colon = “bite me” (it wouldn’t take the symbol)
- = “or not”
) = “jackass”
. = “your vocabulary sucks pussbag”
? = “idiot boy”
! = “piece of crap”

Since I myself work in a multi-national congolmerate I’m beset with an overwhelming amount of corporate idiot speak, i’m with Ze Frank on this one.

My particular irritation with corporate jargon is the new flavors of it that I encounter (as a consultant) from client to client. It’s the way in which phrases and buzzwords are used as internal shorthand that I am struck by as I try to integrate into or at least understand the scope of the culture I will be dealing with. I recently had a group of people suggest they conduct a “what do you know” session with someone internally, and the sheer local nature of that – even though I could understand what they meant I still felt excluded – kinda irritated me.

Of course, that irritation is data, and it’s often something I can make use of…

Anonymous: Great dictionary! I believe Leora K. has a friend who, when at Microsoft, documented the lingo there. In 100 years, linguists and other social scientists will by crying for this sort of thing. I wonder if someone is on top of this thing. Any pointers to web resources would be gratefully received. Thanks, Grant

“ownership” – means taking responsibility. My sense of it is that it must be the result of some sort of management fad involving getting workers to feel like company owners (i.e., capitalists) through word magic.

“my plate” – some one who is busy has things on his plate. In my company, this is a tremendously overused metaphor.

“going forward” – means “in the future” but it usually pointless since it is obvious from context – e.g., when giving someone instructions obviously one wants them to carry out those instructions in the future as opposed to in the past, since it is too late to do that. My guess is that “next time” and “in the future” have a hard edge to them, an edge of rebuke, and that “going forward” is used to blunt that edge.

“breakout” – not sure what it means, but seems to refer to cross-departmental meetings, possibly refers to the organization breaking out of a rut through reorganization, but that’s just etymological speculation on my part. Jargon that is never explained is especially annoying.

“pig in a python” – used by one person high up, made fun of by everyone else. Refers to bottlenecks in the workflow, I think. Browsing a jargon glossary online I noticed it’s established business jargon. Did not know that. (“bottleneck” I like, “workflow” I like)

“take it offline” – means that a topic should not be discussed at a meeting as it would waste everyone’s time. What’s annoying is that the meeting is not “online”, it’s people sitting in a room, so what the heck?

“opportunity” – someone left to pursue “other opportunities”. Means someone found a better job. Possibly means they were fired.

“proactive” – I’ve been exposed to this one so much it almost doesn’t bother me any more, which now that I think about it, bothers me. It’s often used as a veiled criticism. Has the obvious meaning of anticipating events and preparing for them ahead of time. Sounds like the word must come from some old management fad.

“take leadership” – I really hate this one because it is used on the most powerless people in the company. Seems to be used to praise every twitch of initiative.

“push back” – hearing this one a lot lately, it’s used in my office to describe it when we refuse requests.

acronyms and other abbreviations – so many of these, talking to my coworkers is sometimes like talking a foreign language, and there are constantly new ones, and my company has gotten to changing the names of the same things.

“productive” – I’ve noticed this recently. Occasionally someone says a meeting has been “productive” – implicitly acknowledging that most meetings are not. But “productive” seems to mean “I got to say my bit”.