What do you think of "Managementspeak"?

[texaskdog]

she might have said "have a dialogue" ...twice...when I wanted her to just say she was going to talk to someone.

[texaskdog]

Now I keep having to hear about "Reaching Out".   "will you reach out to them..."

[tckma]

One that grates on my ears that I was reminded of when I heard it this morning: reach out.

"I'll reach out to him today" versus "I'll talk to him today."

[Max Rockatansky]

Calling people "resources" or "assets." 

[hotdogPi]

Calling people "resources"

And I thought slavery was gone in the United States for over one hundred years.

[Max Rockatansky]

Calling people "resources"

And I thought slavery was gone in the United States for over one hundred years.

Usually it's phrased in some HR document or presentation "people are our greatest resources and/or assets."  It ain't slavery if you are paid but it's still pretty demeaning to someone's intelligence to call them anything other than an "employee."

[1995hoo]

Redundancies annoy me. Stuff like "each and every" or "any and all." I once saw a document that defined the word "each" as meaning "each and every."

[empirestate]

A subset or relative of "managementspeak" that I've observed might be termed "law enforcement-speak". I've noticed whenever you hear a press conference given by a spokesman for a law enforcement agency, specific verbiage is very commonly heard, with wording such as "at that point in time", "ascertained", and "the individual" being frequently used.

Is there specific phraseology that's taught as part of standard police training that would be ingrained in the speech of officials giving information to the general public?

[tckma]

A subset or relative of "managementspeak" that I've observed might be termed "law enforcement-speak". I've noticed whenever you hear a press conference given by a spokesman for a law enforcement agency, specific verbiage is very commonly heard, with wording such as "at that point in time", "ascertained", and "the individual" being frequently used.

Is there specific phraseology that's taught as part of standard police training that would be ingrained in the speech of officials giving information to the general public?

Allegedly.

[jeffandnicole]

A subset or relative of "managementspeak" that I've observed might be termed "law enforcement-speak". I've noticed whenever you hear a press conference given by a spokesman for a law enforcement agency, specific verbiage is very commonly heard, with wording such as "at that point in time", "ascertained", and "the individual" being frequently used.

Is there specific phraseology that's taught as part of standard police training that would be ingrained in the speech of officials giving information to the general public?

Allegedly.

Yep, it's called Avoiding a Lawsuit.  If they say someone did it, and that person is found innocent or not guilty, then he/she can sue for slander and usually win.

What gets me is when they use it when the person was found guilty.  At that point, the jury decided there was enough evidence that he did do it.  But I guess if they go thru the appeal process and the verdict is overturned, they don't want the guy saying "Well, the news media said I did it".  Yeah, at the time, so did the jury! 

It also gets me that they still use it in very obvious cases, such as "John Doe allegedly slammed his car into the brick wall and had to be removed with the jaws of life".   Well, did someone else do it and manage to stuff someone else's body into the wreck? 

[hbelkins]

One thing that bugs me, and that I hear all the time in my line of work, is "the subject project." 

[texaskdog]

One I do like "future endevaors".  Any time someone gets canned "we wish them well in their future endeavors" as opposed to people who quit with notice and they say good things about them.

[kkt]

It also gets me that they still use it in very obvious cases, such as "John Doe allegedly slammed his car into the brick wall and had to be removed with the jaws of life".   Well, did someone else do it and manage to stuff someone else's body into the wreck? 

"Slammed" is an active verb implying active participation.  Maybe the Mr. Doe suffered a seizure and lost control.

[empirestate]

A subset or relative of "managementspeak" that I've observed might be termed "law enforcement-speak". I've noticed whenever you hear a press conference given by a spokesman for a law enforcement agency, specific verbiage is very commonly heard, with wording such as "at that point in time", "ascertained", and "the individual" being frequently used.

Is there specific phraseology that's taught as part of standard police training that would be ingrained in the speech of officials giving information to the general public?

Allegedly.

Yep, it's called Avoiding a Lawsuit.  If they say someone did it, and that person is found innocent or not guilty, then he/she can sue for slander and usually win.

I get the "allegedly" thing (it's a guideline for journalists as well), but what about the rest of it?

[Scott5114]

Redundancies annoy me. Stuff like "each and every" or "any and all." I once saw a document that defined the word "each" as meaning "each and every."

There is a woman who announces the winners of giveaways over the PA at the casino I work at. If the winner doesn't show up, she'll say "This is the last and final call for James Smith, please come to the promotion booth." I asked her if she had ever somehow had one of those last calls not also be the final call, and she said she prefers saying it that way because she thinks it sounds better. She's pretty well known for word-salading it up on the intercom in general–sometimes devolving into hilarity, such as the time she was giving away a tent that could hold ten people and called it a "ten men tent", resulting in jestful queries of whether the ten men came with the tent.

Her coworker is a lot better at making intelligible comments on the intercom, but it's very easy to get her to start laughing hysterically on the mic.

[formulanone]

Science cannot explain the differences between a "full flight", "very full flight", and "extremely full flight". If the plane was over 100% capacity, you can bet the FAA wants to know about it, and the airline is delighted that it can tell its investors as much.

Basically, this is how flight attendants tell people to "hurry up".

[texaskdog]

I just got out of a meeting where someone was going to "take something ofline"

[SSOWorld]

DOT's (well a handful of them) will add "operations" to any activity.

* Mowing operations
* Flagging operations
* Painting operations
* Paving operations

You get the point operations (now that just sounded like bad operations)

[empirestate]

And when did companies stop offering products and services and instead begin selling "solutions"?

[1995hoo]

Redundancies annoy me. Stuff like "each and every" or "any and all." I once saw a document that defined the word "each" as meaning "each and every."

There is a woman who announces the winners of giveaways over the PA at the casino I work at. If the winner doesn't show up, she'll say "This is the last and final call for James Smith, please come to the promotion booth." ....

Heh, I'd forgotten about that one. Many of the Metrorail operators here say that too when the train is approaching the end of the line. "This is the last and final stop."

[GaryV]

Science cannot explain the differences between a "full flight", "very full flight", and "extremely full flight". If the plane was over 100% capacity, you can bet the FAA wants to know about it, and the airline is delighted that it can tell its investors as much.

Basically, this is how flight attendants tell people to "hurry up".

The concepts of a non-stop flight and a "near miss" are other airline words.  I think it was George Carlin who pointed out that he wants his plane to stop at the end of the flight.  And a near miss?  "Aw, we nearly missed him, but we finally managed to hit that other plane."

[texaskdog]

we need one for regular people talking  "real quick"  "to be honest"  "I mean" .......

[hbelkins]

DOT's (well a handful of them) will add "operations" to any activity.

* Mowing operations
* Flagging operations
* Painting operations
* Paving operations

You get the point operations (now that just sounded like bad operations)

Ha. When I first started with KYTC, the maintenance branch was called the Operations Branch. Before I joined, I had no idea what "Operations" was. It didn't make sense.

Each district had five branches -- Operations (maintenance), Construction (the inspectors overseeing contractor jobs), Planning (self-explanatory), Pre-Construction (preparing projects for bid) and a catch-all branch, the name of which I cannot remember, that covered equipment, structures (bridges), roadside/agronomy, fleet maintenance, permits, traffic (signs and signals) and various other things.

If you want managementspeak, get a load of the name of the branches now. Eight years ago KYTC reorganized, merging planning into pre-construction and combining maintenance and construction, then splitting them into two branches each covering half the district. Now each district has two Project Delivery & Preservation (PD&P) branches, a Project Development Branch and an Engineering Support Branch.

I think most people would look at that and say, "What is Project Delivery and Preservation supposed to be?"

[Max Rockatansky]

DOT's (well a handful of them) will add "operations" to any activity.

* Mowing operations
* Flagging operations
* Painting operations
* Paving operations

You get the point operations (now that just sounded like bad operations)

Ha. When I first started with KYTC, the maintenance branch was called the Operations Branch. Before I joined, I had no idea what "Operations" was. It didn't make sense.

Each district had five branches -- Operations (maintenance), Construction (the inspectors overseeing contractor jobs), Planning (self-explanatory), Pre-Construction (preparing projects for bid) and a catch-all branch, the name of which I cannot remember, that covered equipment, structures (bridges), roadside/agronomy, fleet maintenance, permits, traffic (signs and signals) and various other things.

If you want managementspeak, get a load of the name of the branches now. Eight years ago KYTC reorganized, merging planning into pre-construction and combining maintenance and construction, then splitting them into two branches each covering half the district. Now each district has two Project Delivery & Preservation (PD&P) branches, a Project Development Branch and an Engineering Support Branch.

I think most people would look at that and say, "What is Project Delivery and Preservation supposed to be?"

Geeze sounds like they stole the playbook from Incident Command System.  Read up on ICS-100 and ICS-200 on fema.gov to get a good idea what I'm talking about, it's almost word for word what you are describing.

[SSOWorld]

DOT's (well a handful of them) will add "operations" to any activity.

* Mowing operations
* Flagging operations
* Painting operations
* Paving operations

You get the point operations (now that just sounded like bad operations)

Ha. When I first started with KYTC, the maintenance branch was called the Operations Branch. Before I joined, I had no idea what "Operations" was. It didn't make sense.

Each district had five branches -- Operations (maintenance), Construction (the inspectors overseeing contractor jobs), Planning (self-explanatory), Pre-Construction (preparing projects for bid) and a catch-all branch, the name of which I cannot remember, that covered equipment, structures (bridges), roadside/agronomy, fleet maintenance, permits, traffic (signs and signals) and various other things.

If you want managementspeak, get a load of the name of the branches now. Eight years ago KYTC reorganized, merging planning into pre-construction and combining maintenance and construction, then splitting them into two branches each covering half the district. Now each district has two Project Delivery & Preservation (PD&P) branches, a Project Development Branch and an Engineering Support Branch.

I think most people would look at that and say, "What is Project Delivery and Preservation supposed to be?"

Geeze sounds like they stole the playbook from Incident Command System.  Read up on ICS-100 and ICS-200 on fema.gov to get a good idea what I'm talking about, it's almost word for word what you are describing.

which leads to Acrononym and Abbreviation overload [PDP, CDDP, FT4, iT4, TLA (guess what that means), ECU, ACU, ACLU (oh wait..)]