This, I hope, will be the first of a series of posts about the awful neologisms, soundbites and (mostly) pretend words that I come across on corporate slides. Actually, what am I saying? I don't 'hope' this will be a series, I don't wish to be trapped in a place where I am endlessly deriding such torture of English, nevertheless, I strongly suspect this post will be the first of many.
You see, I spend many of my working hours dragging through slide after slide, trying to make better sense of what is there, tidying it all up, correcting mistakes, spotting yawning chasms in the content, and sometimes I come across such awful whoppers that I feel I must share. So, without naming names, and therefore spreading the blame... let's begin.
Addendum... I began scraping the barrel at the bottom of this list and I'm adding newly suffered words at the top...
BAD word #1: 'Corporatise'
This was used in the bullet point: corporatise and leverage... effectively. A pretty awful line in itself without the added indignity of a made up word in its midst.
Adding the ise to corporate is simply a work of evil. Corporate as a concept itself is a blandishment; a byword for the expulsion of anything resembling an individual thought, and that is true no matter how many times one sees presentations championing innovation (how can you have this when you also insist on a corporate brand?). So to corporatise something, well that means to take out the heart of a thing's difference. I hate that.
To be fair, I'm not a big fan of many ise words, I think it's the idea that they involve the concept of doing something to something, or someone else, without that person's necessary agreement, or possibly their understanding. (See colonise. I even have a slight problem with 'realise', even if only because I find it a slightly nasal word - you may disagree, that's fine.) I just feel sorry for whatever is being corporatised, twisted out of its former shape, altered against its will. Anyway, all that is the besides the point of this being a MADE UP WORD. Tut!
BAD word #1: 'Onboarding'
This is used in the context of 'getting someone to agree' with the recently amended policy, change in culture, etc, etc. As a concept, I can see that it is needed because business is always changing because that keeps everyone in business. But doesn't it sound a bit distasteful? A little tyrannical. In fact, even a little piratical? Would one be forced to walk the plank if one does not agree? Well yes, probably. I reckon if you hear this term bandied about then keep your head down and make non-committal affirmative noises so that when the next change comes around in a couple of years you'll not look too attached to the old one.
Instead of sounding like some sort of lingual torture, this should be 'getting everyone onboard'. There, doesn't that sound nicer? More of a day trip around the island than being press ganged with a corporate cutlass.
BAD word #1: 'Decisioning'
I nearly exploded muttering over this one. I tried to get it removed. I pointed at it and laughed. I ground my teeth. I am still doing so. My teeth are stubs. All to no avail.
The damn thing still went out. The only chance of salvation was that it was buried in such a busy slide in such a graceless sentence that it was likely to go unnoticed. Fortunately, the audience had become so immune from being constantly bombarded by this sort of thing that I wasn't worried for them.
However, I still consider this a failure.
'Decisioning' - the act of making a decision - is a real word, but only according to The Free Dictionary. (Which doesn't count - no really, it doesn't).
The OED http://oxforddictionaries.com/ gives it short shrift. (I have a feeling that I'll be referencing the lovely OED quite a lot in this post) Charmingly it suggests 'disjoining' and 'tensioning' amongst the options that it is sure you must have been searching for instead, silly you.
It made me so irritated because there exists a good pair of words that already do this job to perfection: 'decision making'. See what I mean? There is no need for the untidy, unruly 'ing' that puts all the phonetic emphasis on the 'de' part of the word, obfuscating the clear meaning of 'decision': That need we have to make up our minds to carry us forward toward whatever it is we have to do next. Emphasising the 'de' makes the word negative, whereas it should be glorious, progressive and empire-buildingly, positive. No wonder we are all going to the dogs.
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