“What the hell is a metric?”
I was talking with my coach more than a dozen years ago when that term came up in a conversation that had nothing to do with a measurment system that was always a pain to convert into inches or pounds.
She laughed. “It’s ‘business speak’ for tracking and measuring a business process,” she explained.
Oh. Well. Why didn’t they just say that, the journalist in me wanted to know. What was wrong with just saying it clearly without creating a new pseudo-language?
Silly me.
Industry-specific jargon has been with us forever – yes, even in journalism. “MTK” stood for “more to come” (don’t ask me why it isn’t “MTC” because I don’t have any idea). “30” or “###” signified the end of a story. “Cutline” was “photo caption” in normal person’s English. A “flat” was a thin cardboard sheet the same size as a newspaper page on which we pasted waxed typeset copy and photos in preparation for printing.
Most of us realize that jargon is great shorthand when we’re working with others in the same industry, but that same language unleashed on an unsuspecting public will generate only a blank look. Worse, if you’re in business, your prospects will just walk away and deal with someone who has better communication skills.
Clichés can be just as damaging as jargon to business communication (and to our credibility) but in different ways.
Clichés are trite, overused words or phrases that lack originality and have been used for so long and so often that they are mostly just sounds with no meaning whatsoever.
Clichés can creep into any writing, especially when we’re rushed and don’t take the time to check a thesaurus, but I see some of the worst examples when I’m coaching people on how to find a job or in a bio intended to impress someone with their credentials. I look at many of these resumes and bios and see way too many team players who are moving the needle in ways that will shift the paradigm of their next employer. Whoever might be foolish enough to hire them.
A classic example of a great phrase gone over to the Dark Side is “think outside the box.” In case you were wondering (as I was) where that phrase came from, I give you the box we’ve been trying to think outside of since 1969. That is when John Adair created the nine-dot puzzle, according to Wikipedia, which challenged us to connect all nine dots with four or fewer straight lines – without lifting the pen or pencil off the paper.
Many people were so focused on the box created by the nine dots that it didn’t even occur to them that at least one of the solutions came from outside the box.
Brilliant, innovative and meaningful in 1969. Trite and overused today. As are the ones you will read below.
Ban these words from your business communication
Read on for more junk words and phrases that should be banished from your writing.
- Team player
- Hard worker
- Reinvent the wheel
- Responsible
- Forward-thinking
- Ambitious
- Synergy
- Paradigm (or paradigm shift)
- Move the needle
- Low-hanging fruit
- Push the envelope
- Touch base
- To be honest/honestly
- Raise the bar
- Run it up the flagpole
- 360-degree (thinking, view, etc.)
- Put on your thinking cap
- Circling back
- Win-win
- ROI (when not used in a financial discussion)
- Visionary
- Any word with “ize” on the end
- At the end of the day
- Core competency
- Go-getter
- Highly (anything, such as motivated, educated, annoying, etc.)
- Very (especially “very unique,” which makes me want to spit)
- Frankly
- Change agent (or any variation)
- Due diligence (in any reference other than legal)
- 30,000-foot view
- $64,000 question (often now adjusted for inflation to $64 million)
- 80/20 rule
- Manage expectations
- Deliverables
- Too many chiefs/chefs/etc.
- Scalable
- Best practices
- Buy-in
- Empower (oops!)
- Any noun that you turn into a verb (such as dialogued, securitizing, inbox me, friending, bookmark, greenlighted, visioned, etc.)
How do you avoid hackneyed writing?
- Pay attention. Tell yourself, “Today I’m going to be especially mindful of cliches and overused words.” If you answer with “Awesome!” start over.
- Slow down. Most of the banal, repetitious crap we put out is because we’re just moving too fast to be thoughtful with our word choices. Write it, let it age, then come back and see what you can improve.
- Use a thesaurus. I have two print versions (including a treasured, battered 1970’s Roget’s) which I find much more complete than online versions. But even the online version is better than loading up on junk words.
- Spell check is your first line of defense. One of the nice things about spell check is that it will tell you when your language is tortured, passive, incomplete or flawed in ways that go beyond spelling. Pay attention to it, but don’t accept it as gospel.
- Use an app. Grammarly is one of my favorites, but I know there are others. It’s head and shoulders (oops again!) above spell check.
What about you? What’s your guilty pleasure – another cliché! – when it comes to trite writing? Or, conversely, what gets your knickers in a twist when you hear or read it? Please share below.