Common Phrases to Avoid in the Office
People in business are only human and they fall into the rut of copy cat expressions as well as nonprofessional people do. They get so aligned with business jargon that they fail to see the worn out words and phrases that often do damage to their professional image.
What are these overused words and phrases? They are of course changeable and depend on who is annoyed at their use. The same words that creep into the savvy business person’s vocabulary and are used over and over may sound okay to some, not okay for others who are more original in their speech and writing efforts.
Golda Smithis the first site researched for overused terminology. Her list of five things to discard from your business vocabulary is as follows:
“Opportunity of a lifetime and ground floor opportunity” make her cringe. What’s her reasoning? They’re overused. And another assumption gleaned from reading her reasoning is that they aren’t actually true. Most people of course do not object to their use and they do come in handy when original thoughts are not forthcoming. She wants you to be more real and down to earth and state the opportunity likewise.
“Downline and upline” also gets her reaching for her eraser. She prefers team or sales force. She also frowns on the use of the personal pronoun *I too often. (That is applicable to all of society since it invades much that is spoken as well as written. Most everyone in communication circles could benefit if they removed themselves more often from their speaking and their writing.) She suggest including others in whatever scheme is being concocted and substituting the collective we for the individual I.
The word *meeting gives her the creeps. But creeps would not fit into her vocabulary since it too is worn thin in general conversational meetings. When referring to your company, be more specific, she says. Come instead to a “company overview”. *Recruit is another word she frowns upon; it has connotations that, she says, scares people. It’s better to ask people if they are ready to get started.
These words gleaned from the Internet are British in origin. *Brain storm has connotations of an epileptic seizure, according to one internet interviewer’s boss. The employees have been told not to use. *Let’s touch base has another frowning; and *pre-plan writes one person is ludicrous; you either plan or you don’t plan.
“Get-go apparently has no place in the boardroom, and those who presume to use it, might find themselves up and gone. *Going forward might backfire and have one backing out the door if some employees have their say. And definitely
360 degree thinking is having the clock wound wrong. Yet, definitely, if these annoying words and phrases say anything, it is obvious that all people writing and talking business don’t have all their *ducks in a row.Fast Companysuggests this list: *Stakeholder, and it possibly means a share holder or some other investment in the company.
Possibly being part of the company one works for is heads up for the workers and everyone knows this is better than heads down. Mission critical are not words well received business wise, nor is touch base, in the loop, low-hanging fruit, moving forward, at the end of the day, on the same page. These sayings definitely didn’t make the cut.
What does Fast Company have to say in defense of their list? "When used properly and in context, these buzzwords serve as a sort of linguistic shorthand. When overused or misused, however, buzzwords can overshadow or even distort the overall communication. Using too many buzzwords can lessen an individual's credibility as an independent, intelligent, creative thinker. At worst, it can make him look like a wishy-washy wannabe."
All here agree. So much of what is said or heard has been said or heard before, so there’s no end to the list of things that get on people’s nerve. It seems that the society in which we all live today are nothing more than parrots, repeating what is heard. It’s so much easier to do that than to think creatively and add a little more light at the end of the tunnel. But the truth of the fact of the matter is it is far more worthy to be a pretty bird than a wise one.
But possibly, in the business world as well as in social circles, no one wants to be seen as an outsider. Using the jargon carved out of some original thinker’s thoughts that catches hold of imaginations is one way of showing groups they are one of them. Of course they’re not; each person has their own personality and their own creative abilities but in order to succeed too many of them downplay this side of themselves.
They may not be birds of a feather, but since there’s safety in numbers, what’s wrong in pretending. And balance in nature is what real life is all about, and what mother goose would argue with that? She must keep her goslings lined up, or does she. Isn’t that for ducks? And what does any of this have to do with the price of eggs in China?
