The Joy of Corporate-Speak

Every industry has a language of its own. Common language creates a sense of identity and belonging. Public libraries, for instance, are notorious for the TLAs, or Three Letter Acronyms. I have noticed the same dynamic in the corporate world, although the words themselves tend to change faster than hurricane season in Florida, sweeping through the executive peoples, then down to the minions.

Some examples, their definitions, and uses (or abuses):

Leverage: to utilize a skill, talent or experience. "We will leverage the tax team to create a brochure titled, Taxes and You: Without Both, There Would Be No Roads." I once counted the number of times a Head Cheese used "leverage" in his half-hour speech: 10 times. Please, for the love of all things linguistic, use a thesaurus.

Talk Offline (or Take It Offline): when it's in the best interest not to discuss an issue in a meeting or conference call. "That's really a topic that's of interest to no one here but you, Phil, so let's talk offline."

Bandwidth: the availability to take on a new project. "This project needs to be done by yesterday. Check Michelle's bandwidth and see if she can finish it."

Town Hall: a meeting between senior management and the little people. "We have to go to another Town Hall to hear about the company's strategy. If they make us drink the Kool-Aid this time, I'm so outta there."

Oligopoly: when two or three major companies dominate market share. Ok, so this isn't a corporate cliché; I just love the word. It sounds like one of the Muppets. "Big Bird and Mr. Oligopoly went on a field trip to the zoo, where they were shocked - just shocked - to see the bars on the cages."

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