As a writer, nothing bothers me as much as unclear language. Specifically, people that consciously use words in ways that are designed to either obscure the truth behind what they are saying or to protect themselves from the PC police. To list just two examples off the top of my head:
- a Day Care center whose staff is not allowed to use the word “problem;” they need to use “issue” instead
- Calling the habit of motorists slowing down to view roadside accidents “Curiosity Delays” rather than the much more interesting “rubbernecking”
Not to mention the unique linguistic feats of lawyers, legislators, and corporate writers, all of whom seem to develop their own language designed to keep outsiders from understanding what they’re really trying to say. With regards to the latter, I got a huge kick out of
this New Yorker article and the tool that it describes: “
Unsuck It”. Money quote:
The minds behind Mule Design Studio have channeled their rage against corporate jargon into the creation of a delightfully hostile (and vulgar) translation device called “Unsuck It.” (Many thanks to Laura McClure over at Mother Jones for bringing this to our attention.) You type in a particularly odious word or phrase—“incentivize,” say—and “Unsuck It” spits out the plain-English equivalent, along with a sentence for context. (“Incentivize” means “encourage” or “persuade,” as in “In order to meet our phase 1 deliverable, we must incentivize the workforce with monetary rewards.”) One feels a certain cathartic glee as well-worn meeting-room clichés are dismantled one by one: an “action item” is a “goal”; “on the same page” means “in agreement”; to “circle the wagons” is to “defend an idea or decision as a group.” I looked up one that had baffled me recently—“onboarding,” as in “I’ll start onboarding you onto payroll within the next week”—and learned that to “onboard” is to “prepare an employee for a new job or project.” Why settle for a dusty old adjective when you can have a shiny new verb?
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