Colin McEnroe Show: A Morass Of Corporate Mumbo Jumbo
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Published: Jul 20, 2010
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Flickr Creative Commons, ell brown
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Colin McEnroe Show: A Morass Of Corporate Mumbo Jumbo
George Orwell in 1946 wrote, in describing official or scholarly pronouncements, "A mass of Latin words falls upon the facts like soft snow, blurring the outline and covering up all the details."
The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink.
In our age there is no such thing as 'keeping out of politics.' All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred, and schizophrenia."
Here is a place where we can say nothing has changed and that no one will ever describe the problem better than Orwell did. These habits are now even more ingrained. Inflated, pretentious, detached language is more of a motor skill now.
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This whole parlance is just so bizarre.
-Jason Fried
Comments
E-mail from Richard
Colin, I disagree with your guest’s picking on defenseless business words which have no capability to respond. Thus, I am serving as their advocate, to preserve the sanctity of these useful Webster-isms that often come from the world of science.
For example, synergy is a word that is clearly understood by millions of scientists. It’s now been adopted by business people and analysts because it conveys in an extremely concise form ( 1 word, 7 letters ) what otherwise would take a phrase of 9 or 10 words to express. Synergy is clearly defined in dictionaries. It is clearly understood by listeners and readers. Therefore it’s certain that it serves a noble and beneficial purpose.
Is the word synergy in business writing and speech overused? Probably. Is it misused? Probably? Does that make synergy a bad word? No way!
[ Sung to the tune of “You Are MY Sunshine” ] Please don’t take my synergy away from me.
E-mail from Michael
It is what it is means there's nothing I can do about it.
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