Jargon Unchained
By Len Guff
2.5/5
()
About this ebook
”To write or even speak English is not a science but an art. There are no reliable words. Whoever writes English is involved in a struggle that never lets up even for a sentence. He is struggling against vagueness, against obscurity, against the lure of the decorative adjective, against the encroachment of Latin and Greek, and, above all, against the worn-out phrases and dead metaphors with which the language is cluttered up.” - George Orwell (1903 - 1950)
Jargon Unchained is a hater's guide, a book of how-not-to's, an anti-business manual for the disenfranchised office worker. And it's funny because it's true.
Len Guff
Len Guff is just like you. He's worked in several industries. Telecoms, finance, media, catering. But it hasn’t enlightened him. It’s taught him that there isn’t a profession in this world that hasn't been tainted by the obfuscations of business jargon. The Jargonistas are out there and they're multiplying like bacteria in the Petri dish of office life. Len still works in an office, prepared to struggle on as his mother tongue crumbles around him, the only thing keeping him sane is the knowledge that only a third of his day will be infiltrated by the doublespeak that blights the collective consciousness.
Related to Jargon Unchained
Related ebooks
A Practical Guide To Business Writing: Writing In English For Non-Native Speakers Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5The Art Of Writing & Speaking The English Language Word-Study and Composition & Rhetoric Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5Five Hundred Mistakes of Daily Occurrence in Speaking, Pronouncing, and Writing the English Language, Corrected Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSpeaking Correctly: A Quick and Easy Guide to Help You Use Correct English Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHeart Beats: HeartSpeaks Series - 4 (101 Topics Illustrated with Stories, Anecdotes, and Incidents) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPushing the Envelope: Making Sense Out of Business Jargon Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFifteen Thousand Useful Phrases: A Practical Handbook Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5Handbook for Professional Communication: How to get your ideas across, every single time Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWrite to Influence Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEnlightening Proverbs from around the World Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNavigating Corporate Politics Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLie Catcher: Become a Human Lie Detector in Under 60 Minutes Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Word Guide: Choosing the right words Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings101 Quotes For Aspiring Writers Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHow to Write Better Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEnglish Synonyms and Antonyms with Notes on the Crect Use of Prepositions Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Model Speeches for Practise Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBuild Strong Vocabulary: Easy and Free Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5A Collection of Proverbs, Adages and Idioms Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTHESAURUS for Students of Science: The Concise English Thesaurus and Dictionary Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGrammar for Smart People Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The "How To" of Communication Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWrite Faster Series Box Set: Write Faster Series, #4 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEasy English Book of Quotations Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Thinking Human's Etymologies Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Ridiculous Business Jargon Dictionary Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSmart Skills: Business Writing Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe A-Z of Business Bullshit: The world’s most comprehensive dictionary of corporate gobbledygook and nonsense Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsKey Writing Skills for Morons & Managers (U.S. English Edition) Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Business Communication For You
How to Talk to Anyone: 27 Ways to Charm, Banter, Attract, & Captivate Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Think Faster, Talk Smarter: How to Speak Successfully When You're Put on the Spot Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5How To Start A Conversation And Make Friends: Revised And Updated Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/52600 Phrases for Effective Performance Reviews: Ready-to-Use Words and Phrases That Really Get Results Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Get to the Point!: Sharpen Your Message and Make Your Words Matter Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Robert's Rules Of Order Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Secret Lives of Introverts: Inside Our Hidden World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Communicating at Work Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5You Can Negotiate Anything: The Groundbreaking Original Guide to Negotiation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5On Writing Well, 30th Anniversary Edition: An Informal Guide to Writing Nonfiction Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Crucial Conversations Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High, Second Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The First Minute: How to start conversations that get results Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Emotional Intelligence Quick Book: Everything You Need to Know to Put Your EQ to Work Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Liespotting: Proven Techniques to Detect Deception Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Personal Finance for Beginners - A Simple Guide to Take Control of Your Financial Situation Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5How to Win Friends and Influence People in the Digital Age Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Art of Public Speaking Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5It's the Way You Say It: Becoming Articulate, Well-spoken, and Clear Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Storyworthy: Engage, Teach, Persuade, and Change Your Life through the Power of Storytelling Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie: Summary and Analysis Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Superfans: The Easy Way to Stand Out, Grow Your Tribe, And Build a Successful Business Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Emotional Intelligence 2.0 by Travis Bradberry and Jean Greaves: Cheat Sheet Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Jargon Unchained
2 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
Jargon Unchained - Len Guff
Introduction
A quick heads-up: this book will annoy you. It will annoy you because you’ll disagree with some of the words and phrases that have been deemed ‘jargon’. It will annoy you because you’ll see yourself in some of the scenarios and think, ‘I talk like that.’ But it will mainly annoy you because you’ll recognise, hopefully, how meaningless so much of it is, how businesses use and abuse the English language to obfuscate true meaning, how we hide behind mixed metaphors and neologisms. For starters, the first sentence of this paragraph contains a term that would have been derided for being jargon not that long ago.
The first time I heard the term ‘heads-up’ (hyphenated or not, just as bad) was 2003, and I was writing code scripts for a large telecoms company. I remember laughing to my colleague about how silly it sounded. As if you need to look up to pay attention anyway. Now, midway through the second decade of the 21st century, it’s acceptable English. This is a theme that will be returned to again: the idea of change, and that the English language is alive, malleable and constantly redefining itself - as it should be.
To do this properly I needed to find out the history of the various terms included, and what better way to do so than with Google Scholar. A free tool often used in citations for degrees and vivas, Google Scholar offered up (in most cases) the first recorded usage of a specific term and for the purposes of this short book performed the task admirably. In most cases these terms have been around much longer than you think, leading me to doubt my original assertion as to whether they could and would be classed as business jargon any longer. But for the context of this book only I could make that judgment, and