When does buzzword avoidance become dumbing down?

There's a report today in The Independent's summary newspaper 'i' that guidance has been given to UK civil servants for avoiding buzzwords and jargon in their 'politician-speak'. It includes the following list of words to be shunned:

Slimming down - (Processes don't diet)
Foster - (unless it is children)
Commit/pledge - (we're either doing something or we're not)
Deliver - (pizzas, post and services are delivered - not concepts like "improvements" or "priorities")
Deploy - (unless it is military or software)
Dialogue - (we speak to people)
Key - (unless it unlocks something. A subject is probably "important")
Progress - (as a verb - what are you actually doing?)
Tackling - (unless it is rugby, football or some other sport)
Going forward - (except for travel directions)

Now I am open to an explanation that this list was compiled by some sacked office junior as a parting shot, but it's so full of contentious items that, despite my despair at the common literacy failings of government people (whether elected or hired), I feel this is largely nonsense. If it were to be followed it would do little towards its aim, while encouraging (even more) dumbing down of the English language than already persists.

Why do you feel this way?

High time the powers that be tackled the level playing field and moved the goal posts back to slim down the garbage written by those to whom obscure dialogue is intended to demonstrate superiority over the common herd.

I feel the deployment of post 3 did not help foster genuine dialogue. I think pinkozcat should commit to deliver real progress as we go forward tackling this issue. After all, the key to progress in the area of 'government-speak' is the slimming down of word choice options, right?

Os.

>1 CliffordDorset:
Okay, for real now:
First, I'd be more willing to buy into this (can I use this phrase?) if a preferred alternative was included.

My 2-cents on these items:

Slimming down - probably over-used, but can be a good word-picture.

Foster - can you say 'promote the development of' using only one word otherwise?

Commit/pledge - sorry, but a genuine committment has value especially before one begins to act.

Deliver - I generally agree.

Deploy - okay by me.

Dialogue - as a verb, I'm happy to see it go. As a noun, perhaps a bit overused, but should not be banned.

Key - Sorry, but I think there is a subtle but important difference between 'key' and 'important'. 'Key' issues are usually a subset of 'important' issues.

Progress - do people really use progress as a verb? Or did they mean 'progressing' on this list?

Tackling - fine, if there's an appropriate one-word alternative.

Going forward - Sorry, but ask any physicist: forward in time is every bit as valid as forward in space. Perhaps even more so, since there is no objective direction in space that is forward, but there is in time (for humans, at least).

Os.

If you have anything to do with public administration, you'll know that there are only two basic messages that officials have to communicate to the public and to their bosses: (i) "We're not doing anything at all" and (ii) "We're doing something, but you're not going to like it."
For reasons of self-preservation, these have to be made to look like (i) "We are about to start doing something very interesting and exciting" and (ii) "We are eagerly seeking your views, which will help to shape our new project." The words in Clifford's list are some of the current favourites for this transformation exercise. I assume the person who compiled the list was a senior civil servant fed up with seeing reports that use words like these to conceal, rather than communicate. I don't think you can call this "dumbing down": it's not an exercise in restricting vocabulary, but rather a (probably doomed) attempt to get people to say what they mean...

I'm disappointed to see that "proactive" and "excited" are no longer on the list. Obviously they must have outlived their usefulness.

Slimming down = our budget has been cut, so we can't do anything
Foster = we will encourage people to put forward new ideas we have no intention of using
Commit/pledge = we will do it at some unspecified time in the future if we get budget
Deliver = with the next update it will probably work
Deploy = it isn't ready, but we're going to make it available to the public anyway
Dialogue = we tell you what you want from us
Key = this is an important concept, but we didn't include it in the design
Progress (vb.) = we'll send it on to another department to see if they know what to do with it
Tackling = we're going to work on this next week. Or after the holidays. Or sometime.
Going forward = at some unspecified date in the future we will take a decision on whether to send it to another department to see if they know what to do with it

6> Nice. I would tweak 'foster' by adding to your explanation ....nor to support with any public money.

And, thinking about it 'deliver' is often used to imply that something will arrive despite the lack of financial support - rather like Dick Turpin's "Stand and deliver".

>7 abbottthomas:
In that context, there's also "affordable" = we think you will be prepared to pay for this service rather than live surrounded by piles of rotting waste/die of unmentionable diseases/let your children grow up illiterate

The same list also made it to this morning's Times. If these are the worst offenders I'm surprised. I believe it's good to have a choice of words to express an idea. Whether we're dealing with civil servants, letters from companies/banks or appliance manuals there is a need to write clearly (for the intended audience) and we have all come across writing which is far from clear. It has to judged at the sentence or paragraph level although I agree that if the words are very obscure (most of the ones listed aren't) then the sentence will also mean little. As far as the list goes I think "dialogue" means a bit more than "speaking" - it implies to me a 2-way constructive discussion. And "tackling" means a bit more than just doing something. I just "tackled" cleaning one of our gutters this morning - "tackled" because I've been putting it off for a long time and also I hate climbing ladders so it was a bit more than a routine task.

I assume that the purpose of the list is not to forbid civil servants from using the word 'dialogue', but rather to get them to ask themselves whether that is what they really mean. "Dialogue" definitely has its uses, especially for a formalised process of discussion between two organisations, or for speeches that are represented in writing, but once it becomes a buzzword you have the tendency to use it for every conversation or discussion, simply because a "dialogue" sounds more serious and professional than a discussion. And similarly for the other words in the list.

Really, the list is telling the people it's addressed to: "If you use one of these words, you risk triggering the reader's bullshit detector." If what you're saying is not bullshit, then you have nothing to worry about. But you may be in the wrong job...

This dialogue made me think of Philip Howard's Weasel Words written in the seventies on a similar theme. I particularly like 'consultation':

Sometimes...used as a catchword to describe a process that is a substitute for thought or action, or an excuse for procrastination. Sometimes it means a process (regrettably, almost always an on-going one) or. also regrettably, a situation whereby or wherein representatives of local or national government, unshakably convinced of their own correctitude.....inform members of the public of decisions that have been taken (and) are irrevocable...."

>11 abbottthomas:
Of course the modern equivalent of 'consultation' is 'taking under advisement'. This can mean anything, including asking a taxi driver and (these days) asking a lobbyist.

In general, my motivation for posting this was that I felt the guidelines were missing their presumed aim, to encourage clarity. The one which made me think was the author's dislike of 'foster'. The OED gives many examples of (not children-related) usages back to the 14th Century, although I admit that it considers these as 'obsolete'. I think it's actually in common use, for example in 'fostering relationships.

Overall I find it surprising that the author was allowed to release his stuff so widely.

>12 CliffordDorset:: Overall I find it surprising that the author was allowed to release his stuff so widely.
Although rather strangely the Times report that I mentioned in #9 claims that the report is buried several clicks down an obscure part of a government website and quotes an official as saying The first we know about these things is when we read them in newspapers. None of us had any idea that this was out there". Why bother to use obscure language if you can just shove the whole thing under the carpet?

Two sides of the coin here, I think.

1. Some buzzwords are used so often that they cease to mean anything. Just listen to cabinet ministers dissing the other side or bigging up their own policies on Radio 4's Today programme. After a few ripostes to the interviewer's jabbings I switch off for a few minutes so as not to cause something an injury.

2. English is not alone in being a metaphor-rich language. Many verbs or nouns you care to think of were purloined from another context because they made the concepts expressed more vivid; when the original context changed and the word's original intent became obsolete the word became anchored to a new context. (We talk about being 'on tenterhooks' when most of us now have no idea what we're referring to.)

So my point is this: to suggest that the word 'foster' is best avoided because we routinely use it also in the sense of bringing up children other than our own is to deny the language its natural dynamism just because a few political twerps have no imagination. But that's politics for you, I suppose.

>14 ed.pendragon:
Ah! The times I've heard 'tenterhooks' given as 'tenderhooks'! Of course nowadays, 'epicentre' has become a buzzword.

I believe I've always heard it as tenderhooks. This is from TV and movies.

Now I know better.

>16 JerryMmm:

I once had a boss who persisted in saying 'in the thrones of ...' instead of 'in the throes of ...'. No-one dared tell him, and perhaps his version might eventually catch on!

A similar misuse is saying 'off one's own back' instead of 'off one's own bat'.

Perhaps it's a symptom of people not reading much 'good' writing these days?

I once had a brief interchange with the OED on the words 'areola' and 'aureola', the former properly being (inter alia) the pink disc around a nipple and the latter properly being the gold (Au) 'halo' depicted around painted saints' heads. The latter is currently used widely and mistakenly in place of the former, and I suggested, so far without result, that they acknowledge this misuse.

>17 CliffordDorset:
There's also the whole business of aureola vs. aureole — the OED tries to argue that the former is the term for the actual spiritual reward and the latter is used for its depiction in art, but the quotations seem to suggest that the two are actually indistinguishable.
(Fascinating to note that if Josephus Angles is to be believed, doctors get a green aureola. But maybe you have to be a DD, not a mere PhD...)

I've been bugged recently by the repeated use of "going forward" to mean "in the future" -- and a search led me to this thread which is worth re-reading. At this point in time.

>19 Crypto-Willobie: You could teach Alanis Morrissette a thing or two about irony. But don't make little of what you did by calling it a 'search': You conducted a retrospective investigation.

>19 Crypto-Willobie: >20 bluepiano:
Perhaps we should try to promote “going backward” as a more fashionable term than “search”.