Touch base offline – meaning let's meet and talk. Idea shower – brainstorm might be out of fashion, but surely we can thought cascade something better than this drivel. Helicopter view – need a phrase that means broad overview of the business? Then why not say 'a broad view of the business'? Here are some of the most irritating euphemisms doing the rounds: Walk through any office and you'll hear this kind of thing going on every day. 'Thinking outside the box' (57%), 'going forward' (55%) and 'let's touch base' (39%) were identified as the top three most overused pieces of jargon. Some people think that it is easy to bluff their way through by using long, impressive-sounding words and phrases, even if they don't know what they mean, which is telling in itself.įurthermore, a recent survey by Institute of Leadership & Management, revealed that management speak is used in almost two thirds (64%) of offices, with nearly a quarter (23%) considering it to be a pointless irritation. The Plain English Campaign says that many staff working for big corporate organisations find themselves using management speak as a way of disguising the fact that they haven't done their job properly.

Office word bingo