Friday Fun: The Buzzword Graveyard

This morning, I tweeted that I really need to petition for the death of the phrase “game-changing”. It’s so overused, and most often complete hyperbole.

We do that a lot in business, don’t we?

Personally, I wish for Brass Tack Language: choosing words that actually say what you mean, without over-inflated crud that perhaps creates a vocabulary-starved individual to rubberneck for a second, but does little else.

As businesses, we’d all be better served to practice saying what we do well in the simplest possible terms, skipping all the crazy modifiers like “best of breed” and just rather telling it like it is. There are plenty of perfectly workable words that can get it done. Wouldn’t that be refreshing?

Alas, I’m pretty sure I’m smoking something funky if I think that marketers (especially) and the business types are going to stop the madness anytime soon.

So, let’s have some fun on a Friday, and create the Buzzword Graveyard here on BTT for all those words, phrases, and jargon that we love to hate. Here are my entries:

Game-changing

Best of Breed

Blue Ocean

Win-Win

I  know you have more. Or perhaps you’d just like to sound off a bit on irritating language junk for a while? Let ‘em loose. And happy Friday.

image credit: Qole Pejorian

Tagged as: business writing, buzzwords, friday fun, hyperbole, language, Marketing, vocabulary