Word “czars” at Lake Superior State University published their 35th annual List of Words Banished from the Queen’s English for Mis-use, Over-use and General Uselessness.

Their complete 2010 list of words to ban from your business writing are:

1. Shovel-ready
2. Transparent/Transparency
3. Czar
4. Tweet
5. App
6. Sexting
7. Friend as a verb
8. Teachable Moment
9. In These Economic Times…
10. Stimulus
11. Toxic Assets
12. Too Big to Fail
13. Bromance
14. Chillaxin’
15. Obama as a prefix

Let’s discuss this offline some more. You should talk about that offline. That’s an offline conversation. (A variation of this was stated seven times in one hour. Ugh.)

We were all physically gathered together, so the discussion was never online. This dreadful term “talk offline” is business-speak for “talk privately.”

Other jargon bantered by the presenter:

Let’s debrief so we can pull best practices from this.

What can we do to stake things up, so it doesn’t happen again?

How can we best ramp our efforts?

I hear you.

It was impossible for me to “hear” this presenter because her excessive jargon drowned her good content.

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• Replace: free gift with gift (if it’s not free, it’s not a gift)
• Replace: basic fundamentals with fundamentals
• Replace: absolutely necessary with necessary
• Replace: forward planning with planning
• Replace: after the conclusion with conclusion
• Replace: completely naked with naked
• Replace: total stranger with stranger
  
• Replace: after the conclusion with after

What redundant phrases do you see in business writing that can be trimmed?

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Click on the “play” button in this Corporate Mission Statement Generator, and watch business jargon phrases spin randomly into an automatically created statement.

I ran the generator twice, and received these results, full of meaningless self-promotional jargon:

Our business is dedicated to leveraging the full range of our management leadership with awareness of integrity without compromise.

We are committed to overseeing a high level of investor return by performance and focus of the highest integrity.

I’ve read mission statements that are very similar to these parodies! This tool is light and funny. But, it’s not funny if employees and stakeholders and customers don’t understand a mission statement.

Here is an actual mission statement I read recently (maybe this is really an elevator speech – it’s so inscrutable it’s hard to determine):

Company X produces vendor-neutral solutions to enterprise-wide integration for mission critical applications.

Huh? What does Company X actually do? What is this purpose?

Make sure your own mission statement is free of meaningless  jargon. It should clearly state the purpose of your company, in concrete terms. No spin.

Peters was  eloquent when he stated he was “deeply in love with the word decency.”

I so agree with him when he stated, “the business place should be caring precisely about the words we use.”

The University of Houston’s Academic Center recently published a good article that delineated key differences:

1. Writing at work focuses on problem solving.
2. Work-related writing targets multiple audiences with different perspectives.
3. Writing at work may be read by unknown readers.
4. Writing produced at work can be used indefinitely and can be used in legal proceedings.
5. The format for work documents varies greatly from the format for academic documents.

There is one other very significant difference not listed in this article: business writing needs to be clear and concise.

Academic writing, by contrast, is more often focused on development of thought, and length is encouraged. Students are often rewarded with higher grades if a paper is longer, uses an impressive vocabulary, and/or complex sentence structure. Business writing is different: one should write to express, not impress.

This does not at all mean business writing should be “dumbed down.” Writing clean, short documents is harder. As Blaise Pascal wisely stated,

“I’m sorry this letter is so long. I did not have time to make it shorter.”

I’ve long admired Richard Lederer’s writing on language. In his 1991 book, The Miracle of Language, Lederer sings the praises of the short word:

When you speak and write, there is no law that says you have to use big words. Short words are as good as long ones, and short, old words— like sun and grass and home—are best of all. A lot of small words, more than you might think, can meet your needs with a strength, grace, and charm that large words do not have.

Big words can make the way dark for those who read what you write and hear what you say. Small words cast their clear light on big things— night and day, love and hate, war and peace, and life and death. Big words at times seem strange to the eye and the ear and the mind and the heart. Small words are the ones we seem to have known from the time we were born, like the hearth fire that warms the home.

Short words are bright like sparks that glow in the night, prompt like the dawn that greets the day, sharp like the blade of a knife, hot like salt tears that scald the cheek, quick like moths that flit from flame to flame, and terse like the dart and sting of a bee.

Here is a sound rule: Use small, old words where you can. If a long word says just what you want to say, do not fear to use it. But know that our tongue is rich in crisp, brisk, swift, short words. Make them the spine and the heart of what you speak and write. Short words are like fast friends. They will not let you down.

These four paragraphs contain 221 words, all of them one syllable. MS Word’s Readibility Score is 100% – the highest score possible. These short words are both profound and easy to absorb. It is simple, but not simplistic, and very persuasive.  This passage represents clear, vivid, effective writing that can be easily absorbed by business people battling information overload.

The most evocative Bible passages and many proverbs use this same short word structure:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. (John 1.1)

A stitch in time saves nine.

This does not mean “Don’t use big words.” We must use big words in our business writing and conversation, when they express a meaning no other word can. We work with technical and industry terms, and sometimes a big word best depicts this, so improving our vocabulary is always wise.

Two tips on clarity I always highlight in business writing courses:

1. Never use a big word when a small word will do.
2. Write to express, not to impress.

And yet, overwritten, bloated business writing is epidemic. Business writers need to streamline narrative, so it is concise and lively, for readers suffering from information overload to absorb.

Hemingway once wrote a story in just six words (”For sale: baby shoes, never worn.”) and is said to have called it his best work. Wired challenged authors of sci-fi, horror and fantasy literature to match this. Here are some notable responses:

• Computer, did we bring batteries? Computer?
  - Eileen Gunn
  
• Automobile warranty expires. So does engine.
  - Stan Lee
  
• We kissed. She melted. Mop please!
  - James Patrick Kelly
  
• It’s behind you! Hurry before it
  - Rockne S. O’Bannon
  
• I’m your future, child. Don’t cry.
  - Stephen Baxter
  
• Lie detector eyeglasses perfected: Civilization collapses.
  - Richard Powers
  
• Bang postponed. Not Big enough. Reboot.
  - David Brin
  
• Deadline postponed. Five words enough…?
  - David Brin

Business Writing Tip:
Remember these five rules from George Orwell’s “Politics and the English Language:”

1. Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
2. Never use a long word where a short one will do.
3. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
4. Never use the passive where you can use the active.
5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.

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But hang on a minute. Isn’t 100% meant to be the limit, as far as you can go?

There once was a time when 100% really meant something. That was the top figure you could commit, or the maximum you were allowed for a mortgage, 100% of your house’s value.

But then came linguistic – as well as mortgage – inflation.

100% effort means full capacity, and is commendable. Exaggerating commitment to 110%, 200%, 500% makes no sense, and is meaningless jargon that should be avoided in business writing.

Read the full article BBC article here.

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These words are so overused, they have become meaningless. The descriptor “unique” is actually commonplace, when it’s used in 48,094 other press releases.

You will find David’s research and full article here.

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