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Tag Archives: language

The latest salvo in the War Against Jargon

“Wellderly, webinar, disbenefits and under-capacitated are among new forms of jargon being used by the public sector, a survey has revealed. Such impenetrable phrases are on a list of banned words published by the Local Government Association (LGA)”. It seems to have become a new biennial news story about office jargon, especially in councils: Why [...]

Why do councils love jargon?

“Local councils have been warned over a slew of jargon that baffles ordinary people, but why do they love to obfuscate?” Erm, well, the sad fact is by and large councils don’t love to obfuscate; it’s in nobody’s interest to. Now of course there’s no denying that jargon does get out to the public, and [...]

Workplace jargon ‘isolates staff’

“Needless jargon in the workplace is baffling employees and widening the divide between management and staff, a survey suggests. Investors in People said that the proliferation of phrases such as ‘blue-sky thinking’ and ‘brain dump’ was damaging to British industry”. Is this actually true? It would be interesting to see the actual survey questions, and [...]

Cows also have regional accents

“Cows have regional accents like humans, language specialists have confirmed – they decided to examine the issue after dairy farmers noticed their cows had slightly different moos, depending on which herd they came from”. The story is accompanied recordings of moos of different cows from different parts of the country, all of which sound different. [...]