Jargon Lover Prints

Boss talking to lawyer, 'These new Terms and Conditions you've drafted for us are extremely long and overly complex - our customers are never going to be able to understand them. Well done Jones!'

'Warspeak department' making up new military terminology.

"Your meal will shift from our fulfillment centre in two to three working days."

"I want us to get in on the ground floor of the next bandwagon."

"Thank you for coming. The talks were forthright and useful, and provided an excellent climate in which to resolve our remaining differences."

'Can we tell the boss red is the new black?'

'Do you know how much it cost me to LEARN all this psychobabble?'

I love it when you speak Wall Streetese. Say 'to the upside' for me.

"There's an INDICATION that we MAY be looking at the POSSIBILITY of a POTENTIAL partial recovery over the SHORT or LONG term ...But I wouldn't want you to hold me to that!"

"This is Rob Dolan on a recorded line, anything you say may be held against you in a court of law."

"What'll it be - a hypothetical mouse in a theoretical maze, a suppositional guinea pit testing a hypothetical drug, or a theoretical rhesus monkey with a suppositional disease?"

"This project is working well, going forward."

'When we get there let me do the double talking.'

Solicitor speaks legal jargon and has a translator who tells client: 'You haven't a hope!'

"And isn't it time we replaced the worn-out, meaningless cliches in our mission statement with some dazzlingly new meaningless cliches?"

"This report is mumbo jumbo...I asked for gobbledeeegook!"

"We need to reset our fiscal compass to the changing business horizon."

"My report to the board was perfect. They did not understand a word of it and now think I'm smarter than them."

"We don't call them 'horns' anymore. They're interactive audio crash deterrent stimulators."

"Our detractors call it suburban sprawl, but I prefer thinking of our plan as 'sustainable over-development!'"

Stressed employee says to colleague: 'I think I'm on top of the situation and I hope I'm in the loop, but I can't seem to get ahead of the curve.'

"Here comes a client I must speak to. Excuse me while I slip into some jargon."

'And from what we've been able to determine, this is the tweak that broke the paradigm's back.'

"My resume is concise, succinct and eloquently worded. I only hope they know what I'm talking about."

"This is what we call a 'customer', or more accurately a 'potential profit centre.'"

'Instead of cubicles, we call them interconnected productivity centres.'

"We owe our success to teamwork. Without it we could never have grasped at so many straws."

What Business People often say (and what they really mean)

"I propose the next person who says 'it is what it is,' we beat the living hell out of him."

'Here's the good news. 'Happy camper' and 'are we having fun yet' have been added to the official list of banned cliches.'

"I liked it better when you used gobbledygook."

"Come to my office. I need to cascade with you offline."

'I'm very worried that if we fail to introduce rigid protocols to maximise client gratification indices within acceptable costbenefit parameters to ensure enhanced margins...then we'll have missed the whole point of what Christmas is about!!!'

"I hear you've got quite a reputation with the girls around the office."

Since I took over the department, I've turned it around 360 degrees.