While I love my job as an editor, there are days when every little thing annoys me—usually, that annoyance is with meaningless corporate jargon. I’ve seen the articles about words and phrases that just irritate the crap out of people, so I decided to compile my own list of hackneyed buzzwords.
I’d like to preface this by admitting my guilt for using many of these things myself, but I’d like to call for their demise once and for all. A large part of me is convinced that we all secretly despise these phrases but only continue to use them so we’re not “that weird person at the office who doesn’t understand our lingo.” Here is a list of my twelve most hated expressions.
- Reach out: When I think of this phrase, I associated it with people reaching out for help with a serious problem related to health or welfare—or vice versa, reaching out to help someone with a problem. In corporate jargon, this phrase is used to refer to sending an email or making a phone call, usually to clear up some simple discrepancy or misinterpretation. It makes me roll my eyes every time, but I still use it in my own emails to my manager just to not sound weird.
- Speak out: I see this all the time in headlines, but it’s rare that the articles they refer to discuss anything newsworthy. To “speak out” about something connotes seeking justice for some social wrong. The club SOAR stands for “Speak Out Against Rape.” Nowadays, “speaking out” can refer to anything from rape and murder to a celebrity’s dramatic new haircut.
- According to science: Likewise, this is typically used in clickbait headlines, and often, the “science” they’re referring to is some uncited study based on an entirely different topic. An article referring to a cluster of surveys that show a slight correlation between getting married at age 31 and a low divorce rate may have the headline “Why You Shouldn’t Get Married After 31, According to Science.” These types of headlines [and the articles associated with them] are misleading at best, and at worst, completely false.
- At the end of the day: Unless you literally mean to set a deadline for the end of the day, this phrase is meaningless filler—just categorize it along with “like” or “um.”
- Anything ending with “hack”: To hack something means to bypass security features to gain insider knowledge about something not readily available. Life hack, kitchen hack, teaching hack, writing hack—they’re all just tips and suggestions.
- Game changer: Not every new thing is a game changer. In order to be classified as such, it would have to drastically and forever change the way some type of system operates. The new bug-fixing software upgrade is not a game-changer; it’s just the way technology naturally progresses.
- Innovation: See: game changer.
- Bandwitdth: “I don’t have the bandwidth for that right now.” The word you’re looking for is “time.”
- Utilize: I had a teacher once who used this word at least twenty times a day, and it drove me nuts. “Utilize your notebooks,” “utilize your minds,” “utilize your desks” … Ugh! In nearly every case, “use” would be perfectly acceptable. To utilize conveys that you’re using something to its most optimal potential or not for its intended purpose—for instance, I may utilize a bobby pin to unlock a door or utilize my Word skills to correct the formatting on someone’s résumé, but I’m not utilizing my pen to take notes; that’s what it’s for.
- Suck it up, buttercup: Always used by forum trolls. Please be more original.
- Think outside of the box: I wish people would think outside of the box when it comes to this hackneyed expression—just please don’t tell me to innovate instead.
- Personal brand: While it’s true that being conscious of how you present yourself on the Internet is important for success in today’s career market, referring to me as a “brand” just makes me feel more like a box of Kellog’s than a person.
What are your most hated words and expressions? Tell me in the comments!
The Humble Pedant 