Business schools are like sanatoriums for the English language—places where words go to languish and softly fade, easing towards a coughing, clichéd death.
It’s not so much that a word ceases to exist (though this can happen—when was the last time you used “fluey”?) but rather that it ceases to convey meaning. While these good, solid business words take up space in your inbox, blinking there in 12-point Times New Roman, they seem more like a placeholder for productivity, a means of spewing forth more chatter in the ever-present quest to hide that there is very little that needs to be said.
Don’t believe me? Just open your company-issued email account and brace for the barrage. It likely reads something like this:
“Glad you circled back on this. Let me reach out to the other members of the team about this dynamic new opportunity that should really empower us to remain relevant and competitive in this challenging work environment.”
Or: “Later this week I’ll touch base with the client just to get them up to speed on new developments, and to make sure that we really keep our eyes on the ball and stay on our toes with this.”
They generally end with Best. Just Best. A lonely adjective without a noun. Best what? Best wishes? Best thoughts? The best possible version of the coworker who has sent the email? Doubtful. But you have to say something so as to avoid sounding abrupt. Sincerely overstates the importance of the missive, and expressions of affection are not office-appropriate. Thus, Best it is.
The unspoken corporate agreement is never to ask what noun Best modifies. Of course the gist of what they’re trying to say is clear, but it makes words tired, keeping up with all of this.
And it doesn’t end with corporate emails. Business books are stuffed to the gills with these phrases. MBA programs and HR departments seem to sustain themselves by generating a new vocabulary list every few years. Fluent speakers of Business English are made, not born. It’s a learned lexicon, the phrasing of business strategy books and courses in marketing.
Still, the contagion spreads. We’ve tacitly agreed to network and strategize (though thankfully synergy has been beaten back). It’s a strange new LinkedIn world where being “offboarded” from a “jobvite” because it wasn’t the right fit and “onboarded” by different HR faces in another building across town has replaced, in plain English, being fired from a place you didn’t like and hired by one you do. Fear not, soon you too will love Business English.
George Orwell famously wrote about the effect of politics on the English language. One can only imagine the fright he would have gotten had he encountered the effects of Business English. It’s a sea of dead metaphors and quirky catchphrases that have lost both their quirk and their catch.
Seventy years ago Orwell wrote that bad prose “consists in gumming together long strips of words which have already been set in order by someone else, and making the results presentable by sheer humbug.” The words of the working world share the flaws of Orwell’s political speech. It shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. Bad writing is bad writing, both in politics and in business. A loss of clarity comes along with stale phrasing. Just as the soft dim light of the sickroom might obscure the difference between mumps and measles, so these pleasantly inoffensive terms have wiped away any distinction between circling back and closing the loop.
This isn’t a cry to take up literary arms. There is a need for daily workmanlike English. It’s direct and to the point and answers important questions like “When’s lunch?” or “What street is this?” With all due apologies to Orwell, there may even be a need to ask about cul de sacs rather than roads. Rereading Orwell’s essay can be somewhat encouraging. For all of the stale phrases that have lingered, some that drew his ire have, in fact, vanished.
And yet, the rise of Business English cannot be ignored. It’s a matter of individual choice. Stop before you send! Think: Is this email stripping any word of its hard-earned meaning? Are my metaphors true images or just ways to pad an email enough to justify pressing send? The problem and the solution start in your inbox.
