Nicole Livelong

I consider it both a curse and a blessing that I’ve managed to sidestep soulless corporate jargon for most of my professional life. It’s not until this last year that I’ve been pushed into the festering swamp of meaningless business drivel.

See, I get to write for a living. Not in a glamorous artiste way, but in a business copywriter way. I thought that as long as I was able to make words the crux of my career, I could find innate satisfaction in what I do. What I didn’t realize was that I’d be stepping into a world of using so many self-important words to say so little. That each and every day, I’d be forced to read sentences that were so pompously written, so ego-driven, that they should be classified as inappropriate for the workplace. Because clearly, someone’s getting off on them.

When I picture the type of person who relies almost entirely on corporate jargon, I picture them at their laptop, kicking up their feet and giggling about how oh-so-clever their wordsmanship is. I can almost hear them thinking to themselves: “Yes. Look at me writing something so smart. So business. Who cares if the person reading it will have to re-read this five times in a row and still not understand what I’m saying? They are only confused because I am so smart and can write a complicated-sounding sentence that could be much more simple, but that I refuse to make more simple. Because if it were simpler and clearer for the reader, that would make what I’m saying and doing less complicated and important. And the only reason I value myself is that people pay me because they believe that I am so smart and complicated and important.”

I assume it’s something along those lines.

Because I refuse to be the type of person to condone that train of thought, I made this list of no-go words. These words, my “Words that make my brain shriek like a deranged banshee” words, are words that, as it says on the tin, make my brain shriek like a deranged banshee anytime I’m exposed them.

The specific reason for this shrieking varies, but the result is the same.

What makes me the authority on this? Well, let me credentialize myself by leveraging my expertise and demonstrating how by utilizing the English language in the right way, I can enable a seamless experience for the end-user. In other, better, words: trust me, I’ve written and edited enough to know when your writing makes your audience hate you.

Now, in order of least to most egregious, here are some of the words I hate, why I hate them, and how loud they make my brain shriek, described through equivalent irritating noises.

Innovative

Look, it’s not that I’m loading the dishwasher incorrectly. You’re just not appreciating my innovative approach to arranging the dishes.

Innovation is a relative concept these days.

In traditional industries where most ideas are based on already-existing ideas from other industries or companies and then peer reviewed by every layer of middle-management, any change feels groundbreaking. Even if it’s a whittled down, toothless version of change.

But, everything can’t be innovative. I understand that you live and die by continuously iterating to continuously improve to continuously charge customers more money. But, before you start calling whatever change “innovation”, ask yourself: is using technology that’s been available for 10+ years and has been industry-standard for just as many actual innovation, or is it something new for me?

Shriek irritation level: The low, persistent buzzing of a light bulb that hasn’t been screwed in properly.

Optimize

I’ve optimized my relaxation to achieve peak productivity. The trick is using every relaxation technique at once, until you’re so overstimulated that your muscles seize up and you’re even more stressed out. Now relaxing seems so un-relaxing that being productive and doing things is now the more relaxing activity.

It feels like nowadays, every process, system, service, or action needs to perform at its peak, every time. And even if you think it’s already performing at its peak, you’re wrong because you can still do better.

Most of the times, people will say that their product or service will optimize something with little to no evidence. I’ve seen ads for water bottles that “optimize your water-drinking experience”. I’ve seen claims from software companies that suggest their software will make you x% more efficient than doing things manually – like that’s a fair comparison. If I claimed that a car will get you x% faster to a destination than walking, you’d think I’m daft for stating the obvious.

These subjective claims use skewed statistics to back them up. This only say one thing to me: “Our product/service does one thing slightly different than other similar product/services. We can’t prove it’s any better but we hope that by throwing around random numbers and features, you’ll be dazzled by our bullshit long enough to purchase it before you realize it doesn’t really add any value to your life.”

Shriek irritation level: The faint yet incessant chirp of a smoke detector with low battery, located in your too-chill, “I’ll leave it to tomorrow” upstairs neighbors apartment.

Enable

This dog treat will enable me to train my dog while also making it love me more than anyone else.

Help and use have become verbum non grata in the corporate world. Thankfully, enable exists to avoid using either of them.

By enabling instead of using, you can take away your audience’s agency and make them passive users. You’re the one leading them to success and they better not forget it. With enable, that’s now possible. So no, you didn’t choose to use your dishwasher to wash your dishes. Your dishwasher enabled you to have a seamless, automatic, dishwashing experience.

The word help, on the other hand, implies subservience and a lack of confidence. It’s the damp, pathetic handshake of the corporate world. Only effeminate, weak-willed individuals help other people. No, I, big, assertive, strong-minded business person, enable others to do things. It is through my guidance, nay – my permission – that my customers can achieve the results they achieve.

Outside of business-speak, enabling tends to skew negative. From enabling addicts to fall back into their addictions to enabling friends to continue their toxic behaviors, I think I’d still much rather help than enable.

Shriek irritation level: Your housemate’s alarm clock going off in their locked room, a day after they’ve left for a long weekend away.

Accelerate

My colleague has accelerated my annoyance by choosing to act like he’s everyone’s manager because he’s incapable of doing anything himself.

I accept accelerate if we’re talking about speed or growth. I draw the line at anywhere else.

The business world is obsessed with speed. Every industry is “rapidly changing”. Every environment “fast-paced”. We’ve reached a point where we’ve shunned the tortoise over the hare because isn’t it obvious that faster equals better? And yes, while technological advances have certainly (ahem) accelerated (ahem) exponentially in the last twenty years, that doesn’t mean that every non-tech industry has to play catch-up with every new change.

When I hear companies “accelerating their business” or “accelerating their impact”, my brain immediately goes numb at this vague nothing of a word. I patiently await the day that people catch on that catalyst, a word that emphasizes influence over speed, is a way better word for what they mean.

Shriek irritation level: Your mother vacuuming your room to salsa music on full blast on a Saturday morning where you’d planned to sleep in.

Utilize

Before we go, can I utilize your toilet quickly?

Stop using utilize when you mean use. Some people are not aware that utilize and use are not synonyms. When you utilize something, you are using something in a way that veers off from what its intended use is. So no, you are not utilizing the software built with the sole purpose of being a project management tool for the management of your project.

If you’re utilizing the word utilize when you should be using the word use to sounds smarter, know that on the other side of the screen I’m squinting at you in judgement.

Shriek irritation level: A person standing next to you at a concert, singing so loud that you can’t hear your favorite singer’s voice.

Seamless (See also: frictionless and smooth)

I know tacos can get quite messy, so let’s make sure that our guests have a seamless taco-eating experience at tonight’s dinner.

The only place I want to see the word seamless is for physical objects without any seams. A seamless swimsuit or seamless woodworking don’t infuriate me. But if you start going on about a seamless experience I will raid your closet, and pick out every seam in every piece of clothing you own.

You want to convey that you’re capable of making things go off without a hitch. That you can carry out a pain-free process, where your customer doesn’t have to worry about a thing. My question to you is: has this ever happened ever? The only seamless, smooth, frictionless experience I’ve ever had in my life has been the automatic walking treadmills at the aquarium and airport. And even then, if you’re going too fast, and not paying enough attention, you will trip up on your way off.

It’s time to crash back into reality and accept that the only time you’ll achieve anything seamless, smooth, or frictionless, is in the physical realm. When it comes to people, well, they’re too messy for seamless.

Shriek irritation level: Your cats incessant meows for food at 5 AM every day, even though she knows she doesn’t get fed until 7:30.

Disruption/Disruptor

Putting in my milk before my cereal doesn’t make me a sociopath, it makes me a disruptor.

Rian Johnson’s “Glass Onion” has done wonders for getting people to stop calling themselves disruptors. Alas, there are still many who carry that title like a badge of pride. The thing is, just like innovation in the corporate world, there is very little actual disruption going on. Let’s focus on the so-called disruptors themselves.

My issue with disruptors is that 10/10 times I’ve met a self-titled (because it’s always self-titled) disruptor, they’ve turned out to be so self-involved they’d make Narcissus look humble. They’re the type of person who believes the rules don’t apply to them. That any process or system that they don’t agree with must be wrong and conceived by an idiot, because they’d do things oh-so differently. That their brain is the only one with worthy ideas. And that, if anyone challenges these ideas, the other person is too small-minded and stupid to understand their genius intellect.

The worst part? They’re impossible to ignore because they refuse to be quiet about any of it.

Shriek irritation level: A baby crying on an airplane, whose parents choose the “ignore their crying, don’t soothe them” route, sat right next to you.

Synergy

I think we should spend time with other people. Our friendship doesn’t really have the synergy it used to have.

Coming into corporate, I was amazed at the fact that there are people still using this word unironically. Synergy’s sin comes from its status as the corporate buzzword bingo word. As such, instead of a rant, I leave you with the video that plays in my head whenever someone uses it.

Shriek irritation level: A loud squeaky toy, next to your ear, when you were 0.2 seconds away from falling asleep.

Credentialize

If you want him to think you’re serious about dating, you need to credentialize yourself by showing you’re not a crazy-obsessed stalker.

The first time I heard someone use the word credentialize was from someone sitting two desk behind me, on an hour-long call, using 80% buzzwords, at the top of their lungs. Like nails on chalkboard, I immediately stopped what I was doing to search whether this even was a real word. It is. For the first time in my life, I felt compelled to contact the dictionary to request they erase it from existence. At least for the business definition entry of legitimizing yourself.

When I lived in Spain, in English class, there was a joke Spanish students had about how you could turn any Spanish word into an English one by added the suffix -ation to it. Piscination was pool, lapization was pencil, and hijo de putation was son of a bitch . I’ve slowly come to realize that corporate jargon follows the same logic. Add an -ation or an -ize and you’ve got yourself a new ear-bleeding buzzword.

Shriek irritation level: A jet-engine in your ear. Full eardrum rupture.

I’m not arguing that simple, clear language is the epitome of good writing. I love my ostentatious prose and superfluous, definitely-using-this-because-I-just-learned-this-through-the-dictionary-word-of-the-day vocabulary. My issue is that, for much of business writing, the goal seems to be to make relatively easy-to-grasp concepts and ideas into anything more than they are.

These words are too often weaponized as a way to convince through confusion. They’re wielded in the hope that you don’t look too closely, lest you find out they’re not as sharp as you thought. Like a shitty slight of hand that can’t help but expose the prop knife: once you take a closer look, they’re kind of flimsy and can’t stand on their own.

Pervasive impostor syndrome, insecurity, and competitiveness, drives people to be as obtuse as possible, while letting them live out a linguistic limp dick of a power trip that leaves the other person dissatisfied, feeling slightly cheated, and wanting more.

Have I ever used these words? Yes, because even I, as flawless as I am, get lazy sometimes and don’t want to look for the right words that actually say what I want it to say. That is the issue at the core of it: it’s lazy writing. Not only is it lazy writing, it’s lazy writing cloaked in self-importance and pseudo-intelligence.

Well, you can count me out…

…

…unless I’m feeling lazy and can’t come up with a better word because I can’t bother anymore, as people keep on insisting that I add these words in, and there’s a thousand other things on the to-do. Then please, look away and know that I know what I’m doing: I’ve just given up.