Let’s talk about business jargon. More specifically, let’s talk about how we can get rid of this blight on the language landscape. Business jargon doesn’t add anything to the conversation—whether it’s in person, online or in print. How corporate language ended up so garbled and meaningless is anyone’s guess, but, really, can’t we do better than “win-win,” “paradigm shift,” and my all-time favorite, “think outside of the box”? Here’s a nifty little site to help purge those bloated phrases from your business vocabulary: http://unsuck-it.com/. Just plug in your most hated office jargon, and poof, you’ll find the plain English translation. I personally pledge to obliterate “tweak” from my business-speak from this day forward.
Oh, Holly, the title of this post made me laugh out loud. Years ago, at my last cubicle job, the other writer in my department had just started dating a company bigwig. She asked me to edit a newsletter piece he had written about Japanese quality practices because she didn’t have the heart to critique him.
In his opening paragraph, he announced that his article would “open the kimono a little wider.”
I was appalled–but I needed to be tactful and kind. “Erm, often I find that the first couple of paragraphs can be deleted,” I told him. “Many writers are just ramping up to what they really want to say. Why don’t we close the kimono and start the article down here in paragraph three?”
The author is now married to my colleague, we are all dear friends, and none of us are working in those cubicles anymore. To this day, “Close the kimono!” is our shorthand to express dismay at jargon, hubris and other crimes of bloviation.
That’s a great story. I think “Close the kimono” is a wonderful expression. I’m certainly going to do my part to get it into wider circulation!