Take Away English-Business Jargon 商业行话

Are they thinking outside the box?

Most people like using short-cuts. We all usually want to get from A to B as quickly as possible and when we want to get our message across to people with the same job as us, we often use jargon¹. It's a kind of short-cut that helps us communicate without wasting time. Jargon is simply a kind of language shorthand² that lets us say what we mean quickly. Or is it?

In the business world you might expect to hear or use a lot of jargon. However, a report just out in Britain claims that most managers overuse business jargon and that this has a negative effect on how staff feel.

Investors³ in People - a public body whose main stakeholder is the Department for Education and Skills – says that using terms like "blue-sky thinking" rather than saying more plainly "imagine new or different ways of doing things" baffles⁴ employees and widens the gap between managers and staff.

Most employees in Britain, according to this survey, have a low opinion of colleagues who use management jargon. Over a third of those surveyed think it shows a lack of confidence and almost one in five think people who use it are untrustworthy or trying to cover something up.

Some of the most overused business expressions that fell foul⁵ of those surveyed (and their more straightforward⁶ explanations) were:

Get our ducks in a row (have everything arranged efficiently), brain dump (tell everything you know about a particular subject) and think outside the box (be creative in how you think about problems).

Peter Russian from Investors in People said that an effective boss is one who can communicate in a way which everyone can easily understand not one who uses a lot of management jargon.

So now that you've got the helicopter view (just an overview) of business jargon, it's time to give you a heads up (a warning) not to overuse this management speak. But that's a real no-brainer (that's simple), isn't it?

GLOSSARY 词汇表
short-cuts 捷径 wasting time 浪费时间 overuse 过分使用 a public body 公共机构 plainly 简单地；明白地 widens the gap between 加大鸿沟 a low opinion of 不赞赏 untrustworthy 不值得信任的 fell foul 最不赞同；有争议 creative 有创造力的	jargon 行话；专业语 shorthand 速记 investors 投资人 stakeholder 股东 baffles 使困惑 survey 统计调查 a lack of confidence 缺乏信心 cover something up 掩盖什么东西 straightforward 直截了当 effective 有效力的

 

1 jargon   

n.术语，行话

参考例句：

• They will not hear critics with their horrible jargon.他们不愿意听到评论家们那些可怕的行话。
• It is important not to be overawed by the mathematical jargon.要紧的是不要被数学的术语所吓倒.

2 shorthand   

n.速记，速记法

参考例句：

• The reporters took down the speech in shorthand.记者们迅速记下讲话的内容。
• Instead of writing her shorthand by hand,she could use a machine.她可以不用手，而使用一种带键盘的机器进行速记。

3 investors   

n.投资者，出资者( investor的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• a con man who bilked investors out of millions of dollars 诈取投资者几百万元的骗子
• a cash bonanza for investors 投资者的赚钱机会

4 baffles   

n.隔板，挡板，反射板( baffle的名词复数 )v.使困难，使为难( baffle的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• His behaviour baffles me. 他的行为使我难以琢磨。
• The case baffles the skill of our most experienced medical men. 这一病例使我们最有经验的医生也无法施展其医术。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

5 foul   

adj.污秽的；邪恶的；v.弄脏；妨害；犯规；n.犯规

参考例句：

• Take off those foul clothes and let me wash them.脱下那些脏衣服让我洗一洗。
• What a foul day it is!多么恶劣的天气！

6 straightforward   

adj.正直的，坦率的；易懂的，简单的

参考例句：

• A straightforward talk is better than a flowery speech.巧言不如直说。
• I must insist on your giving me a straightforward answer.我一定要你给我一个直截了当的回答。