RSSI Challenge, Challenge
This blog will not be a ranting blog. That said…
There are so many descriptive words in the English language that can convey a mood, thought or sentiment. So why do we get so stuck on one over another? When did “challenging” become so fashionable? I don’t want to sound like Grandpa Simpson, but in my day, things were just hard, tough, difficult, crappy, a son of a bitch. Now, they’re “challenging.” We live in economically challenging times. That kid over there is ethically challenged. And that short guy is vertically challenged.
So what do you call something that’s “easy?” Non-challenging? Challengeless? No, because those sound stupid. You call easy, well… easy. Because easy is nice. Easy is desirable. Who doesn’t want easy?
But hard, tough, difficult? We need to cushion such words like a skydiver landing on a super-thick pillow of marshmallows. Which is similar to the effect that “challenging” has. It soothes you. You know what it means, but hey, it’s just challenging. You can handle that. Why, you can even deal with it later, because doesn’t something that’s challenging feel like something that you can put off, even if for a little bit? So I challenge you, “challenge.” Stop being so bland, lifeless and practically meaningless.
Like moving forward, or going forward. Who’s trying to go backward? I suspect these terms have oozed out from the corporate world, with their “forward-looking statements” and such.
Another amazing, and almost unbelievable, one is “disgorgement of funds.” Huh? I first read this nonsense in a major American newspaper, when referring to a corporate CEO who took money from his company without authorization. This CEO didn’t disgorge crap. He ripped off his company. He embezzled. He stole.
It feels like there’s a growing numbness in our society. A huge, concerted, though not necessarily conspiratorial, effort to lull everyone. “Gee, if I tell Bob he’s doing a sucky job in a bland and generic enough way, Bob will get my drift without me having to give him my drift.” Taking someone’s feelings into account is great (I wish more people did). But adding layers of HFCS to an already sugarcoated situation is not great. If you want to tell me something, just tell it to me. I’m a big boy. I can take it. Usually.
</Grandpa Simpson rant>
So what’s some of your favorite corporate and media gobbledygook?
- GENTLE RANTS
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- January 16, 2009
It’s now out of use, but the term “empowerment” used in corporate America in the early 1990s made/makes me crazy. What frustrated me about empowerment was the condescension of it all. Some people in organizations have more power than others; don’t pretend you’re really going to share that power. Worse still was the idea that you CAN empower someone else. The best you can do is to not take someone’s power away. Perhaps the euphemisms and imprecise language rolling around our society has more to do with changing roles and shifting of social structures than laziness, or maybe not. Remember that the Omniscient Narrator left the literature scene about the time that society stopped believing in God. Perhaps we’ve stopped believing in ourselves?
Ah, where to begin with the buzzwords, where sounding current is more important than grasping concepts or meaning….
I remember being told that the company wasn’t downsizing, they were “right-sizing” and I was out of a job!
Some of the language defuses situations that could turn violent. With consistent unfairness becoming the rule over the past decade or so, verbal fences are used to shore up decisions and interactions that would otherwise be seen to be as baldly selfish as they really are.
Even apparently honest statements like “I’m backed up right now” or “my schedule’s full, what about next week?” often mean “I don’t give a flying fig for what’s important to you, I’m gonna do what I’m gonna do, so there.”