[Ads-l] Garbage language, corporate-speak, bloated business jargon

Ben Zimmer bgzimmer at GMAIL.COM
Wed Mar 4 20:00:42 UTC 2020


A similar point is made in this Slate piece critiquing the New York/Vulture
piece:

---
https://slate.com/human-interest/2020/02/garbage-language-business-speak-defense.html
"Parallel path," which Young targets for particular scorn, is a succinct
description of how a series of equally important but independent tasks
should proceed -- in parallel without either blocking the other. It's more
descriptive than saying "do both at the same time," and much quicker than
saying "these two tasks are related in their end goal but independent of
one another; please push each as far as you can, and we'll go with whatever
comes to fruition first."
---

On Wed, Mar 4, 2020 at 2:01 PM Dan Goncharoff <thegonch at gmail.com> wrote:

> I read the language differently. The reference to "parallel-path"
> recognizes that there is a process to producing a formal document, and the
> request is to push both versions through the process. It's more complicated
> than "produce two versions".
>
> When life is complicated, sometimes simple language is less clear.
>
> DanG
>
> > On Tue, Mar 3, 2020 at 8:22 PM Mark Mandel <markamandel at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > >
> > > > I recommend this article. *The paragraph after the author's name and
> > > publication data is apparently the publisher's comment on it,
> > > exemplifying and parodying the phenomenon.* Below the horizontal line
> > > I've quoted the first two paragraphs of the article itself.
> > > >
> > > > Mark Mandel
> > >
> > https://www.vulture.com/2020/02/spread-of-corporate-speak.html
> > *...*
> > > > Let’s drop a pin in this and take it off-line so we can futureproof
> > > the intiative with these key learnings and co-create innovative
> win-wins
> > > that require an omni-channel push but no critical ask. Actually, let’s
> > not.
> > >
>

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org



More information about the Ads-l mailing list