Shift my paradigm

By Claire Gibson

One of the perks of this job has to be the chance to hear some of the more weird and wonderful business expressions sometimes used on transatlantic conference calls. Americans seem to possess a unique talent for language mangling, though of course Brits are also capable of some quite serious crimes against English.

In fact, none of us are immune to this - anyone spending time in planning meetings and 'brainstorming' sessions will probably have been shocked at how easily some of this language rubs off and creeps into everyday conversation. However, while we may all have been guilty of spouting off a marketing-ism in a worryingly earnest tone while, for instance, ordering a pint of lager, I can honestly say some of the more mind-boggling ones listed below had never even entered my head before working in PR, let alone inadvertently left my lips.

So without further ado, I present Claire’s ‘Top Ten of Business Bunkum, Befuddlement and other words beginning with B’:

10.Time to get the dog & pony show on the road

9.This one is a different animal

8.Down in the weeds

7.Circle back; regroup, touch base or revert

6.We have to put the bug in this guy’s ear

5.Let's go for the low hanging fruit

4.Get your ducks in a row

3.Are we in go live status? (American pronunciation, not as in the Quo)

2.What is your immediate pain, and how can this become your long-term gain?

And at number one, for overwhelming obscurity:

1.Let’s see if the other shoe drops

And of course, this is only the top ten - some other fantastic expressions that would ordinarily have people hitting the mute button on calls had to be left out. However, we’d definitely welcome further contributions - the more obscure the better - via the comments section, and hopefully we’ll be able to build our own ‘Anthology of Business Bunkum’ right here on Whatever... So with that (and I quote) - let’s make it happen, my friends, make it happen…

Comments

[Mike King]

I love it when someone uses "when the rubber hits the road".

Or, two of my personal favourites as used frequently by our very own blogmeister general, "creative sounding board" and "PR engine room"

[Joe Banks]

Oi, watch it, Mr King - I have copyright on those last two...

[Graham Cluley]

I have occasionally heard people being urged to "velocitize the threatscape thought leadership".

Sigh..

[Christian]

Maybe once we get on a level playing field we can touch base and leverage our synergies sometime?

It's not mission critical, but I think we're operating in different silos at the moment, and we could do with better visibility on this project.

[Andrew Dawson]

My "favourites" actually used in brainstorming meetings are:

"Let's run it up the flag pole and see who salutes it"

"Let's put them in the washing machine and see what comes out fluffy"