Useless words

My favourite word is plop. It’s an onomatopoeia dontcha know (and just you try spelling it without using spell check).

I might have told you this before but I will tell you again just in case you have forgotton. I work in the communications industry (well, when I’m not taking a career break that is) so words are my livelihood. I like words and I like my job most of the time but there are occasions when I wish I'd trained to be a chef or something. I usually think this after I have dealt with a sales person or an ad agency creative. There are a lot of fools in my industry, especially in the world of marketing. Marketing people like to make up words or give them new meaning. It makes them feel like they are doing a gre-at job. Here are a few examples:

Virtuous circle – oh please. This is usually accompanied by a hand movement which involves making a big circle with your arms. As if you didn’t know what a circle was.

Sexy – as in this product/advert/brand is ‘really sexy’. No, it’s a tube of toothpaste. Justin Timberlake is sexy and so is George Clooney. Toothpaste is not, and never will be sexy.

Added value – one of my all-time favourites. Marketers love this phrase. They use it all the time, especially when they are trying to sell something to a client. If a marketer uses this in conversation run for the hills.

Advertorial – it’s an advert but it contains editorial. I know, let’s create a poncey new word for it. Who are you? David Brent?

Synergy – Hmm. Even the thesaurus in Word doesn’t know what this means.

Ramp up – Now this one sounds like it belongs in the 1990s, along with ‘Greed is Good’ and ‘Yuppies’.

Blue sky thinking – this is what they say when they are trying to be creative. How sad.

Thinking outside of the box – actually what I’d like to do with you people is put you in a box. And lock it. If I am in a good mood I might make some holes in it just so that you can breathe. How’s that for added value?