Discussion on:

Most despised corporate buzzwords

Management is beginning to use it for ANY kind of meeting at all.

I have 3
juxtaposition
one stop shopping
paradigm shift

they make me cringe

like shoot you in the face cringe

However, I agree with you this phrase is misused; see my comment below on the misuse of "outside the box".

Many of the buzzwords in common use are valid- within a given context. One gets into trouble when one tries to sound either educated or "hip" when chucking them into another context. FAIL.

Agree

but in a different field than Business.
Synergy, for example, is perfectly good for describing the way cooperative economics work to create results that are greater than the sum of the parts.

In the field where they originated. They have been adopted, yea even stolen by management types to demonstrate how much of their field they misunderstand.

I could never see someone using juxtaposition.
I wish there was somewhere you could go for one stop shopping. go get all my new bits of hardware while getting a replacement part for my bike, and picking up a healthy spread of food for dinner.
and I think I would smack someone who tried to use paradigm shift when talking about, well pretty much anything IT.

OK, businessmen, leave juxtaposition alone. Literary critics want it back. The image of blood juxtaposed with the image of innocence.

Didn't you just descibe WalMart?

Marketing companies picked up on this a few years ago for advertising brands and products. And it has slipped into business meetings, it drives me up the wall for some reason lol.

...because companies throw the term around and then make it virtually impossible for anyone to actually innovate.

..before I go to a meeting, and try and work in at least one phrase it gives me: http://www.thenetworkadministrator.com/meeting.htm

I'm going to challenge my friends and coworkers to use at least one phrase in every meeting we attend now. This is hilarious!

morph vertical infomediaries

i will totally think of using this so i can respnd back to the exec's BS they hand me....lol

To respond' is the verb of Latin origin that means 'answer back' so 'respond back' is incorrect.
This type language use is interesting because it seems increasingly common in the US - a kind of strange anglo-saxonisation of English words of Latin origin.

It is not incorrect. It is redundant.

Better yet: pleonastic.

Argh - this just spat my other most hated buzzword (after outcomes) - "deliverables". There never used to be a need for a pseudo word like this - so what changed?

I've bookmarked it for future (and frequent) reference.

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

This is a really great list for making Buzzword-BINGO cards!

In one meeting I said "Bingo!" rather loudly. In the meeting where I spoke loudly the meeting's leader hesitated a bit, then pointed to me and said, "See, he gets it!" Clueless... and a priceless story to tell people. That project failed miserably.

That's dangerous, that one could back fire on you when you are then asked to contribute or explain what you mean.

Try it. Coin and use a few sonorous phrases: parallel management dichotomy, synchronised resource meeting, forward provision arena etc. etc. Nobody will ever ask what you are talking about, because they don't want to look stupider than they already look.

our favorite hated phrase was 'at the end of the day' ... we tried playing 'Bob!' ... toted up drinks everytime someone said the phrase ... for after work of course ... unfortunately we couldn't keep up the drinking

That was a great post until you said stupider....no such word my friend. Sorry, I'm an obsessive compulsive grammar and spelling Nazi! I can't help myself....BTW, I try to throw synergy into every meeting I have just to see if someone bites!

If you actually look it up, you will find that "stupider" is a correct comparative form of the word "stupid." A lot of people find it awkward sounding and prefer to say "more stupid," but "stupider" is not incorrect. Also, "stupidest" is commonly used even by people who find "stupider" awkward.

This is true. However the failure to challenge such nonsensical phrases leads to the success of incompetent scoundrels.

Oh and anyone who is confounded by my use of the word "scoundrel", I bet it wouldn't raise any eyebrows at all if Stephen Fry said it...

I can't stop laughing. I didn't know people used that word anymore. Were you friends with H. G. Wells or something?

and anyone who thinks differently is a cad, a bounder and all round bad egg!

Another game, best used in technical meetings: keep track of all the letters of the alphabet that have been used in acronyms. First one to catch all 26 wins, or whoever has the most at the end of the meeting.

Cracking idea!

Or maybe they're the fun kids, I forget...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buzzword_bingo

Cards anyone?
http://bullshitbingo.net/cards/********/

@DFO_REXX
I never heard of anyone ballsy-enough to call it out IN the meeting. Dude, that's awesome.

Yep, BS bingo. What a game. Everyone go to any management or strategy meeting armed with a card on a smartphone and keep a departmental kitty for winners. Works wonders for making bored IT staff pay attention to the words that are being spoken by the boring and clueless.

DFO_REXX - great story. I had one of my staff pull the same thing during one of my team meetings when I brought the head of IT in to talk 'futures' (cringe) with the team. He randomly said 'Bingo' in the middle of the Head's sentence and we all stopped dead. The head smiled and said "Well done. I play that in my departmental review meetings." and continued!

Remember folks, BS rolls downhill so don't be suprised if your manager is just passing it down after playing BS bingo him/herself.

Yes! An updated version!

adj., too big for your breeches.

hillbilly word for pants! Yours is more geeky though!

as an alternative for 'problem', as in, "We have an opportunity."

Opportunities can be ignored or bypassed. Problems must be fixed.

A company I worked for once was happy to "give us the opportunity to expand our careers outside the company." and with an announcement like that I was almost glad to be going.

ours is recommending we 'add strings to our guitar'. translation: take on more for no more money or benefits. At least they didn't say we have the Opportunity to add strings to our guitars ( : I didn't see anyone mention Utilize - ugh. Can't we just say use? In most cases it's not even proper English to 'use' utilize.

Similarly "leverage" (use) and "meet with" (meet)

Yes, as a physicist the use of "leverage" as a verb, always irritates me, particularly when pronounced with a short "e" to rhyme with "level" rather than "lever". It is really an abstract noun representing the ratio of output to input.

I always hear people use leverage where the verb use would do just fine...

gtg leverage the mens' room

surely a leverage is an old one?

My wife's company uses the term "challenges" instead of problems. Ugh...who are they trying to fool?