Ever since humans first formed groups around professional trades, there has existed jargon: vocation-specific language. Professional discourse demands speedy transfers of information. But what has developed out of this is an increasingly idiosyncratic language: think “disruptors”, “backburners”, “needle-moving” and “opening the kimono”.
This exposure to jargon in our office environments has turned what should be an invaluable linguistic toolset into a subject of universal ridicule. In popular media—from the panels of the late 20th-century comic strips Doonesbury and Dilbert to depictions through the 1999 satirical comedy Office Space and Silicon Valley, the sitcom that ran from 2014 to 2019—corporate lingo is presented as a source of annoyance or gibberish. Yet, even while its use triggers eye rolls, jargon thrives.
Who’s to blame? It’s often the seniors at a company who use it, thanks to something called linguistic inertia, says Zachariah Brown, an assistant professor at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology’s Business School, who co-authored a in 2021.
