Friday, October 02, 2009
Good communication is all about getting your point across clearly and succinctly. So it’s surprising that the use of jargon is still so widespread across all areas of business and commerce.
In one morning you could ‘lock-in’ a ‘brainstorm’ for ‘incentivising’ colleagues, and in the afternoon ‘reach out’ to clients, ‘touching base’ so you can ‘diarise’ your next meeting.
In the past, the public sector in particular has received a lot of flack for using jargon. Over the past year or so, the Local Government Association has been urging councils to avoid hiding behind “impenetrable phrases and jargon” as it’s preventing them communicating properly with the public. A list of 200 deplorable ‘non’ words was drawn up in March 2009.
But the problem is just as prevalent in the private sector – and perhaps even more so, with no unifying association to bring the matter to people’s attention.
Companies (and people) use buzzwords and phrases in an attempt to sound more professional and, dare I say, intelligent. But the reality is that people don’t understand what phrases like ‘low hanging fruit’ or ‘mission critical’ actually mean.
Their use only serves to befuddle, isolate and irritate the people that companies or organisations are talking to. Rather than building better understanding, jargon can often do precisely the opposite.
The jargon on my personal list of worst offenders – ‘a disconnect’ (voted one of the most annoying and overused phrases in a survey by Accountemps) and ‘incentivise’ – are buzzwords that have infiltrated everyday corporate language in a rather grating way.
Luckily for us, all hope is not lost as more and more people fight back against this trend. For 30 years the Plain English Campaign has been articulating the case for crystal-clear communication. And The Times has set up its Judge Jargon column, an attempt both to explain and deride pretentious phrases.
While hard to avoid (even when writing this column!), if we want people to pay attention to what we’re saying, jargon should be avoided at all costs. Otherwise we run the risk of being ignored and perhaps even ridiculed.
Phillippa Cantrill
phillippa.cantrill@greentarget.net