These words are driving me craaaaazy!
Several months ago, I published 10 words and phrases I don’t want to see in your copy.
And boy, did it open the floodgates to a slew of comments.
Put simply: there’s a bunch of other words and phrases out there that are driving us mad in the business world.
Now here are 10 more—with one honourable mention, and the return of one word (from my previous article) that just will. Not. DIE.
- At the end of the day. Technically, the end of the day is 11:59 p.m. If this timing does not apply to whatever you’re talking about, don’t use at the end of the day.
- 24/7. “Check out our website 24/7…any day of the week!” It’s redundant to use this term to describe availability of a website.
- Leading-edge, leading provider, world leader, guru…Too often, businesses are leading providers, industry-leading or market leaders…according to nobody other than themselves. Before you use these superlatives to describe your ultra-fantastic business, products, services or executive team, make sure you have proof…because you just may be asked for it someday.
- Best practice. See directly above. Often, the use of “best practice” is unsubstantiated. According to whom, exactly?
- Impactful. As one Urban Dictionary entry puts it, impactful is a “…non-existent word coined by corporate advertising, marketing and business drones to make their work sound far more useful, exciting and beneficial to humanity than it really is.” That’s right: impactful is not a real word.
- Wary/weary/leery. Too often, I have heard people use weary when they meant wary or leery. Maybe they’re a little weary themselves: weary means tired, people! Wary and leery can often be used interchangeably—they both imply caution, hesitation, suspicion, and concern.
- Really/very. These words rarely strengthen the word that follows them.
- In order to. This is a space and time waster. Most often, the words in order are redundant.
- Utilize. As a reader comments, utilize is “just another example of adding a ridiculous suffix to the end of a perfectly good word.” Another reader commented that utilize has “always struck me as a weak attempt to sound more formal or important.” The general consensus: use use instead.
- Incentivize. This word appears to be growing in popularity—particularly among businesses with programs to retain and reward employees. According to dictionary.com, incentivize is an actual word (horrors!). But, like utilize, it’s one of those words that would be better replaced with a simpler word (like motivate).
Honourable mention: Lookit
Thankfully, I’ve never seen this word in writing. But too often, I hear it in business meetings…which would be okay if the workforce included four-year-olds.
And back by popular demand…
I have a huge, HUGE hate-on for leverage. The word simply refuses to die. Please, I beg you…help me boycott leverage from all office communications: ostracize your co-workers and managers who use it. What a happier place my world would be.
What about you? What words and phrases used in the workforce make you want to pull your hair out?
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Lindsey McCaffrey is an Ottawa-based communications/public relations consultant, writer and editor. Follow me on Twitter and LinkedIn, call me at 613-290-0239, or email me at lindsey@lindseymccaffrey.com.
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Great list Lindsey. My teeth are hurting after reading through it. But despite our best efforts, things seem to be getting worse, instead of better, don’t they?
With apologies to Bill Watterson, whose copyright may have been compromised by this graphic I found online, here’s “Verbing weirds language.
I love the “verbing weirds language” saying…so true! I’m hoping your teeth are hurting from grinning, and not gnashing your teeth through the article! Thanks Dave.
My list includes:
- ” basket” of services
- the emphatic “absolutely”
- “at this point in time”
Bev, yes, “absolutely”!!!! That word bugs me too.
Agree with you on “at this point in time”, Bev. It always strikes me as an attempt to give cosmic signifance to something quite ordinary.
How do you feel about “for free”? I always thought “free” meant “at no charge”, so where does the “for” fit in?
A great list. I’d like to add “beyond” to it. As in, “Our service is beyond fantastic,” or “She is beyond talented.”
[...] We can all improve our writing and avoid jargon. Lindsay McCaffrey’s blog brings us 10 MORE words and phrases I don’t want to see in your writing (or hear in the business world). [...]
GREAT POST!
There are plenty I could do without.
winning – in order to win there must be a loser, in my opinion anyway.
webinar – 5 years ago I might have defined it a little differently, but when I hear the word today I think of a guy you’ve never heard of talking through a power point his company’s marketing team put together. YAWN.
goal formulation – Aren’t formulas used to take you from start to finish rather than tell you what the start and finishing points are? There’s got to be a better term for defining a goal, oh wait.
infographic – every other blog, including my own, has been guilty of something like this -> INFOGRAPHIC: A Guide To Using Things. Is it really necessary to tell everyone it’s an infographic? Shouldn’t the title be enough to pique someone’s interest?
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www. — do we really have to include that in front of every website still?
heads-up (used as a noun. “I’m giving you a heads-up…”) — really tired.
went viral– I got tired of that phrase the millionth time I heard it.
state of the art — meaningless after so much abuse.
Maybe this question betrays my place of birth, but when did a soldier become a troop? I was taught a troop was a group of soldiers. Now six troops are killed — why not six soldiers?
Moving forward
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