Among the sickening new buzzwords and jargon I’ve learned recently are “drink the Kool-Aid” and “drill down.” “Circle back” now means what “get back to me” used to mean. “Incentivize” is a painful one, isn’t it?
“Ping” means to contact someone. I know that if I worked in an office, and someone told me to ping them, I’d just kill myself. It might incentivize the management to speak normal English. What is it about offices that spawns such bullshit?
If you already know these words, I guess I’m jumping the shark here (unless my understanding of this stupid term is incorrect.) If you enjoy the masochistic thrill of discovering new jargon, here’s a dictionary of it. There is also a jargon generator to have some fun with.
Sometimes, I find myself searching for the normal word for a trendy one that’s been making the rounds…and that can be scary. I had to ask a friend what “snarky” had taken the place of, and he had no trouble remembering “snide.” He is an expert crossword solver, so perhaps that’s one way to maintain one’s vocabulary in the hailstorm of business-speak that seems more and more relentless.
BuzzWhack calls itself a website “dedicated to de-mystifying buzzwords” and Bullfighter is a software program that helps find and eliminate jargon from your documents. Bullfighter is free, and I really like the sound of it. I sense a genuine contempt for buzzwords here, and a snide, rather than snarky, sense of humor.
Welcome to my world. People here are constantly drilling shit down. “You can drill down through the information,” gag.
The other stupid ass thing is “carve out.” We offer packages of services. Some clients don’t want all of them, so we “carve out” some items for them. That was bad but then they started saying that the whole packages were the “carve in” model. Kill me now.
And “utilize.” I’d like to utilize my Ginsu knife to carve out some idiots who use that one every other sentence. What ever happened to “use”?