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JARGON FINDER:
New Words
Below are words that visitors to the Communications Network website have contributed
our collection of jargon. Tony Proscio's responses follow.
If you have a word to add, email:
jargon@comnetwork.org
To see the words in the
Jargon Finder,
CLICK HERE.
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AROUND
From Albert Ruesga, Vice President, Programs and Communications,
Eugene and Agnes E. Meyer Foundation
Albert writes:
Around...as in
"Native Nonprofitese speakers will protest at a rally
convened around issues relating to grassroots
initiatives to impact access to resources for
linguistically isolated community stakeholders." Nobody wants to address this or that issue. Everybody wants to meet around them. Sounds like we're taking evasive action.
Tony Proscio responds:
In my days as a newspaper reporter and editor, I often had to write about events taking place in distant time zones. Going to press at 11 p.m. Eastern Time, I would sometimes file pieces commenting on events that were still unfolding elsewhere. When I struggled to write about some situation that might change radically before my words hit the streets, my editor would sometimes say to me, “you’d better write around that.” His meaning — which was deliberately ambiguous, so as to preserve our patina of professional dignity — was, “you’ll have to fudge it.” I would end up using evasive weasel-words whose vagueness left room for overnight developments. I’m not saying I’m proud of this, of course — but consider the era. This was before the Internet gave reporters the opportunity to update their work every 15 minutes.
Now, flash forward a decade or two. Just a few weeks ago, I received a memorandum of understanding from a new client specifying that I would write a report “around” such-and-such an issue. (I’m protecting my client’s identity because of my natural generosity of spirit, and because I haven’t been paid yet.) I had to read the memo twice: I was being hired not to write about the issue, but to write around it? I guess Id’ better haul out the International Thesaurus of Evasions and Weasel-words. This one’s going to be a doozy.
Now, the word “around” is hardly new and certainly not jargon. There’s nothing technical or abstract about its use in the context of research and public policy, it’s just trendy and goofy. It has a whiff of the New Age to it — a desire to pay homage to the cloud of associated ideas and implications that surround any issue, and an implied willingness to wander like a cowled mystic beyond the boundaries of organized thought. Or something like that. The point seems to be that only dowdy relics like me, slaves to 20th-century linear reasoning, would be content merely to discuss an issue. Enlightened thinkers of the new millennium, with their unbounded minds multitasking their way through all the penumbras and emanations of life, think around the issues, thus advancing the frontiers of discovery.
But before I ridicule this line of thought too much, a cautionary word is in order. “Penumbras and emanations” is not a phrase I made up, nor is it the work of New-Agey types in the nonprofit world. It is the formula on which Justice William O. Douglas based his theory of a constitutional right to privacy, in his majority opinion in Griswold v. Connecticut. Sometimes, finding the truth really is a matter of exploring the uncertain terrain around a set of fixed ideas. The desire to think around things, as well as through them, really does advance the frontiers of discovery and invention, as it did for Justice Douglas. As with so much trendy rhetoric in the nonprofit world, the underlying desire behind the words may be fitting and sound. But at some point, the words themselves have a tendency to slip their moorings. When that happens, the result sooner or later is neither discovery nor invention, just silliness.
BASELINE
Contributed Anonymously
Anonymous writes:
As far as I can understand, baseline is the
latest project plan and when something is
“baselined” I guess it is checked (or
reconciled) back to the plan???
Tony responds:
The new verb (new to
me, at least) "to baseline" is a great example
of how a bit of clear, useful jargon can become
useless, opaque jargon in one step. The idea of
a baseline (a noun) is specific in its
definition and, at least in social science and
management circles, fairly consistently applied.
It's not a term common in ordinary conversation,
but if you know what it means, you will almost
always use it to describe the same thing other
people use it for. It designates a statistic, a
place, or a set of circumstances to which other
(usually future) events can be compared. It's
rare, in my experience, to see "baseline" used
in any other way, or to have a hard time
understanding what it refers to.
The Oxford English
Dictionary (which doesn't yet recognize the single,
unhyphenated word, but acknowledges "base-line")
traces this basic meaning at least as far back as
19th century astrophysics, where a "base" referred
to a point in space from which to measure the
movement of other celestial bodies. That's a
technical idea, true enough. But it's precise,
consistent, and not hard to explain.
Unfortunately, English
has a fondness for making verbs out of nouns. So the
verb "to baseline" was probably inevitable, once the
idea of setting baselines for measurement became
ubiquitous. The trouble is, the noun requires
specificity, but the verb leaves wide latitude for
vagueness. (That, by itself, will make the verb
hugely popular among management consultants, who
like to dazzle you with Delphic vocabulary and then
charge you buckets of money no matter what results
you get.)
Use the noun "baseline,"
and you pretty much have to specify what the
baseline is. The word is useful mainly in phrases
like "with X as a baseline," or "using a baseline of
Y." It's hard to think of a use of the word that
doesn't force you to specify what is to be compared
with what. But it's quite easy to say "the results
of the plan will be measured and baselined." Ummm
... baselined against what? Measured when? Compared
how? You can hear the champagne corks popping all
over consultant-land! Here's a nice, effervescent
word, with bright hints of silicon and expensive
algorithms, that actually promises nothing in
particular! Perfect for anyone who charges $500 an
hour or more!
"Baseline" is a concrete
idea. Because it's only a noun, it must necessarily
be accompanied by some specific verbs, objects, and
antecedent nouns, specifying what the baseline is
and who is going to compare it with what. By
contrast, "baselined" is a passive, inert, largely
unbounded abstraction -- the very model of modern
jargon. It doesn't say who does the "baselining,"
what the baseline is, or how the comparison is to be
conducted. Presto: with the addition of a single
letter (the "d"), a solid, practical, occasionally
even interesting word becomes verbal pabulum, fit
only for the gullible or the toothless.
CULTIVATE
Contributed Anonymously
Anonymous writes:
Although the official
definition does include "to make friends with" and "to
foster the growth of," this word is so overused in
fundraising circles. Let's not insult the intelligence
of our donors by using fake, "poetic" words to describe
our efforts to raise money. Cultivating is for crops.
Tony responds:
This submission evidently
refers specifically to the use of "cultivate" in
the fundraising trade. I have never been much of a
success at fundraising, and I feel a certain awe toward
the people who are. It's a tricky business, trying to
get people excited about your cause while also, quite
obviously, trying to get your hands on their wallet.
Those who can pull off both the emotional and the fiscal
demands of the job are, in my view, artists.
That doesn't necessarily mean that every word they
choose is a work of art, of course. But is "cultivate"
really "fake" poetry? Yes, its literal meaning applies
to gardening and farming. But does the fundraisers' use
of the term really stretch it beyond legitimate
figurative use? Here's the Oxford English
Dictionary's first (and to my eye, liltingly poetic)
definition of the word:
"to bestow labour and attention upon (land) in order to
the raising of
crops; to till; to improve and render fertile by
husbandry."
Two features of that definition strike me. First, "land"
is in parentheses. Evidently, even in the word's primary
definition, the OED editors felt that the meaning was
not rigidly restricted to literal cultivation of the
soil. A second definition refers to the cultivation of
plants in the same way: the word "plants" is in
parentheses, again perhaps suggesting that the literal
meaning is just a point of departure.
The second striking feature of this first definition is
the lovely phrase
"to improve and render fertile." Apart from its nearly
Biblical overtones,
that combination strikes me as a fair description of the
fundraiser's art:
trying to "improve" their donors with a greater
understanding of some
important field of endeavor, while also rendering that
donor "fertile" to
the cause.
No writing is made better by slavishly using every word
only according to its most literal meaning. Where would
we be without metaphor and imagery? And in this case the
OED seems to be giving us explicit license to construe
the definition broadly. In fact, people have used that
license for at least 300 years that we know of: The
dictionary traces the fundraisers' use of "cultivate"
back to 1707, with the definition "to bestow attention
upon a person with a view to intimacy or favour; to
court the acquaintance or friendship of."
I imagine that the real reason some people take offense
at this elliptical
use of "cultivate" is that it has become so ubiquitous
that it's lost any
poetic zing it might have had. In truth, that is a
common offense of many words on our "jargon" list. It's
not that they're obscure, or ugly, or
misused, or even too highfalutin'. It's just that
they've been overworked
and we're sick of hearing them.
"Cultivate" may well be guilty there. I am not enough of
a fundraising adept to know for sure. But if someone
were after my money (an unlikely prospect, I'm afraid),
I wouldn't at all object to first being "improved"
before being "rendered fertile." Outside the garden,
there are bloody few transactions in this life where
both things are possible, and I'm happy to write an ode
or two for any that fit the bill.
DIMENSIONALIZE
Contributed Anonymously
Anonymous writes:
As far as I can tell, the word is meant to convey the need to give a sense of the size or scope of the benefits an organization or groups of them provide, as in the good nonprofits do for society.
Tony responds:
Oh, man, that's a beaut. I have to admit, though, I'm at a loss to think of a ready synonym. Though the word is surpassingly ugly, it does seem to have some value, in that it evokes an idea that otherwise takes several words to pin down.
A lot of "ize" words aren't like that; they're just pseudo-scientific stand-ins for ordinary ideas (e.g., "prioritize"="rank"; "utilize"="use"; "conceptualize"="think"). But there are a few cases where "ize" coinages may be fairly useful. Look how popular "Balkanize" has become -- it may even have the side benefit of reminding Americans of what the hell the Balkans are. Even when the "ize" words aren't great, they sometimes have the one redeeming virtue of most jargon: they conjure a complex thought in a single word. "Dimensionalize" can probably make that claim.
Still, to avoid such a clownishly ugly coinage, I would argue strongly for using the longer phrase "measure the dimensions of" rather than sink to "dimensionalize." And my argument wouldn't be solely on aesthetic grounds, either. Using plainer words also forces you to be more specific. Once you make a writer search for a normal English verb to accompany this idea, you compel a choice among various different approaches to the question of dimension: Are you talking about measuring it with some kind of numbers? Describing it in words? Making it vivid as a communications or advertising concept? The answers to those questions lead you to choose among verbs like "measure," "describe," or "bring to life" -- all of which are different concepts, and all of which give more information to a reader than the abstract (albeit brief) word "dimensionalize."
The combination of stuffiness and imprecision -- a fancy word that pretends to speak volumes yet only whispers incomplete thoughts -- is the surest sign of harmful jargon. And in the case of this (evidently) brand-new word, the telltale signs are visible at birth.
If you're hanging out in circles where things are being "dimensionalized," you ought to re-conceptualize how you spend your time.
GO-TO (adj.)
Contributed anonymously
Tony Responds:
You may have noticed that
the Jargon Files have by now become the “go-to” source
for lexical denunciations of all kinds. Whether it’s
jargon or not, if there’s a word that sends a shock
through your dental fillings every time you hear it,
you’ve come to (well, to preserve our theme, you’ve gone
to) the right place.
The modifier “go-to” falls not into the narrow cesspool
of jargon, but into the broader swamplands of despised
cliché. It occurs in expressions like this: “They’re the
go-to consultants for structured strategic visioning”
(yes, someone recently spoke those very words, without
evident embarrassment). Or: “He’s the go-to source for
venomous toads” (in this case the speaker was referring
to a well-known executive recruiter, who I hope does not
read the Jargon Files). You can’t argue that “go-to” is
jargon, really. Its meaning couldn’t be more obvious —
which is no doubt why it annoys so many people. It’s not
an obscure technical term, it’s just overused, and its
popularity is still spreading.
Even so, is it time for us to organize an auto da fe
against “go-to”? I have to start with the admission that
I consider the phrase too useful for that. I can’t think
of any equivalent, brief English expression that
captures the same concrete idea. To say “he’s the
authority” is not the same thing. One may be a
preëminent authority whom few people actually consult
(think of Cassandra). In that case, for all your
eminence, you’re not the go-to authority. For the same
reason, it’s not equivalent to say “they’re the best
consultants” because sometimes the best are the least
well known, the most obscure, or the most undervalued.
The “go-to” authority is the one everyone agrees you
must consult, the contractor you must use, the player
you must sign up, if you want to stay on top of your
game. We don’t have any other short phrase for that.
In a marketplace increasingly fixated on cornering
Internet traffic, in a society tantalized by dreams of
winner-take-all success, becoming the organization that
everyone goes to for something is a genuine,
increasingly common ambition. Globalization and
e-commerce have made it possible for one outfit to be
the world’s “go-to” source for any given area of
expertise, to the complete disadvantage of all other
sources.
You may not approve of this ambition, or of the kind of
global economy in which such ambitions thrive. But that
is no reason not to approve of a phrase to describe it.
I do not approve of segregation — another term that is
comparatively new, Latinate, polysyllabic, and ugly —
yet I can’t imagine doing without the word. (Until,
perhaps, that happy, far-off day when it has nothing
left to describe). Some things are real and prevalent
enough so that they need their own descriptions, like
them or not.
I realize that I am courting an auto da fe all my own
here. But I think the expression ‘go to’ points to a
fairly important idea that needs a name. If this
particular name seems a little jury-rigged and awkward
(as it surely does), that is a good reason to use it
only when absolutely necessary. But I think there really
are occasions of such necessity. And when an expression
is truly needed and has no substitute, there’s no point
trying to ban it.
Given the number of people whose dental work is set to
throbbing every time someone uses this phrase, I have a
feeling I’ve probably made some enemies with this entry.
It won’t be long before at least one of them just tells
me to, … well, go to.
GRANULAR
From Albert Ruesga, Vice President, Programs and Communications,
Eugene and Agnes E. Meyer Foundation
Albert writes:
Folks nowadays are
taking a granular look at everything -- the new study
promises to be granular. Perhaps the study is shot
through with the indigestible bits of some organic
substance. Can it be good for something to be granular
if it's not good for it to be grainy?
Tony responds
I'm going to take a
fanciful leap here, and it's probably wrong. But it's
too neat to resist. Is it possible that "granular" is
riding a wave of popularity that started with the
socio-political use of "granola"?
Now, bear with me for a minute. The 19th Century
registered trade name Granola was derived, according to
the Oxford English Dictionary, from "granular + -ola,"
and evidently competed with a similar product of the
same period named Granula. When the original trademark
on "Granola" lapsed, it was re-registered, in 1928, to a
certain grainmaker in Battle Creek, Michigan (where it
no doubt helped to enlarge a fortune from which the
philanthropic world continues to benefit).
The word wasn't used as a generic term for
tooth-cracking cereal until the 1970s -- that refined
decade that gave us "bathroom tissue" as a genteel
substitute for T.P., and the Osmond Brothers as a
genteel substitute for music. From there, it evidently
took almost no time for a term describing crunchy
breakfast food to become a generic word for crunchy
people. The new edition of the OED (still in production)
finds a use of "granola" describing people with
"left-wing political views, concern for the protection
of the environment, and the eating of health foods" as
early as 1975. In that year, though, the citation still
shows the word with its trademark capital initial. By
1980, the New York Times was quoting Republicans
deriding California Governor Jerry Brown as "the granola
governor" -- now with a lower-case "g" -- "appealing to
flakes and nuts."
Here's why I think this has some bearing on the recent
popularity of "granular" -- a word that nowadays
describes almost any degree of detailed thought below
the level of sweeping generalization. You asked, "Can it
be good for something to be granular if it's not good
for it to be grainy?" and I think the answer is Yes --
provided that the "granules" are not fine, sandy motes
that cloud the vision, but bigger, crunchier nuggets
that give you something to chew on (even as they crack
the enamel on your molars). Once we decided that gnawing
on food-like rocks was healthy for both our digestion
and the environment, it seems a small leap to want our
information in the same barely-comestible form. (Note
that "chewing" as a metaphor for thought goes back at
least as far as the Middle Ages.)
"Grain," in other words, is golden -- at least in the
mostly crunchy environs of latter-day progressive
politics and philanthropy. (I suspect there are very few
Heritage Foundation reports trumpeting their
"granularity," though I can't claim much research to
back this up.) This idea may be a tad far-fetched. But I
offer it as a nugget to chew on. Perhaps over breakfast.
MAINSTREAM
Contributed anonymously
Anonymous writes:
MAINSTREAM (typical
Development Bank speak, eg from the World Bank) - refers
to the objectives of trying to achieve the
"integration" of a given policy priority (eg,
environmental "sustainability") into other "sectors", eg,
energy, transport, agriculture).
Tony responds:
Before launching a
broadside against the verb "to mainstream," we need
to show the word a little mercy. It had a terrible
childhood. According to the Oxford English
Dictionary, it was born in 1973 -- the apex of the
career of Tony Orlando and Dawn -- and started life
in a rough neighborhood surrounded by bad
influences. It came of age in the world of education
jargon, a pestilential fen teeming with slippery and
unsightly life forms. With that as a starting-place,
there was never much hope for poor "mainstream." And
sure enough, it ended up committing verbal offenses
before it reached adulthood. It's had a sad life,
and deserves at least a brief pause for regret and
understanding.
OK, now that's done,
let's blast it. It's a pathetic concept, instantly
betraying an inferiority complex for anything to
which it's applied. It's a wallflower of a word,
pleading desperately for affection. When people say
they want "to mainstream" something, they imply
(often unintentionally) that their idea is awkward,
marginal, peripheral, and unloved. But oh! If only
the other kids would be nice to it! Then it would
enter ... not a realm of excellence, distinction, or
renown, but mere ordinariness. It would be blessed
with that life-dream of every adolescent: being just
like everyone else.
Now, to be fair to the
field of education, when the word started its life
there it actually reflected a noble aspiration. It
was applied to students who genuinely were
marginalized, made inferior, and walled off from the
education granted to other students. It described a
hope that these students -- young people in special
education or disabled or emotionally troubled kids
-- could be returned to the full circle of other
students's lives and learning. Excellent idea,
embodied in a reasonably descriptive word. The
"stream" was well defined, in the universal language
of K-12 education, and it was often possible to
imagine the particular rivulets and tributaries
under consideration, and how they might flow back
into the main body of water.
But as a reader has
pointed out, "mainstream" is now a darling of many
other fields, especially that of international
development, where feelings of inferiority and
marginalization are rife. The trouble with the way
"to mainstream" is used in those circles is that it
hints at some clear, well defined waterway (the
Ganges, maybe? Or the Congo?) as if we all knew what
that main flow was and how a lesser river might
stream into it. Sometimes writers are careful to
describe some specific body of orthodox thought and
then lay out a practical process by which their new
idea or under-appreciated concept might someday be
welcomed into that established canon. Fine -- when
the vision is described with that degree of care,
then the trendy verb becomes inconsequential. (And
so, one may suggest, it can be dispensed with.)
But much more often, no
such descriptions are forthcoming. Instead,
the word is floated like birch-bark across some
babbling brook, with no detail or clear plan to
guide and steady it. Under scrutiny, it keels and
sinks. (All right, all right -- I've tortured the
acquatic metaphors enough.) In those cases, not only
is the use of the word usually imprecise, it's
subliminally timid. It suggests that the most a new
idea can hope for is to be accepted -- grudgingly,
perhaps -- among some established in-crowd, where it
can forever join the faceless masses and become
unremarkable.
Isn't the developing
world ready for a slightly more ambitious -- not to
mention clear -- word?
MYRIAD
From Russ Campbell, Communications Officer
Burroughs Wellcome Fund
Russ writes:
I'm finding this word to be overused to the point of being
annoying...Ever since the movie Heathers set that word into my vocabulary my skin crawls every time I hear it in phrases such as
"a myriad of programs/solutions/results/conclusions/etc.'"This
may be a personal quirk of mine though.
Tony responds:
Only recently have I begun to hear people complaining about this classic word — which is used today in much the same way the ancient Greeks used “myriades,” which comes from “myrios,” meaning “a countless number.” “Myriades” also took on the more specific meaning of “multiples of 10,000,” but it was used in the more general sense from the very beginning. It definitely isn’t jargon — it has a stellar pedigree in all sorts of common writing, dating back more than 400 years in English (Milton used it, 340 years ago, in Paradise Lost) and hundreds more in Latin and Greek.
Still, I think I can guess why some in the public-interest world would find it irritatingly overused.
In a communications seminar not long ago, I noted one writer’s insistent use of the word “numerous” to describe things that seem to occur in large but not-precisely-known numbers. Since this person works in a field where precisely known numbers are scarce, everything in her world seemed fit for the adjective “numerous.” (For some reason, it hadn’t occurred to her to try “myriad,” but if she reads this, a great verbal love affair will be born.)
I asked her: “Why not just say ‘a lot’? It means the same, sounds less solemn, and will at least provide a little variety, mixed in with all those numerosities.”
“Oh, no, no, no,” she instantly replied. “This [foundation] is an intensely competitive, intellectually rigorous environment. If people saw me writing “a lot,” I’d be finished. No one would take me seriously. I’d be treated like the village idiot.”
So that, apparently, is what passes for intellectual rigor these days. It’s perfectly all right to assert that you have no idea how large the numbers you are citing might be, provided that you express your complete lack of precision in in Latin or Greek.
Here is a secret that no one will tell you in graduate school: In truly intellectual environments, the most formidable speakers and writers are the ones who can present sophisticated, complex thoughts with terrifying ease, grace, simplicity, even playfulness. Those are the people you don’t want to be stuck debating, because compared with them, all your Latin and Greek will seem self-conscious, defensive, and unoriginal. When the real brains are at work, it’s the ideas, not the vocabulary, that take flight.
Of course, those environments are rare. The places where everyone talks fancy and says little, … well, sadly, those are myriad.
NIMBLE (adj.)
From
Helesia Luke, Ethos Strategy Group
Helen Writes:
A NIMBLE
organization advises its employees not to
bring more personal stuff to work than can
be carried home on the bus (later that day).
Tony Responds:
Surely there
must be dictionaries out there somewhere
dedicated solely to New Age Management lingo
— the body of mystical-sounding buzz-words
that supposedly describe transcendent ways
of running organizations. Expressions like
“alignment,” “visioning,” “comprehensive,”
“learning organization,” “creative
destruction,” “thinking outside the box,”
and the ever-magical “empowerment” make me
imagine that somehow, when I wasn’t looking,
all the elite business schools must have
moved to Sedona and started handing out free
peyote with every diploma.
“Nimble” is one of the newer entries in the
cult of Mystical Management. Its suggestion
of physical flexibility puts one in mind of
some of the more painful-looking yoga
positions. That may be just the thing for a
Sedona retreat center, but somehow I would
imagine that, in a boardroom, funders and
investors would be unnerved by the idea of
an organization gleefully tying itself in
knots to achieve some kind of higher
consciousness.
Of course, management types normally use
“nimble” as a way to describe organizations
that can try new things and change course
quickly. They don’t mean to conjure scenes
of Mongolian Contortionism. Still, they’ve
picked a word for this (rather ordinary)
quality that is sure to suggest highly
extraordinary images, at least on a
subliminal level. Whenever I hear someone
say “we have adopted a nimble management
structure,” I picture all the
vice-presidents sitting in a circle with
their heels behind their ears.
Is that really the reaction they wanted?
ONBOARD (As a verb)
From
John Tiebout
John writes:
How about
onboard, as a verb? Or as an adjective, as
in the onboarding process? Just writing this
in an e-mail makes my hair hurt.
Tony Responds:
I guess I should have seen this one coming
-- there is a grim inevitability about it,
isn't there? -- though I have to admit it
took me by surprise. A verb "to onboard"? As
in, "Let's onboard the Communications
Department before we go public with this"?
And a still-uglier adjective form --
something like, "We'll hold an onboarding
session for the stakeholders"? Even as my
stomach turns, I find myself saying, "well,
of course."
If you had asked me just a day ago, I would
have speculated that "onboarding" was
something prohibited by the Geneva
Conventions. Now, to my amazement, I learn
that it's going on all over the
philanthropic sector. The idea slightly
offkilters me.
The reason I think "onboarding" was
inevitable is that (if I understand it
correctly) the word describes the sensitive
process of getting other people to acquiesce
to things you have every intention of doing
anyway. We have nice English words for that:
persuading, insiring, enlisting, asking for
support. But the real idea behind bringing
someone "on board" has always seemed a good
deal vaguer -- and several shades less nice
-- than any of those words.
Even if you forgo the goofy expression "onboarding"
and just settle for the plain Saxon "get
them on board," what are you actually
saying? Are you proposing to win someone's
heartfelt enthusiasm and vigorous
cooperation? Make someone comfortable with
your plan, even if that person doesn't
actually take part in it? Make others aware
of what you intend to do, even if they
couldn't care less? Get them to hold their
noses and avert their eyes momentarily,
while you go about some distasteful
business? Or, to quote the Don, just make
them an offer they can't refuse? What does
it mean to have people on board?
Once a phrase ends up so empty of any
concrete meaning, I guess it's
understandable that people won't want to
waste a lot of syllables on it. So "get them
on board" shrinks to "onboard them." If
you're inclined to see the positive side of
things, you might say that thanks to this
coinage, there will now be one less syllable
of nonsene afoot in the world.
Even so, I can't resist pointing out that
the whole idea of dragging people "on board"
has always struck me as just a bit coercive.
If you really wanted to win my heart and
hand, I believe you wouldn't be talking
about "getting me on board," (much less "onboarding
me"), you would talk about "getting me
involved," "winning my support," "signing me
up," or in the quaintly psychedelic parlance
of the 60s, "raising my consciousness." Once
your imagery shifts to hoisting me onto your
vessel, the relationship no longer seems
quite so collegial or even, on some level,
quite so voluntary. Once I find myself "on
board," I might reasonably fear that the
only way out is overboard.
OUT-OF-POCKET
From Bryan Rhodes, executive assistant,
Grantmakers Concerned With Immigrants and
Refuges
Bryan writes:
Out-of-pocket (frequently used instead of
unreachable or out of the office) as in
"I
will be out of pocket from 11:00am to
12:00pm."
Tony responds:
When I hear
people say "out of pocket" instead of
"out of touch," "out of the loop," or
"unreachable," I have always assumed
they were simply making a mistake. They
were, I believed, accidentally using a
phrase that means "having spent my own
money" -- as in, "I took a business trip
without getting a cash advance, and now
I'm out-of-pocket $2,000, and still
waiting for reimbursement." This phrase
has (I thought) nothing to do with being
out-of-reach. I had usually filed it in
the same category as using "fulsome" to
mean "full" (not even similar --
"fulsome" is a seriously disparaging
adjective), or "flushed-out" to mean
"fleshed-out" (an error that often
yields unintentionally comic results).
I still
believe most people who use
"out-of-pocket" to mean "away" are
making a mistake. But they are evidently
not as flat-out wrong as I had imagined.
The interesting web site "Word Court" --
which I recommend to people who like to
chew over questions of usage and syntax
-- has an entry on this expression.
Check out
http://www.wordcourt.com/archives.php?show=2004-04-0.
The author, Barbara Wallraff, traces a
decades-long history of "out-of-pocket"
referring to absence, and not just of
money. I'm not sure she has convinced me
that this use actually makes sense, but
she makes a strong, interesting case.
REAL-TIME
From Simone Parrish, Knowledge Manager &
Webmaster, Innovation Network, Inc.
Simone writes:
Real-time is a
term that makes sense in the IT/processing speed
world, but has been adopted to refer to
feedback collected hours, days, even weeks after
an event. I see people using “real-time feedback
loops” when what they mean is “quarterly
surveys."
Tony Responds:
Real-time is a
textbook example of how meaning gradually
disintegrates once a piece of technical jargon
becomes a fad.
The process starts when an obscure expression -
something that most lay people couldn't define
accurately or at all - slips out of the lab or
the academy and starts to become a little better
understood by outsiders. Maybe the word or
phrase shows up in newspaper science articles,
or in the business media, or in the linguistic
sausage-factories of the Internet. People start
to get a whiff of its meaning - or think they do
- and immediately set about misusing it.
Savoring the expression's intellectual or techy
cachet, people who have no real need to talk
about technical matters nonetheless use the
cool-sounding thing as a metaphor, fancifully
applying it to all sorts of ideas that they
think somehow, tangentially, resemble the
original meaning. By then, the word or phrase
has become trendy - a condition as fatal to
language as epidemics are to people - and
everyone feels a need to use it. "Everyone," of
course, includes a great many people who never
had the least idea what the expression actually
meant in the first place.
The popularity of "real-time" started with an
important technical meaning in computer
programming: a system functions in "real-time"
if it can respond to events as (or extremely
soon after) they happen. In this technical
sense, telephone conversations take place in
"real-time" (you hear me as soon as I speak),
but e-mail does not. That's an important
distinction in technology, as a Wikipedia author
pointed out with the example of antilock brakes:
their computer-controlled mechanism had better
respond immediately and adjust accurately
(adapting in "real-time") as the driver slams on
the brakes. Otherwise, . well, farewell driver.
It doesn't get much more concrete than that.
I think I witnessed one of the moments when this
admirably solid idea started turning to mush.
About ten years ago, I ran across a management
advisory firm that specialized in what it called
"real-time consulting." It provided, if I
recall, a pretty good service: Its experts
worked side-by-side with clients during the day,
learning their problems and uncertainties, and
then presented possible solutions the very next
morning. Clients loved it. But "real-time"? More
than twelve hours later? Picture the anti-lock
brakes on that schedule, and you see the
problem. The phrase had slipped its moorings and
was drifting off for ports unknown.
In computer programming, there is a need for a
new phrase denoting the particular time
constraints placed on a machine's ability to
execute commands in response to unfolding
events. In most other circumstances, there's no
such need. The words "immediately" and
"quickly," and the phrases "simultaneously" or
"as it's happening," all serve non-technical
purposes excellently. The reality of time is not
a subject of much dispute in most people's
lives. (Some people, unable to keep an
appointment or to meet any promised deadline,
might benefit from the phrase "unreal-time." But
that's a separate issue.) Conversational English
had utterly no need for this new phrase.
But need be damned, the language is now overrun
with "real-time." As the person who submitted
this phrase to the Jargon Finder pointed out, it
is now commonly applied to actions that take
place over many days or weeks. "I see people
using 'real-time feedback loops,' " this
correspondent writes, "when what they really
mean is 'quarterly surveys.' "
ROBUST
From Lisa P.
Slayton, Associate Director, Leadership
Initiatives
Pittsburgh Leadership Foundation
Tony Responds:
For roughly half a millennium, "robust" has been
a slightly literary -- but by no means technical
-- term for "sturdy," "hardy," "strong," and
"vigorous." It has been used to refer to just
about every kind of durability and strength,
including moral rigor, physical power,
architectural soundness, rich flavor, and even
loud music. Not long ago, there was a robust
teenage garage band two doors away from me. As I
recall, "robust" was not usually the term I or
my neighbors used to describe their unique
aesthetic.
There are a few fields in which "robust" is a jargon
term in the strictest sense -- that is, a word that
is unlikely to be understood by people outside a
given discipline. One of these apparently is
wine-tasting, judging from the word's frequent
appearance in the pages of "Wine Spectator." (It
means, according to my personal dictionary, "wine so
aggressive I probably won't like it.") But the most
arcane and technical use of "robust" is in the field
of statistics, where it describes mathematical tests
that are so reliable they yield reasonably good
results even when random events muck up some of the
underlying assumptions.
(You wanna see real jargon in action? Here's a quote
from a 1979 issue of the journal "Nature" that the
Oxford English Dictionary cites as an example of the
word's technical use: "The ANOVA assumes equality of
variances, a condition not satisfied here; however
the test is robust to small deviations in
homoscedasticity." I may be wrong, but I think
deviations in homoscedasticity, robust or not, are
illegal in several states.)
I've always admired the statisticians' use of this
word -- even though they essentially hijacked it
from centuries of use as an elegant but simple term
for "strong." What I love about the statisticians'
adoption of "robust" is that (a) it's consistent
with the earlier, non-jargon definition, in that it
describes a statistic that is hardy and vigorous
under trying circumstances; and (b) it provides a
colorful word for an important concept that really
does cry out for a special name, one that carries at
least a whiff of significance even for people with
no training in statistics. (You may not know how a
robust statistic does its job, or even what that job
is, but you can easily guess, from the word's
traditional meaning, that the statistic in question
must stand up formidably to some tough
circumstances.) The statisticians gave their
vivid-but-technical idea a vivid name, entirely in
keeping with the word's prior use and Latin
derivation (from robur: strength). I'm all for
that.
The
trouble with "robust" isn't in the realms where it's
used as real jargon, but in the thoroughly
un-technical way it is bandied about by people who
use it merely as a kind of verbal shoulder-padding
-- something to make them look burly and tough, even
though all they're really doing is whispering sweet
nothings. Most of the uses of "robust" that I see in
the philanthropic and nonprofit world are just
expressions of approval, dressed up in a strutting,
tough-guy facade. When people refer to a "robust
description" of some project, most of the time they
mean nothing more than that it was a good
description. When they say an evaluation yielded
"robust" results, they're usually not referring to
the statisticians' criteria (the results withstood
lots of variation in the peripheral variables), they
just mean the results made them happy. When you hear
foundation officers tell you their new initiative is
really "robust," ask for a definition. Most of the
time, I'll wager, they simply mean "we're spending a
lot of money on it." It's easy to see why they
wanted an intimidating, aggressive word to conceal
such pedestrian notions.
"Robust" is a really nice word. It suffers not from
being ugly jargon, but from being overused, forced
into debilitating overtime labor, a muscular word
applied to puny ideas. For those who are becoming
sick of it, I ask only that you blame the users, not
the word.
(Postscript: After completing this note, I came
across yet another realm in which "robust" has a
technical meaning: software engineering. In 1981, a
computer scientist named Jon Postel coined an
influential rule he called "the robustness
principle." I wouldn't dare to attempt a description
of what the rule means in the actual practice of
software development, but metaphorically, as a
general rule of life, it is pure poetry. It's also
an interesting application of the underlying idea of
"robustness." Postel's rule is: "Be conservative in
what you do; be liberal in what you accept from
others.")
SYSTEMIC/SYSTEMATIC
From Russ
Campbell, Communications Officer
Burroughs Wellcome Fund
Russ Writes:
These words
are slowly killing me...
Tony Responds:
“Systems” have achieved
a status in philanthropy very near that of a Holy
Grail. I mean that in at least two senses. The first
is that “systems,” like the Grail in days of yore,
are spoken of in the sort of lofty and worshipful
tones befitting the quest for a sacred trophy. When
you hear a foundation or nonprofit group speak of
some struggling field of social endeavor, sooner or
later you’re bound to hear a wistful prayer that
somehow, someone could assemble a “system” around
this line of work — a desire that is as deeply felt
as it is mystically hard to define. Everyone knows
that the desired object must be inexpressibly
wonderful, but few people have any clear idea what
it looks like.
The second sense in
which systems are like the Grail is they are nearly
always elusive. Look where you will, you may see a
shimmer of something that distantly suggests the
Great Thing you seek, but the closer you get, the
faster it fades. In fact, much like the Grail
itself, a true system (at least the kind imagined in
the Social Science story-books) is something whose
actual existence is a matter of empirical doubt.
Firsthand sightings, as with the Grail, have been
rare and of suspect authenticity. (Consider the
supposedly great systems to which other fields are
enviously held up: a health-care “system” in which
the payers, payees, and beneficiaries are in open
war with one another, or the school “system,” whose
failings are the subject of constant, mutual
recrimination among its governors, employees,
parents, and middle managers.)
Among the social
reformers, the adjectives “systemic” and
“systematic” are just a grammatical variation on
this theme: modifiers formed from the same vapor as
“systems.” When nonprofits promise their funders
that they will pursue some goal “systematically,”
they seem to be evoking a keenly planned assault on
multiple fronts, defeating some problem by
harnessing all the elements of a putative “system”
to bring about a harmonious solution. (In this
common use, “systematic” and “comprehensive” often
travel together.) What they are actually promising,
most of the time, is just diligence and persistence
— virtues, to be sure, but nothing quite so
marvelous as the shimmering adjective suggests. When
foundations trumpet a “systematic” approach to some
intractable problem, they usually mean merely that
they will try to spend their money carefully and
thoughtfully (rather than just throwing it around,
the way other foundations do?). Again, that’s
reassuring, but not exactly life-altering.
The problem with
“systems,” “systematic,” and “systemic” is not just
that they are ubiquitous and therefore tiresome
(though that is certainly true and growing truer as
every year goes by). The problem is that these words
seem to say something complicated and important, but
it’s impossible to tell what that great thought
might be. Even if someone is using these words to
mean something specific, well thought-out, original,
and genuinely important, a reader could be forgiven
for overlooking or doubting that fact. After so many
false sightings, people are entitled to a little
skepticism any time an armored horseman arrives
claiming to have located the Holy Grail.
TRACTION
From Lennie Magida, Senior Manager, Development
& Communications, Association of Small
Foundations
Tony Responds:
Traction is a word that
annoys people not because it's jargon (I'll defend it
against that charge in a minute) but because it's
overused. The idea of traction, as in "we need to renew
this grant because the project is just gaining
traction," gives people in philanthropy an incomparable
thrill. It describes that magic moment when someone's
cherished idea - the sweet, ingenious solution to a
public problem that has bedeviled generations of earlier
social theorists - starts to show signs of working. Oh,
the narcotic effect! But like many narcotics, it has
spawned an army of addicts and pushers, and the result
isn't pretty. "Traction" has become an industry cliché,
and plenty of people are sick of it.
But I wouldn't call it jargon. The uses of "traction" I
see most often are just metaphorical applications of a
very common, simple idea: one thing pulling another,
with sufficient force to cause the pulled thing to move.
The era of trains and cars has added a related
connotation of adhesive friction: the grip of a wheel on
track or of a tire on blacktop. As a metaphor, the idea
is hardly technical or obscure. The Oxford English
Dictionary traces figurative uses of "traction" as far
back as the 17th century, and none of them requires any
special mastery of engineering or physics to understand.
When someone describes wind power as "an old idea
finally achieving a long-delayed traction," surely
anyone could guess the meaning: the idea is "pulling"
supporters along a path toward some greater goal of
renewable energy. What's not to understand?
Yet not being jargon is a poor defense against a far
graver indictment: being tiresome. A really overworked
cliché can have the same effect on listeners or readers
as a baffling bit of techno-gibberish. Both will cause
the audience to tune out - the jargon because it's
incomprehensible, the cliché because it's
sleep-inducing. But clichés have the added disadvantage
of producing an effect exactly opposite to the one the
user probably intends. Instead of seeming clever,
colorful, and original, an overused metaphor can make
the speaker sound, at best, like a slave to fashion and,
at worst, dull, bland, and tedious. Either way, the
message is the loser.
UNDERSERVED
From Fred Silverman, VP, Marketing and Communications,
Marin Community Foundation
Tony Responds:
The use of "underserved"
is so widespread that one might think it deserves
to be condemned mainly as a cliche. But it's
actually worse than that. Even
though everyone uses it (typically three times per
page), hardly anyone ever
pauses to think about what it means -- or even what
they want it to mean. In
this respect, it is textbook public-policy jargon --
habitual cant,
unexamined and imprecise.
To prove my point about imprecision, consider some
well-to-do suburban
subdivisions. Many of them are, strictly speaking,
underserved. They are
walled-off all-residential enclaves without drug
stores or dry cleaners or
even bank branches. From most of these places, you
have to bundle into the
car and drive to just about any service you need --
usually on clogged
collector roads that slow, rather than speed, your
journey. And yet no one
ever considers these places "deprived." We assume
that a 45-minute drive in
the family sedan is a privilege of wealth, and that
people in these places
have the means to hunt down whatever they need. This
more or less proves
that "deprivation," not service levels, is what
people really have in mind
when they use minced euphemisms like "underserved."
This word belongs in a class with "at risk" and
"access," in that it leaves
at least half its point dangling. At risk of what?
Underserved by whom?
Access by what means? And just what would be an
acceptable level of service,
or risk, or access? The use of "underserved"
presumes that we are dealing
with some population that obviously needs some kind
of service and can't get
it. But something about the idea of "need" gives us
the heebie-jeebies. So,
in an excess of delicacy, we refer not to the need
itself but to someone's
failure to meet it. We rarely say why people can't
get the service: Does it
not exist? Are incomes too low to afford what is
available? Is there no
public transportation? Do the current providers have
too little money to
serve more people? In the most irritating uses of
this word, the author
doesn't specify what the need is, who is failing to
provide it and why, or
even why it is needed. We just know that the
"community" (itself a place
whose boundaries are usually left to the
imagination) is "under "what it
ought to be.
As with most jargon, "underserved" would be
pardonable enough (although
still dull and repetitive) if people would first
spell out what "service" is
lacking, why people need it, and what an "adequately
served" community would
look like. Some careful authors do that, after which
they are guilty of
nothing more than an unlovely word choice. But
"underserved" has come to be
a standard placeholder for unspeakable (and thus
unexamined) realities like
"poor," "powerless," and "unsure where to turn for
help." When the word is
used without enough explanation to set the scene and
describe what the
problem is, it gives us no real information for
making a judgment or even
picturing the solution. It's just a soothing sound
-- a lullaby ideal for
putting critics to sleep.
UNPACKING
From
M. Emma Hixson, J.D.,
Executive Director Employee Relations Department,
Minneapolis Public Schools
M. Emma writes:
A jargon I hear a
lot is “unpacking”. Everyone wants to “unpack the
teachers’ contract”. They use it to say they want to
analyze or dissect what’s in the contract. ( What
they really want to do is change it.)
Tony Responds:
The popularity of the peculiar verb "unpack" (as in
"we need to unpack theconcept of access-to-
health-care if we hope to devise better ways
todeliver medical services") is not merely a case of
a new jargon juggernaut. More interestingly, it's a
case of jargon feeding on jargon.
Here's what I mean. Why do you suppose people have
lately become so fond of a term that, in its
trendiest usage, seems to mean "disentangling all
the jumbled ideas lurking behind some vague,
catch-all word or phrase"? Might it be because we
are using so many vague, catch-all words and
phrases? People evidently feel a need for a sleek,
new way of pleading for clarity. They have my
sympathy.
The idea of "unpacking"
dense or tangled ideas is an excellent one. In fact,
if we ignore the epidemic overuse of this too-trendy
word, I think we need to give it high marks for
vividness. When I hear health experts (for instance)
talking about "access" problems, I actually do
picture an
overstuffed suitcase, fit to burst. Do they mean
"there aren't enough
clinics"? "Too few people have insurance"? "Health
professionals don't want to work in poor
neighborhoods"? "There aren't enough specialists in
disciplines that poor people need"? "Transportation
in [pick-a-city] doesn't easily get people to
suitable care?" "Not enough professionals speak
Spanish [or Portuguese, or Urdu, or
pick-a-language]"? What kind of "access" -- by whom,
to what -- are they talking about?
Ask a health expert that question and, in my
experience, you'll get the
following answer nine times out of ten (that's not
hyperbole; I've actually
kept count): "Well, we mean all those things! And
more!"
There are, of course, two colossal problems with
that answer. First, how can an average reader or
listener -- or anyone of even above-normal
intelligence -- grapple with all those disparate
problems in a single
thought? Or, for that matter, a single conversation,
or even a single
500-page book? There are so many big ideas jammed
into that little suitcase (two syllables, six
letters, 25 possible doctoral theses) you can almost
hear the groan as the seams begin to pull apart
around the edges and the teeth in the zipper start
to disengage.
The second problem is that the expert isn't telling
the truth. Whoever wrote or spoke the word "access"
in that instant wasn't really thinking of that
whole, sprawling galaxy of ideas. (To repeat: most
people aren't capable of such encyclopedic thinking
all at once.) The person was almost certainly
referring to one or two particular problems that
apply specifically to her own city, or her academic
specialty, or some group of patients about whom she
is especially worried. But like travelers who hate
to part with any of their favorite clothes, and thus
pack 20 outfits for a five-day trip, this person
reached for a word that seems to say it all, and
thus didn't have to worry about accidentally leaving
anything out.
So her listeners and
readers, forced to grapple with an overstuffed term,
have to beg her to "unpack" it to help them see what
she's really talking
about.
Yes, "unpack" is too trendy by half. I'm tired of
hearing it, and evidently
so are a lot of other people. But I'm even more
tired of the reason *why*
I'm hearing it: Far too much of what I read and hear
in the policy and
public-interest world needs "unpacking" -- because
it consists of big,
bulging, grab-bag words whose real meaning lies
buried, somewhere, under compressed layers of other,
superfluous, ill-defined, and unexamined notions.
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