Friday Fun: The Buzzword Graveyard

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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

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  • pheathwa

    +1 for Rockstar
    Hot Startup

  • jennymack

    Oh man…. so many I could think of if I took some time. Some ones that should be buried ESPECIALLY deep:

    - Bandwidth (“I just don't have the bandwidth right now”)
    - Deep dive/deeper dive
    - Circle back
    - ROI
    - Rock star (Especially in reference to social media — same for “maven”, “guru” and “expert” — like nails on a chalkboard!) IMHO, if you're REALLY any of these things, no one should be going out of his or her way to explain it.
    - “Hive mind”
    - Low-hanging fruit — gah!

    Thanks Amber for another great post! You have my gears turning…

    - Jenny

  • jgraziani

    “Over-arching”. Never did like that one, Just sounds like it hurts.

  • elizabethsosnow

    “Sea-change” is particularly annoying…

  • jgraziani

    I've always used “content is king” to denote quality, as in: “The better your content is the more readers and advertisers you will attract. Content is king.” Never really knew that anyone used the phrase in any other context, such as volume. That doesn't make sense to me, because if all you do is churn out words/pics/videos it's likely your quality will suffer.

  • jennymack

    This stream of comments wouldn't be complete without one of my favorite 30 Rock moments, the “best presentation ever”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHt7z9Hx_Bs

  • http://www.pjmullen.com/ PJ Mullen

    I”ll go with “bleeding edge solution” and, with apologizes to Mr. Jobs, the annoying habit of calling things “revolutionary” when they clearly aren't.

  • jgraziani

    When someone says, “ping me” I imagine picking up a golf club and bopping them on the head. (For the non-golfers, as in Ping golf clubs.)

  • JoshDComp

    » New & Improved – Be original people

    » Starbucks (the company is killing good coffee. If you go to SBucks, try a local shop instead…they're usually cheaper and have better service and drinks, after all, they have to)

    » Going Viral – People talk of going viral without regard to preserving their values…if you go viral on something that has nothing to do with your company, that doesn't actually promote your business, what's the point?

    » Misused abbreviations and initials…if you don't know what MU (Multi User CMS) stands for in the first place, don't try to make it into a verb (e.g. We MU'd the WordPress powering weselltoast.com so you can add content too!

    Haha I'm not angry…my tone says otherwise, but I'm smiling as I write this ;P

  • http://twitter.com/LeanneStewart LeanneStewart

    “Scale/scaling/scalability” Please make it go away.

  • Donna Jolly

    This is a big pet-peeve of mine (hey, should we add “pet-peeve” to the list?) I am tired of the over-used cliches. My personal least favorite is one I find myself even saying, “Rock Star.” I am so over it that I blogged about it over on Audacious Ink a few months back. Billy Joe Armstrong is a Rock Star. Bruce Springsteen is a Rock Star. Bono? Rock star. Leave the rocking to the rockers, and let the professional “stand-outs” in their respective industry be called what they really are, whether it is “leaders,” “successes,” “experts,” or heck, even “professionals.” Whew. Glad that is off my chest, again.

  • http://twitter.com/kyleroussel Kyle Roussel

    One thing that definitely has to go? Referring to a problem as a “challenge”. I can appreciate the willingness to not look at something in a negative light, but damnit, sometimes a problem IS a problem.

    Using “global” has to go, i.e. “global leader”. Twist the stats enough and everyone is a global leader in something.

    Finally, “optimize” has to die a fiery, grizzly death.

  • http://twitter.com/HelenAIngram Helen A Ingram

    Forward thinking, robust, wrapped around the the axel, in your wheelhouse are all pet peeves of mine. Thanks for the post.

  • http://twitter.com/katgordon Katherine M. Gordon

    How is it that in 62 comments no one has mentioned my personal pet peeve?

    Incentivize.

    Just typing it makes me feel sick. This week I created a Brand Guide for a client in which I wrote “No need to use $5 words when 1¢ words will do.”

  • http://pbgs.blogspot.com terminalman90

    paradigm shift, Out of the Box Thinking, 365_24_7, LOL and what about Free, New, Improved, Sale, Discount, … Okay maybe that last ones miss the criteria but just think of the havoc outlawing these words would have on marketing. Customers the world over would sigh in relief.

  • Nancy

    Strategize.
    Optimize.
    Leverage.
    Idealize.
    Impact.
    Silos.
    Cross pollinate.

  • http://twitter.com/tmiesen Tom Miesen

    Spearhead a dynamic initiative to leverage the existing capabilities to generate synergy!

  • Sarah_Gore

    Unique – when used by marketing to describe the product because it usually is not.
    Rock star – unless you are Brett Michaels.
    In reality – for obvious reasons.
    At the end of the day – what about mornings and afternoon?
    For a limited time only – because the end date is unknown becuase they have no idea what to expect.
    Special – becuase none of the other services or products are?

  • Tbertuzzi

    Anything with the numbers 2.0 stuck on it's ass end.

  • http://marketinginteractions.typepad.com Ardath

    The leading provider of…

    Worldclass

    Innovative

    Cutting edge

    Robust

    Join the conversation

    Relevant

  • erichoffman

    I'm tired of brands or businesses that ask me to “Share your ____ with us.” I may 'engage' with you if you ask me in an interesting way, but if you really want me to tell you my experience, find a more creative way to ask me for it, that the overused “share your…”, please?!

  • kelleyrobertson

    Take it to the next level.

  • clintstonebraker

    There are so many, here are two that make my skin crawl every time I hear them:

    “Thrown under the bus” and “out of the box.”
    “ROI” is pretty annoying as is “value added” or adding. “Authentic” is generally used improperly and can be a give away of a liar. “Networking” gets really old. I know many hate awesome, but I use it so much I can't put it on my list.

    Great post, I am annoyed and laughing at the same time!

  • Annie George

    Coming from someone whose company is called Outside the Box Marketing (named over 12 years ago), I agree that “outside the box” is overused.. as is dialogue, engaged, optimize, agile (regarding software), state-of-the-art, capitalize, innovative, visionary….

  • Bill Strawderman

    Check out this tool from HubSpot. It's an industry-leading, game changer that at the end of the day will create an epic paradigm shift that will future-proof your writing.

    Freeing you to push the envelope, get more leverage out of your writing and become the marketing rock star you were born to be.

    http://gobbledygook.grader.com/

  • http://www.redheadranting.com/ redheadranting

    I've never heard of Blue Ocean, except when someone is talking about the ocean and how blue it is.

    I've been out of the corporate world for a while now and this one might have been put to rest a long time ago but if it hasn't it should be…” I can't speak to that” … that was like fingernails on the chalk board for me.

  • http://rexblog.com Rex Hammock

    jump the shark
    brass tacks (oh, wait. never mind)

  • http://conniereece.tumblr.com conniereece

    Even worse, for me, is the latest version, “incent.”

  • http://socialbutterflyguy.com/ DJ Waldow

    Noooooo. Awesome is one of my 4 favorite words! http://socialbutterflyguy.com/2009/10/01/does-l… – keeps me living in the 80's. Ha ha.

    DJ Waldow
    @djwaldow

  • http://socialbutterflyguy.com/ DJ Waldow

    T – I knew I loved you for a reason. That was my word to KILL.

    DJ Waldow
    @djwaldow

  • http://socialbutterflyguy.com/ DJ Waldow

    Amber –

    Would be cool to put this entire list into a google spreadsheet. After reading through yours and the 70+ comments, I'm not sure there are any words we can actually use! Love it…

    DJ Waldow
    @djwaldow

  • http://ariwriter.com Ari Herzog

    That's a pseudo-biblical reference, so good luck removing it.

    Exodus 3:14 – “God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM. Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, 'I AM (hayah) has sent me to you.'”

  • http://ariwriter.com Ari Herzog

    If you do away with transparency, what do you replace it with, Meg?

  • http://ariwriter.com Ari Herzog

    You want to kill the iphone. Interesting.

  • http://ariwriter.com Ari Herzog

    How is a couch overused and not a chair and bed?

  • http://ariwriter.com Ari Herzog

    It is intriguing nobody wrote “social media” as an overused buzzword.

  • http://www.linkedin.com/in/edborasky znmeb

    yeah I was going to post “curation” too. But I want to restore “win-win”, because you really don't have a deal *unless* both parties *genuinely* win.

    How about “social graph”, “interest graph”, “degrees of separation” and all the other mathematics terms that actually have real mathematical meaning but are used by people without the remotest idea what they mean?

    On that note, just about all the “Twitter grader scores” that attempt to rank people by how “important” / “influential” they are.

    Oh, and while we're at it – people whining about “email overload”. If your email inbox has anything in it except spam, it's something *you* freakin' asked for!

  • http://twitter.com/SarahJaneMorris Sarah-Jane Morris

    So as much as I'm in agreement with just about every term referenced here, how many of us can safely say we don't use at least a few of these every now and then at work? Sure, we hate ourselves a little every time we do it, but there's something about spewing BS vernacular that, like it or not, ensures others that we're on the same page and in the same industry, and that we sound like we know what we're talking about – whether that's true or not. I think it's about establishing comfort. We're so silly, us humans.

  • http://www.linkedin.com/in/edborasky znmeb

    I don't know that it's about comfort so much as it is a misguided attempt to achieve “rapport” by using the same words someone in authority uses. I once worked in a lab where everyone said “pro-cess” rather than “prah-cess” because that's the way the CEO pronounced it. ;-)

  • http://twitter.com/SarahJaneMorris Sarah-Jane Morris

    Agreed. Also, after thinking about this a little more, I think we may even use these terms MORE when speaking to those outside of our industry, perhaps to assert our authority or depth of knowledge in marketing/social media/business/whatever the hell else we're trying to do. Basically, I think it's important that we recognize our hypocrisy here. ;)

  • http://GlobalPatriot.com/ GlobalPatriot

    So many great suggestions here…what I find sad, is that many of these words or phrases conveyed meaning when introduced, but over time their overuse created a nauseous reaction, causing us to toss them into the Buzzword Graveyard. Sadder still, we then perceive a buzzword deficiency, and to fill the void, we find another cool term, and continue the cycle.

  • Matt Lavallee

    It's the older form of “green field” ideas, which can also die.

  • http://www.lifewithoutpants.com Matt Cheuvront

    No doubt it's been said, but “Epic” “Ninja” “Rockstar” “Guru” “Social Media Expert” – all get my vote…

  • http://twitter.com/thbull Arron Bullock

    three more:

    going forward
    customer facing
    customer intimacy

  • http://cloverdewcreative.wordpress.com cloverdew

    YES!!! All of these would be on my list!

  • http://cloverdewcreative.wordpress.com cloverdew

    “Take this Offline” is one of my hugest pet peeves. Especially when used in face-to-face conversation. I have heard it used in meetings and it just grates my nerves. Ugggh.

  • http://cloverdewcreative.wordpress.com cloverdew

    Scale and Leverage and any forms of those two words are just plain annoying.

  • http://twitter.com/aacassidy Aidan Cassidy

    Can we get rid of “managing expectations” now please? That one's been bugging me for a long time.

  • jefflogden

    Love it. Let's kill off a few more.

    Industry leader
    Premier ____
    Category leader
    Recognized leader

    Happy Friday

    Jeff Ogden, the Fearless Competitor
    President, Find New Customers
    http://www.findnewcustomers.net

  • http://twitter.com/wendykeneipp Wendy Keneipp

    Skin in the game. Eew.
    Opening new files. Does anyone even know what that means??

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