Word Up

Whenever I drive past a pub with a big plastic tree house in the garden I’m reminded of a line from Alec Guinness’s autobiography - “We stopped at one of those awful pubs for lunch; where every meal on the menu was preceded by the word “jumbo” or “sizzling”.”



Ever noticed how some words really grate? Here’s the Lizard’s top three at the moment:

A lady was doing a reasonable job trying to sell advertising space when she said, “In which sectors do you get the most traction?” Now, when a friend of mine rode a quad bike during a team-building event in Colorado he needed traction to get through the mud. When the bike toppled over and tried to rip his leg off he also needed traction not to mention painkillers and bandages.

The second word cropped up in the same conversation. In the old days you wrote articles and you placed adverts. Maybe you even provided content or copy. Not any more. I was asked to write an infomercial. As it’s a cross between an article and an advert it doesn’t have to be reasoned, unbiased or objective. I can just dress my advert up as an article, and the magazine or website doesn’t have to provide any content of its own. Everyone’s a winner.

But straight in at number one, right at the top of the Lizard’s list is coworkers. Years ago we had colleagues. I understood colleagues. Now in trendy business articles we get coworkers. As it’s obviously uncool to use hyphens these days my brain separates it into two words – cow orkers. It sounds like some terrible agricultural disease.

The Lizard also has some thoughts on jargon in the work place. What’s the most irritating word or phrase? Perhaps we need to take a helicopter view, think out of the box and really drill down to find out what it is.