{"id":1360,"date":"2013-10-09T10:00:39","date_gmt":"2013-10-09T09:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/eurotalk.com\/blog\/?p=1360"},"modified":"2013-10-09T10:00:39","modified_gmt":"2013-10-09T09:00:39","slug":"a-brief-guide-to-english-office-jargon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/a-brief-guide-to-english-office-jargon\/","title":{"rendered":"A brief guide to English Office Jargon"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today\u2019s post was contributed by Mark James, Copywriter at <\/i>Crunch Accounting<\/i><\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n

It\u2019s been just over a year since I traded academia for the office, my three years spent studying English coming to an end and my career as a copywriter now starting to take shape.<\/p>\n

\"Office<\/a>In that past year I\u2019ve had to make an array of adjustments; getting used to waking when the sun comes up rather than when it goes down and trading clubbing plans for pension plans amongst the changes I\u2019ve felt. Getting to grips with corporate lingo is something I\u2019ve faced too – an English dialect of its own that can be just as baffling as Scouse<\/a> or Geordie<\/a> (perhaps even more so).<\/p>\n

Concerned about its influence, the Plain English Campaign<\/a> has tried to contain its spread, going so far as to say that it\u2019s damaging the economy<\/a>. That\u2019s probably a tad extreme but there\u2019s no doubt that office jargon\u2019s causing contention, certain phrases creeping outside of the workplace and into our everyday language.<\/p>\n

As such, if you\u2019re planning on spending some time on these shores it might be a good idea to learn some of the basics. Here\u2019s an overview of some of the most popular…<\/p>\n

\u2018Touch base\u2019 <\/i><\/b><\/h3>\n

Heard in offices across the country, confusingly this doesn\u2019t refer to playing baseball, it simply means to establish contact with someone, perhaps through telephone, email, or a meeting in person.<\/p>\n

Example usage – \u2018David, I think you ought to touch base with Boris. His political aspirations are getting way out of control.\u2019<\/i><\/p>\n

\u2018Going forward\u2019 <\/i><\/b><\/h3>\n

You\u2019ll hear this in meetings a lot. Essentially, it translates as \u2018in the future\u2019. Why \u2018in the future\u2019 isn\u2019t deemed good enough again confuses me, but hey ho, people seem to like using it.<\/p>\n

Example usage – \u2018I\u2019ve got my eye on a Bugatti Veyron, so going forward I propose we cut costs and outsource to India.\u2019<\/i><\/p>\n

‘KPI’<\/em><\/h3>\n

An acronym which stands for \u2018Key Performance Indicator\u2019, you\u2019ll often hear this in appraisals and the like. Basically, the term encompasses anything that management can use to manage the effectiveness of a strategy or, you as an employee.<\/p>\n

Example usage – \u2018For someone brought in to increase productivity by 200%, Tarquin\u2019s KPIs are woefully low. Clear his desk whilst he\u2019s away at lunch.\u2019<\/i><\/p>\n

\u2018Thinking outside the box\u2019 <\/i><\/b><\/h3>\n

This phrase must be a nightmare for a non-native speaker, as there\u2019s no boxes involved, it simply means to think unconventionally.<\/p>\n

Example usage – \u2018To prosper in the global race, we\u2019ll need to increasingly think outside the box.\u2019<\/i><\/p>\n

\u2018ROI\u2019 <\/i><\/b><\/h3>\n

Another acronym that I thought needed explaining, this stands for \u2018Return On Investment\u2019. Put simply, it refers to how much cash an investment in something like property or a marketing campaign reaps in the long term.<\/p>\n

Example usage – \u2018We invested \u00a3200 billion in subprime mortgages but our ROI appears to be less than 300 billionths of that. In other words, we need a government bailout.’ \u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

In my first year of office work, these five terms are the ones that I\u2019ve come across the most. There\u2019s many more though, as this article<\/a>\u00a0from the BBC reflects, and if an episode of The Apprentice<\/i> is anything to go by, there\u2019s plenty more where that came from. I\u2019d start developing an office jargon app if I were you, EuroTalk…<\/p>\n

Mark James is a Copywriter for Crunch Accounting. If you\u2019d like to touch base with him going forward, find him on Twitter at <\/i>@MarkJames891<\/i><\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n

And if you\u2019re interested in learning some business English, you might want to try Talk Business<\/a>, which is available as a download or a CD-ROM. It may not include the jargon above, but it\u2019s a good place to start!<\/em><\/p>\n

Image credit –\u00a0arenagroove<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today\u2019s post was contributed by Mark James, Copywriter at Crunch Accounting. It\u2019s been just over a year since I traded academia for the office, my three years spent studying English coming to an end and my career as a copywriter now starting to take shape. In that past year I\u2019ve had to make an array … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[236,3,97],"tags":[10,235,32,309,277,310],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1360"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1360"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1360\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}