generalisation instead of specialisation, grumble.

Was listening today to an interview with the two guys who run the agency that created the new Old Spice ads. When asked how they work on ideas, one of them replied, "Well, we concept everything together . . ." That one just drives me insane. We already HAVE a perfectly good word for what you're doing: conceive. Most disgusting savages, etc.

TS: Business-vapo-speak VS Masters-Degree-in-Educationese

just heard the phrase "drink from the hose"

'conceive' is too sexy for orfice use

Boy Wonder weighs in

Stop “Disrupting” Everything: How a once-useful concept turned into a meaningless buzzword.
http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2013/05/disrupting_disruption_a_once_useful_concept_has_become_a_lame_catchphrase.html

that fuckin guy

secretly reads ILX?

Wasn't sure if this belonged here, in the college/debt thread or what, but:

http://www.fastcompany.com/3007541/mfa-new-mba

this graf is almost worthy of Friedman:

Artists know the world of adaptability and resourcefulness very well. In fact, according to an annual survey tracking the career trajectories of more than 65,000 artists from hundreds of arts schools, the Strategic National Arts Alumni Project (SNAAP), close to 60 percent of arts graduates hold more than two jobs at once, and approximately 20 percent have more than three.

Arts students may not have all the traditional skills, but they have the most important one: desperation creativity.

I have a particular fondness for articles with the format "HEADLINE POSITING OUTRAGEOUS SUGGESTION"/"Body text quietly suggesting that the answer is 'probably not' at the end of the seventh paragraph, but otherwise arguing an enthusiastic 'YES'"

GRAAAAAAAA just received an HR "onboarding" packet & immediately thought to come here to share the horror, but I see it's been covered.

Only one thing more patronising than "onboarding". "offboarding".

when i was leaving a job a couple months ago, the board wanted to have a "debriefing" with me. I did not work for the military or for an intelligence agency. This was an arts non-profit.

I was not fired from my last job; I was "separated" -- is this a thing?

"I would expect"

what is a corporate workstream and how do i align to it

Do what you are told and don't cause problems.

speed

don't drown

h8 'workflow'

i wish work was a flow

'solutioning'!!!!#

'here's how we're going to solution it'

argh

i never saw eye-to-eye with my old manager, a nice South African lady who nevertheless used to ask me (w/r/t sales strategy) if I was 'building a pipeline'. I literally had no clue what she was talking about, having never encountered this expression and especially with an accent that sounded like she was saying 'bi-plane' :-/

wow sterl that is a prize specimen

Building a pipeline = meh. otoh, building a biplane = A+! Then you can fly it instead of attending meetings.

i've got one more thing i want to cover off

i am tired of hearing "triage"

Just saw the verb "to feedback", as in

"I'd like to feedback on the excellent level of service..."

In January 2014 the Government published its response to the Transforming Youth Custody consultation outlining its plans to introduce Secure Colleges, a new form of youth detention accommodation with innovative education provision at its core which will equip young offenders with the skills, qualifications and self-discipline they need to turn away from crime.

The consultation response confirmed that a purpose-built Secure College Pathfinder would be opened in the East Midlands in 2017. If the Pathfinder proves successful it will inform our vision for the future of the youth custodial estate in England and Wales.