Todays comedy news comes courtesy of the BBC – the Nonsense League Table. To quote from the article:
Who speaks the most gibberish, the worst jargon, the most twisted English and the biggest pile of gobbledegook? For the first time the worst offenders over the past 20 years have their own league table. And guess who’s top?
You might also want to take a look at the Plain English Campaign.
My personal favourite short gibberisms:
- Proactive (adj) – possibly the most overused word in business communication. Usually a good sign of management bull.
- Progress (verb) – “We will progress your application”. Grrrr – there are plenty of acceptable verbs you could use: advance, process, continue. Why “progress”. See also “action”.
- Outside the box (adj) – Argh! Who said I was in a box?
There’s loads of these irritating non-words & phrases – add your favourites to the comments!
Top of the list of most irritating / mis-used words should be ‘sexy’: eg. “sexy industry” etc. No, that’s not remotely sexy.
Was about to book tickets for the comedy “The Madness of George Dubya” but was discouraged from doing so on reading a quote f