Does business-speak speak to you?

Learning business English can sometimes be much more of a challenge than conversational English or English for particular industries.  Students of English may be surprised that native speakers are also often frustrated by the sheer number (and often pointlessness) of new management-speak terms that are thrown around the corporate workplace.

In the office, everything from modified sports terms (‘this project will be a home run for us’), to business clichés (‘let’s think outside the box on this one’), to completely irrelevant analogies (‘this company is a really cool train set‘) abound. Middle and upper management seem to constantly be throwing together mixed metaphors (‘You can’t have your cake and eat it, so you have to step up to the plate and face the music‘) and making up words and phrases (incentivise, strategic staircase).  Is it because they don’t really know what they’re doing, don’t have a plan, or do they think that buzzwords will justify their overblown salaries?

Many of the above phrases are from a compilation of BBC readers’ worst examples of office-speak.  Read the full list to find out why one reader’s boss suggested idea showers instead of brainstorms.