Nearly a year since I started reading it, I’ve finally finished Strunk & White’s “The Elements of Style“. One of the final insights offered by this pocket-size masterpiece covers “business speak”. I’ve written about this before (here too), and as you’ve probably guessed at this stage, such empty-vessel jargon is a pet peeve of mine.
Step forward then Strunk & White’s little style bible to put business speak and its proponents in their place:
“…[business speak's] portentous nouns and verbs invest ordinary events with high adventure; executives walk among toner cartridges, caparisoned like knights. We should tolerate them–every person of spirit wants to ride a white horse. The only question is whether business vocabulary is helpful to ordinary prose. … A good many of the special words of business seem designed more to express the user’s dreams than to express a precise meaning.”
At every moment over the past five years, some one of those jargon-laden executives has been my boss. Whichever boss we’re talking about, it’s not my place to “put him in his place”. Some empathy is helpful here; he writes and speaks that way because that’s what he hears every day.
Rather than appoint myself the Defender of Plain English, I’ve offered to edit what each of those bosses wrote. By habit, I explain my changes and leave it up to the boss whether to accept the edits. It’s never taken long for any of my bosses to realize that I’m an ally, not an adversary.
Very interesting and constructive comment Karen. We all pick up on the accent and tone of those around us – “executives” are no different.
Rather than specific executives/bosses, I was thinking more of the general sales/marketing area where the idea seems to be to paralyse people’s senses – rendering them vulnerable to buying something they probably don’t need.
You’re lucky to have had worked with people who are open to having their writing “checked”. I haven’t encountered too many people who like to have their work “corrected” (as they see it) by someone else.