From guest blogger: Ian Davis July 2009
“.......This hen-house language might not matter if it were confined to the business world. But it has escaped, like some malign virus , and is infecting us all. I would love to claim that the BBC, with its proud history of championing good English, is fighting back. Sadly, it is not. We have been suborned. A colleague of mine interviewed a young man who was applying for a job in his department. He asked him what he had been doing in the few months since he left Cambridge. He was told ‘Proactively networking’. He should have been thrown out of the building on the spot or, better still, publicly executed, his body left to hang in the lobby of the Television Centre as a warning to others. Instead he gave him the job. The young man is now, I have no doubt, a middle manager telling his colleagues how he can ‘progress’ his latest challenge,- or some such rubbish” John Humphrys (Introduction to Cochrane J. (2003) ‘Between You and I- A Little Book of Bad English’ Cambridge Icon Books
Some really horrible words/ expressions/ ‘managementspeak’/’socialsciencespeak’ jargon tortures the Queens, and Obama’s English. The ever expanding torrent fills the reports we hear on radio/TV or are obliged to read. This terminological jungle is a particularly pain within the development/ humanitarian community, and I not only have to read the stuff every day, suffer from it whenever I attend a conference but worse still, find myself unwittingly writing and speaking the same twisted language. I have put up with it, and alas perpetuated it, for all of 37 years and it has got to stop!
The jargon has a distinct following, a pair of examples: To relieve the boredom suffered in umpteen development conferences, a helpful friend- Geoff Payne who works in the low-cost housing/ urbanisation field , has invented a game called ‘Bingo’ (But... see the second PS). This required the development of a list of key words that of course had to include:
• Sustainability
• Stakeholder
• Holistic
• Gender sensitive
• HRD
• Indicators
• Bottom-up
• Empowerment.... etc. etc. etc.
Whenever a conference speaker gets up to share his (and its mainly men..!) pearls of wisdom the various Bingo Players in the conference hall have a checklist on their laps and when the speaker has used all the jargon on the list, the first of the competitors to recognise the achievement (this normally takes less than three minutes) has to climb on their seat and shout ‘BINGO’ very loudly . This has the electrifying effect of the platform speaker halting the flow of verbiage for a few seconds, while the prize winner is frog marched from the hall by conscientious minders.
My other example occurred in Angola when running a course on Disaster Management in 1994. As the course ended a local NGO director asked me “which words should I use to use in funding applications to ensure success?” In the subsequent, rather strange, conversation he told me that he had looked hard at the literature and felt that there were certain essential words or expressions to be sprinkled liberally throughout the text of any project funding application to International NGO’s , The UN or Donor Government Agencies.
In seeking confirmation that he had learned the language of development funding correctly, he produced a well worn list from his wallet, and it was no surprise that the list included:
• Sustainability
• Stakeholder
• Holistic
• Gender sensitive
• HRD
• Indicators etc.etc.etc.
In fact , when Geoff Payne showed me the rules of Bingo, the similarity of their lists made me wonder whether my Angolan student was in fact his co-author!
Therefore we, the undersigned, faithfully promise to cut ourselves away from the
world of the word merchants, in order to think and write with clarity and purpose,
and promise never, ever, to use such vocabulary again until our dying day, and we
promise to play the BINGO game in all future conferences , and insist that BINGO
checklists go in all future participant conference packs.....
The provisional list of no less than 93 examples of verbiage. (Additions/ Deletions welcome)
• Actualization
• Actualizing Interventions
• Access Funding
• At this moment in time...
• At this point in time....
• As of now...
• Basically
• Beaconicity
• Blue Sky Assessment (unless applied to meteorological analysis)
• Bottom-Up and Top-Down and Hands-On and Hands-Off
• Brainstorming
• Building on Best Practice
• Collateral Damage
• Common Approach Delivery Mechanisms
• Concretize (note the US spelling...)
• Conscientize (ditto..)
• Cross-Cutting Issues
• Data Mining
• Data Processing
• Delivering Objectives
• Descriptors
• Dialogue Mechanism
• Dialogue Teaching
• Diarise (this is when the Blackberries come out..)
• Disaggregate
• Double-loop learning (unless applied to aerobatics)
• Early Wins
• Ensuring Access (unless opening a door)
• Epigenic (?)
• Facilitator
• Facilitation
• Factor Analysis
• Factor-in and Factor-out
• Fault Line (unless applied to a seismic fault line)
• Flag-up
• Framework Parameters
• Gender Awareness
• Gender Sensitive
• Globalistic (makes this reader ‘go ballistic’...)
• Going forward
• Grassroots empowerment (but OK as a horticultural process to fertilise a lawn)
• Hands-On and Hands-Off
• Human Resource Development (HRD)
• Holistic
• In-Depth Analysis (unless applied to Scuba Diving)
• In-Tandem (unless applied to two people on the same bike)
• Interactive formulation
• Level Descriptor
• Level Playing Field (unless applied to a level playing field)
• Logarithmic
• Log Frame Analysis
• Low Hanging Fruit
• Macro and Micro everything
• Mainstream (unless applied to the middle of a river)
• Methodology
• Modalities
• Moving the Goalposts (unless at the end of the football season)
• North- South Interchange (but just as long as you don’t live in Australia)
• Participative Action
• Participatory
• Performance Indicator
• Platform (unless at a railway station)
• Proactive
• Proactive Networking
• Public/Private Partnerships (PPP)
• Rendition
• Revisiting Issues
• Seismic Impact (unless it is an earthquake)
• Sensitize
• Service Provider
• Silo (unless it is a Silo full of wheat)
• Sourcing the Inputs and Outsourcing the Outputs (Ugh)
• Special Service Provider (SSP)
• Stakeholder Analysis
• Stakeholder Partnership
• Stakeholder Engagement
• Stakeholder Management
• Stakeholder (unless applied to someone holding up a vertical wooden stake)
• Stretching the Envelope (unless applied to an attempt to place a large letter into a smaller envelope)
• Sustainable Livelihoods
• SWOT Analysis
• Take Forward
• Target (unless applied in archery)
• Tease Out
• Tokenism
• Tokenistic
• Thinking in Silos
• Thinking outside the Box (unless applied to someone giving serious thought with the Television switched off)
• Ticking the Boxes
• Toolkit (unless applied to a box of tools)
• Unpacking the issues
• Value Added
• Workshop (unless applied to a room where work takes place)
• Workshop Facilitation
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15 comments:
JARGON IS INEVITABLE...
“I recently became very grumpy about the use of 'terror' as an adjective, as in 'terror attacks'. I insisted on 'terrorist' and won the day! But usually I am very laissez-faire about these things, and try not to take offence at jargon. There is a long-standing but ambiguous one that still annoys me but which I have to put up with - it is 'presidential approval', by which political scientists mean the level of approval that a president is receiving from the electorate.
Some degree of jargon is probably inevitable, and, as long as everyone knows what it means, I suppose it doesn't matter much, but I do worry about the non-native speakers labouring fruitlessly through the dictionary hoping to find out what some neologism means, or - worse still - picking it up and using it with reckless abandon”.
From Heather Bliss Academic Editor of Scientific Journals
SOME SYMPATHY...
“Have some sympathy for old jargon. With age, it may take on new meaning.”
From. Fred Krimgold Director Disaster Risk Reduction Program (DRR) Virginia Tech
Advanced Research Institute (ARI)
DEV-SPEAK DEPOLITICISES CONCEPTS
“ many thanks and heartily agree. You have missed out some of my favourites: low-hanging fruit, and the WORST one of all at the moment : "going forward" Ugh!
I actually think this is a very serious issue, because it is part of the process by which concepts get transformed into words that lack content and then become depoliticised. as with Sustainability and now with Vulnerability...
Bingo - or bullshit bingo as it is often know - has been around for 20 years or more, and there is a website where you can generate cards to take into meetings. It was done in the Guardian many years ago, and I have proposed to use it in writing workshops to make participants aware of jargon”.
http://www.bullshitbingo.net/cards/bullshit/
From Terry Cannon, University Lecturer and Consultant in the Disaster / Development field
CUT THE WEEDS OR FACE EXCLUSION BY ‘DEV-SPEAK’...
“In 1974, in Bangladesh I once did a sketch on talking about a development issue using all the jargon at that time that I could muster... it didn't go down too well !! Some thought I was being
frivolous, and some took it personally. The reaction was quite revealing and the resultant cross-over fire between various Dev agencies represented meant that I could retire from the situation without being noticed and only with minor scorch marks !!
Whilst some phrases provide useful basis between different cultures and dev orgs, they are only a common ground from which to built upon. Many phrases and dev-abbreviations are used as pure catch-phases to evoke an acceptance by the listening or reading audience. Sadly, much is recycled garbage which may show more of a lack of confidence and insecurity in the subject and a fear of non-acceptance. Indeed some good ideas have been ridiculed,..more to do with the politics of dev orgs. In the mid 1970s those of us pushing and criticising development thinking realised that a lot of reports and findings were left on the shelf. The dev-speak has, rather than given greater understanding of such reports etc, deminuted the real kernels and gems of thoughts and criticisms in many reports to just fodder and horizontal dust collectors. That has been a great dis-service to the poor, and with more reports produced... that still saddens me. Some other great strides have indeed been made.. but the the same unacceptable approaches 20 years ago are riding high again on the wave of dev-speak.
Being pragmatic, I shall of course continue to use some phrases if that enables me to clarify and raise some of the key issues with dev orgs which the poor, especially the rural poor, face. Constantly identifying, clearing and cutting down the weeds of dev-speak should not be our end goal but should bring into focus the real wheat and rice shoots. Unfortunately some parts of the crops will be lost in the process and that has to be accepted. Criticism should lead to key discussions and positive reflection for dev-orgs not just tick boxes amidst the race of time into the next project.......
......How many good people in the development spectrum are marked as below average etc simply because they have been excluded by dev-speak...a catch phrase or an abbreviation that has closed the door on them being heard ? Let's keep our ears and eyes open, and keep your blades sharpened ... those blinking weeds love the rain as well !!”
From Malcolm Chisholme in Belfast, Architect and Independent Consultant Disaster of Recovery Management
CONTROL ONESELF, NOT OTHERS...
“I would add "early wins" to the list and give more prominence to "silo" which only appears once and not as the leading word.
One way of controlling oneself (and I have reservations about trying to control others) is to aim to use one syllable words if at all possible and then to remove any of those that are redundant. Thus there is nothing wrong with "as of now" except "as" and "of"; "now" is rather good. Good luck! It will be a long haul to strip it all out.”
From Sir Joe Pilling, now in retirement, previously Permanent Secretary for Northern Ireland)
THE QUEST FOR CLARITY
“From memory, to quote Humpty Dumpty in Alice in Wonderland.... –
“When I use a word, it means exactly what I want it to mean.”
From Claire Gordon Norton in France working for the NGO ‘Development Workshop’ Sasakawa Award 2009
“Yes, Ian, I think you are right, although I have not enough English proficiency.
Incredible, but in Spanish this is the same...
I have others: words needed to get the interest of donors and to get money, that everybody include in the manuscripts (mainly in the titles)....proposals, presentations... such as: "climate change"... "adaptation"; useful, perhaps... but indeed words without an appropriate meaning or used without their real meaning”
From Omar Dario Cardona In Bogota, Professor of Engineering Seisemology, Sasakawa Award 2004.
“DEFLATE THE USERS OF PRETENTIOUS WORDS, RATHER THAT THE WORDS...”
“Your critique is not good enough! Many of these words are not inherently horrid (but may be ill-defined). Indeed they may even have made some people think!
Moreover the following seem to have real merit (if not value added!):
· Brainstorming
· Building on Best Practice
· Cross-Cutting Issues
· Data Processing
· Facilitator
· Factor Analysis
· Gender Awareness
· Holistic
· In-Depth Analysis
· Level Playing Field
· Methodology
· Performance Indicator
· Public/Private Partnerships
· Service Provider
· Stakeholder Analysis
· Sustainable Livelihoods
· SWOT Analysis
· Target
· Tease Out
· Value Added
· Workshop
Of course, at the end of the day, we all need to go to bed. In the final analysis, our voice will be heard (loud and clear). We need to tease out the targets that are mere tokenism and take forward what stands up to a SWOT analysis.
But, all words are clichés. Even Grumpy Old Men are figures of speech. What is needed is clear thinking and precision of language, rather than rejection of specific words per se. If they are pretentious, then let us deflate the people who use them rather than the words themselves. Because it is not the words that are dysfunctional, but the people who hide behind them”.
From Edmund Penning-Rowsell Co-Founder of the Flood Hazard Research Centre, Middlesex University, currently Editor:‘Environmental Hazards’
CONSIDER THE COUNTRIES WHERE ENGLISH IS A SECOND LANGUAGE?...
“My dear GOM (‘Grumpy Old Man’)
Congratulations for a wonderful initiative to banish the jargons from our arena. I was loving your case, and continued reading the beautiful and witty piece of writing, and went through the list of 76 verbiages, and towards the end of the list started wondering.....mmm.......what would be the alternatives to these jargons! I am sure, you, Ben, Terry, and other development and disaster management 'Gurus' quickly, in fact in no time, would come up with alternative words.
What will happen to us, the non English, non European population in this Development and Disaster world? You the 'Gurus' invented and perpetuated these words for the last 37 years, we the poor non English people have just mastered your language, and now you want to throw it out the window? Please be a little considerate to us; at least give us some guidance as to how we can avoid the 'BINGO Competitors'!”
From Dilruba Haider Additional Director Bangladesh Disaster Preparedness Centre (BDPC)
THE REAL ISSUE IS COMMUNICATION
“Thanks for raising the issue of language. I hope you didn’t mine ‘At Risk, 2nd Edition’ for examples of vacuous verbiage! Forgive me if I generalize, but I am less concerned with academic and policy level vogue sayings, but with the challenge of (and the rich treasure and resource provided by) a world where many thousands of languages are spoken.
Isn't the fundamental question language that communicates well within groups of people and between them?
So, just at the moment I have been writing back and forth with colleagues in Tanzania about the optimal way that various climate change and risk concepts could be rendered in Swahili and why, indeed, the Tanzanian authorities have chosen certain Swahili expressions and not others.
Jargon within academia and the world's public administrations is easy to lampoon. But even there, I'd pause and consider the communication process WITHIN institutions such as DFID, GTZ, World Bank before I turfed out their lingo wholesale.
Another question is how researchers and practitioners communicate with ordinary people in the flood ravaged, isolated hamlets in the Kaprivi Strip in Namibia or in a squatter settlement on the edges of Salt Lake in Kolkata. To my mind, that is what many of us should be thinking about.”
From Ben Wisner University Lecturer and Consultant in the Disaster / Development field
ARE WE ARE TALKING TO EACH OTHER TOO MUCH?
“I share your frustration, though my expertise is far less and modest. Past two years I spend more time with the people we talk about: in the victim communities in India and around. I have returned from Aceh and Nias after three weeks with the recovering communities and no one mentioned the Bingo words for 17 days! In fact these visits and people added new meaning to these overused words. Perhaps we are talking to each other too much too often? Marmaids of Alfred J. Prufock?”
From Mihir Bhatt, Director ‘All India Disaster Mitigation Institute’
AND FINALLY- SOME PARODIES...
“Reduced to tears by the time I got to 'thinking outside the box' !”
From Jo da Silva, Director, International Development ARUP
“Bravo! Thinking outside the box, though, sensitizing this among stakeholders at this moment in time will not concretize its actualisation”
From Jon Bennett Independent Development Consultant
“I agree entirely with Ian. I mean basically this abuse of the language is not sustainable and the stakeholders of DRR need to sensitize ourselves to the matter, revisit the issue and take forward a holistic review of the situation that must be more than mere tokenism but a targeted effort that teases out the cause of this corruption of the language, unpacks solutions that will empower those disempowered by jargon and which ensures that they have access to actualizing interventions”
if you think I am on the wrong track then we need some blue sky thinking at this moment in time to brainstorm best practice which will limit collateral damage and to develop a value added toolkit.
I agree also with Dilruba, this isn't a level playing field”
From Philip Buckle Independent Disaster Risk Management Consultant
‘STRETCHING THE ENVELOPE’
Ian, you really have stretched the envelope here! I feel conscientized!
From Taz Greyling, Independent Consultant
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