A service from Red Gate

in
Home SQL .NET Exchange Opinion Blogs Forums About
Sign in | Join | Help
Home Blogs Forums
Blogs Home > Tony Davis > "Jargon busting" competition

Tony Davis

Simple-Talk Editor
News, views and good brews

"Jargon busting" competition

Published Tuesday, February 06, 2007 6:10 PM

What, in your opinion, are the worst, most annoying cases of IT jargon that are currently in vogue? At Simple-talk we're on a drive to stamp them out. The top five words/phrases that you will not hear around Simple-Talk are:

 

  • Synergy
  • Thought leadership
  • Social media communities
  • Ground-floor opportunity
  • Vibrant (by order of Phil Factor)

The list is growing day by day. By way of a diverting competition, all you have to do is send me the top three examples of IT jargon that you'd really like to see stamped out, or just the worst example you've found of corporate "hot air" on a website. The competition this time is sponsored by my good friends at Wrox, so the two best entries will receive a  copy of one of these two "jargon-busting" Wrox books:

   

I also offer Simple-Talk goodie bags to the five runners-up. Just leave your submissions below (or email me if you prefer). Winners will be announced in the next newsletter (20th Feb).

 

Cheers,

Tony.

by Tony Davis

Comments

 

Adam Machanic said:

Why would you stamp out these terms??

It's clear from this post that Simple-Talk's thought leadership lacks the synergy required to take advantage of the ground-floor opportunity you have to create a vibrant social media community.

For shame!!
February 6, 2007 1:10 PM
 

AreEyeEkks said:

"Think outside the box", definitely one
"Take ownership" - its not mine, i am not the ceo
..and the worst "Dynamic Solutions".  Completely meaningless. Completely. I cringe everytime it's uttered (which happens to be a lot at my current place of work).
February 7, 2007 5:16 AM
 

Patrick Index said:

I particularly like the adjective viral as in "viral networks" also the "network cloud" which presumably is in cookoo land and I do like to be "empowered" to do things?
February 7, 2007 8:25 AM
 

Rodney said:

The obvious come to mind:

"Shifting Paradigm" or "Paradigm Shift"
"Fix/Break Mentatilty"
"One-off Approach"
"Robust (Anything)"
"Feature Rich" or "Feature Full"

Or words that don't sound like words:

"Criticality"
"Permissional" - So everyone winds up saying "It is permissions..."
Why cis that App failing? "It is permissional...I mean...It is permissions."
February 7, 2007 10:47 AM
 

Nick said:

My personal favourite bit of jargon (not necessarily IT related), which will no doubt become annoying at some point in the future is:
'I’ve been Plutoed' = I've been demoted/ downgraded
Can also apply to projects.
February 7, 2007 10:57 AM
 

Rodney said:

One more:

"Disparate Data Stores"
February 7, 2007 1:19 PM
 

Andre said:

My personal favourite, from a real meeting with an executive several years ago:

"We need to bring all the stakeholders to the table and establish a steering committee to ensure that true business value is delivered by providing a win-win situation for everyone."
February 7, 2007 1:30 PM
 

Mark Tremel said:

I vote for "leverage".  As in,"We will leverage our existing infrastructure to gain significant advantages in speed to market."  I think it just means, we are gonna use what we got.

"Stakeholder" is also a favorite of mine.  I personally imagine a waiter with a sizzling T-bone, but that is probably not what they meant.
February 7, 2007 2:04 PM
 

Jon Mann said:

What a great subject.

My top 3 would have to be:
1) Moving foward:- "Moving foward we will leverage our resources to provide an expanded workflow"

Well, you certainly won't be moving backwards. it's a phrase that 90% of the time, shouldn't be used.

2) Symbionic:- "We will formulate a symbionic relationship with our providers to achieve mutual growth"

i had no idea what this one meant untill i looked it up:
"Symbiosis that results in mutual benefit to the interdependent organisms is commonly known as mutualism. An example of mutualism is the coexistence of certain species of algae and fungi that together compose lichens"
-http://au.answers.yahoo.com

3) Synergistic Design:-"Moving foward, our online Learning system will utilise synergistic design fundimentals, ennsuring they remain dynamic and responsive to ongoing orgainisational requirements"




February 7, 2007 10:00 PM
 

Jazza said:

I wish more people would take notice of this, in one of my previous workplaces all the IT guys used to play "buzzword bingo" in meetings with business representatives ("stakeholders") because it so prevalent. Classic examples that spring to mind...
1. Pushing the envelope
2. All on the same page
3. In/out of the loop
February 8, 2007 3:42 AM
 

PJones said:

"hit the ground running" and "holistic approach" are two I dislike plus anything in unexplained acronyms - something I particularly suffer as a civil servant!
February 8, 2007 6:10 AM
 

KirkB said:

A "lightweight" solution.
Don't "boil the ocean."
"Orthogonal" effect.
"Foundational" project.
February 8, 2007 8:38 AM
 

BugEyedMonster said:

"Conceptualize" - build a concept.  Especially as in "We need to conceptualize the plan."  If you have a plan, there must be a concept or you have no clue how you built the plan.

"It goes without saying..." - So why are you saying it?

Two different objects being named the same thing. e.g. Look for it in the Servlet Databse.
Ok on which server do I look for a database named servlet?
No, no, you look in the customers database.
So I look in a customer's database for another database?
No, no, you look in a customer's database for a table named servlet database.
Ok, I looked and I can't find the column in the table servlet that you said I would find.
No, no, look in the customer's database for a table named "servletDatabase"
Oh, of course how silly of me.

For PJones, with whom I agree about acronyms:
ACRONYM - A Cryptic Represenstation Of Nothing Yielding Meaning
and one I created:
RII
Remember It's IAE
 Important to Avoid EUT
   Excessive Used of TLAs
     Three Letter Acronynms.
February 8, 2007 10:15 AM
 

Sean McCoy said:

I can't stand it when someone in a meeting asks if one of the other attendees would "talk to" a particular subject.  Everyone used to say "talk about" subjects.  You only "talk to" *people*.  But some high-priced consultant said this a couple of times and now all my peers are doing it, thinking being grammatically incorrect is somehow more impressive, I suppose. Would you care to talk to the hand now?  Oh wait, that's even worse.
February 8, 2007 1:23 PM
 

maheshc said:

"Future proofing" is one the really hot jargons that I love to hate
February 9, 2007 2:22 AM
 

Phil Factor said:

"Addressing Issues"
I know it is such an old bit of jargon that it has become almost universal, but 'Addressing Issues' has to go.
It all started at a major Motor Manufacturer in the 1980s, when some customers sued over a design fault that had caused several accidents. Ford denied that they'd known that there had been a serious problem, but a clever lawyer found a document where an engineer had talked of 'solving the problem'. It won the day for the lawsuit.
The edict went out that one should never, in future 'solve problems', only 'address issues'. The appalling phrase spread throughout the language.
February 10, 2007 3:43 AM
 

Kirk Gehman said:

'tribal knowledge' which means SME (subject matter expert) which has to do with your particular task. Programming tribal knowledge, QA tribal knowledge . . etc and ad nauseum
February 12, 2007 4:11 PM
 

Patrick Index said:

Came across someone describing properties as "Net worth properties and medium net worth properties"?  Must have been written by a net worth individual!
February 20, 2007 5:51 AM
 

Tony Davis said:

Thanks to all for the great contributions to this. It was a tough and entirely subjective decision, but for touching on a couple of my own least-liked examples of jargon ("dynamic solutions" and "don't boil the ocean") I award a book each to "AreEyeEkks" and "KirkB".

5 runner-up goodie bags go to:

BugEyedMonster
Jon Mann
Rodney
Andre
Sean McCoy

Drop me a mail at editor@simple-talk.com, and I can arrange to get your prizes sent out to you.

Cheers,

Tony. (Simple-Talk Ed.)
February 20, 2007 9:57 AM
 

JimT said:

No no no,
IMHO, its just got to be CRUD.
February 20, 2007 8:45 PM
 

Benw said:

ok, so the competition is over, but the day my previous boss said 'Ok, we have been spinning the wheels for a long time now, but we are finally starting to get some traction' i just wanted to slap him.

oh, and leverage
February 20, 2007 10:52 PM
 

Kamesh said:

1. Reinventing the Wheel
2. Out of the Box
3. Shrink Wrapped
February 21, 2007 2:18 AM
You need to sign in to comment on this blog
  Opinion Home

  Opinion Pieces (94 articles)

  Geek of the Week (36 articles)

  Tony Davis - Editor (6 articles)

  Phil Factor (40 articles)

  Damon Armstrong (8 articles)

  Douglas Reilly (40 articles)

  Adrian Furnham (1 articles)

  Claire Brooking (1 articles)

  Richard Morris (32 articles)

  Tim Gorman (1 articles)

  Jesse Liberty (5 articles)

  Sarah Blow (1 articles)

  Anna Larjomaa (1 articles)

  Gaidar Magdanurov (2 articles)

  Regular Columnists (1 articles)

  Ben Hall (2 articles)

  Blogs Home
<February 2007>
SuMoTuWeThFrSa
28293031123
45678910
11121314151617
18192021222324
25262728123
45678910
Using Powershell to Generate Table-Creation Scripts
 For all of us who learn best by trying out examples, Bob Sheldon produces a PowerShell script file for... Read more...

Configuring Exchange Server 2007 to Support Information Rights Management
 In Exchange Server 2007, Information Rights management is easy to set up once you have set up the... Read more...

SQL Response: The dim sum interview
 Richard Morris met David and Nigel of the SQL Response team, in a dim sum Restaurant in Cambridge. They... Read more...

Why This SQL Server DBA is Learning Powershell
 Ron describes how he decided to study Powershell as a single scripting system to automate all the... Read more...

Using Covering Indexes to Improve Query Performance
 Designers of database systems will often assume that the use of a clustered index is always the best... Read more...