Tuesday, November 01, 2005
Contemporary cliches, Cant & Management Jargon explained
To be honest, he was more known as a straight shooter and would only lapse when his boss required evasive action, spin, or to say with ‘absolute certainty’, when he means ‘possibly, maybe not, what do you take this government for?’
Not only is Weasel Words genius satire (comparable to the very, very English The Meaning of Liff, by Douglas Adams), but it also a cautionary tale and a reference guide everyone who writes published information should read.
Watson argues many of his weasel words began life as anything but. However, now they have since had the meaning ‘sucked out of them’. Why? Well, in many instances this was done purposefully – to make sure they became empty vessels that could be later re-translated to mean the exact opposite, if required.
But also, the management consultant revolution has reframed and conjoined words to make their profession utterly impenetrable to outsiders, in an effort to justify their salaries, other people’s sackings (or offshorings) or their client’s decision to bring them in, in the first place. Not able to parse the words said at them, people can merely parrot them back, thus propagating the nonsense.
However, in their most repugnant form, weasel words are simply euphemisms, designed to hide a truly violent act behind a media and publicly acceptable term: see lit-up, daisy cutter and degrade. The US Department of Defense must have whole sections devoted to poring over thesauruses, concocting new terms for ‘shot in the head’; ones the focus groups are more ‘comfortable’ with.
Before Watson, George Orwell understood the power of semantics when he created Newspeak, the language of Ingsoc, in 1984. Its fictional, sympathetic architects sought to protect their comrades from seditious thoughts by stripping meaning from words, thus rendering thoughtcrime impossible. Thus, “All men are created equal” is a valid Newspeak sentence, were it not for the ludicrous suggestion it makes. All man cannot be of equal size, weight or hair colour. Any notion of ‘political equality’ had been purged, thus no one is able to convey the concept.
As an aside, one point of difference between Orwell and Watson is vocabulary size. While Newspeak sought to cull words – why have both ‘good’ and ‘bad’ when ‘good’ and ‘ungood’ suffices – Watson’s weasel words generate an expanding dictionary of new creations – synergies, professionalisation, keyaccountabilities. But both serves the purposes of the language architects.
What Newspeak and weasel words do share is their goal of restricting thought. For Orwell this served the political objectives of the Party – to remain in absolute power, forever. For Watson it serves any of the interests of anyone who cares to talk this meaningless, evasive, platitudinous language, really wants – to lie, to sell (often the same), to fill pages, to placate or just to sound important.
Extract:
portal
Window, door, gate, etc. means of entrance; ‘portal of knowledge’, hence common in knowledge management and computer science:
‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves,
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe,
All mimsy were the borogroves,
And the mome raths outgrabe’.
(Ironically, despite Lewis Carroll’s poem, Jabberwocky, being nonsense, it still stirs wonderful imagery and great comic meaning.)
Contemporary cliches, Cant & Management Jargon explained
Posted by Living with Matilda at 12:19 PM
To be honest, he was more known as a straight shooter and would only lapse when his boss required evasive action, spin, or to say with ‘absolute certainty’, when he means ‘possibly, maybe not, what do you take this government for?’
Not only is Weasel Words genius satire (comparable to the very, very English The Meaning of Liff, by Douglas Adams), but it also a cautionary tale and a reference guide everyone who writes published information should read.
Watson argues many of his weasel words began life as anything but. However, now they have since had the meaning ‘sucked out of them’. Why? Well, in many instances this was done purposefully – to make sure they became empty vessels that could be later re-translated to mean the exact opposite, if required.
But also, the management consultant revolution has reframed and conjoined words to make their profession utterly impenetrable to outsiders, in an effort to justify their salaries, other people’s sackings (or offshorings) or their client’s decision to bring them in, in the first place. Not able to parse the words said at them, people can merely parrot them back, thus propagating the nonsense.
However, in their most repugnant form, weasel words are simply euphemisms, designed to hide a truly violent act behind a media and publicly acceptable term: see lit-up, daisy cutter and degrade. The US Department of Defense must have whole sections devoted to poring over thesauruses, concocting new terms for ‘shot in the head’; ones the focus groups are more ‘comfortable’ with.
Before Watson, George Orwell understood the power of semantics when he created Newspeak, the language of Ingsoc, in 1984. Its fictional, sympathetic architects sought to protect their comrades from seditious thoughts by stripping meaning from words, thus rendering thoughtcrime impossible. Thus, “All men are created equal” is a valid Newspeak sentence, were it not for the ludicrous suggestion it makes. All man cannot be of equal size, weight or hair colour. Any notion of ‘political equality’ had been purged, thus no one is able to convey the concept.
As an aside, one point of difference between Orwell and Watson is vocabulary size. While Newspeak sought to cull words – why have both ‘good’ and ‘bad’ when ‘good’ and ‘ungood’ suffices – Watson’s weasel words generate an expanding dictionary of new creations – synergies, professionalisation, keyaccountabilities. But both serves the purposes of the language architects.
What Newspeak and weasel words do share is their goal of restricting thought. For Orwell this served the political objectives of the Party – to remain in absolute power, forever. For Watson it serves any of the interests of anyone who cares to talk this meaningless, evasive, platitudinous language, really wants – to lie, to sell (often the same), to fill pages, to placate or just to sound important.
Extract:
portal
Window, door, gate, etc. means of entrance; ‘portal of knowledge’, hence common in knowledge management and computer science:
Compare to:‘Human-orientated workflow is the next frontier for portal frameworks. The year 2004 will be “the year of the process portal” for portal frameworks, whereas 2001 was the year of the content portal, 2002 application access and 2003 collaboration – with each year adding to the capabilities of those before it. This pattern of feature creep will end with composite applications in 2007, after which portal and composite application frameworks will merge and become indistinguishable.’
International Association for Human Resource
Information Management
‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves,
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe,
All mimsy were the borogroves,
And the mome raths outgrabe’.
(Ironically, despite Lewis Carroll’s poem, Jabberwocky, being nonsense, it still stirs wonderful imagery and great comic meaning.)
Posted by Living with Matilda at 12:19 PM
Disclaimer:
| I am employed by Brisbane City Council. All views expressed in this blog are my own and in no way reflect the views of my employer. |
Weasel Word(s) of the day:
From WeaselWords.com.au
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home