Calling All Verbivores

by Harold Fox

Everybody wants to get into the act! The number of “Calling All Verbivores” (CAV) preceding this one by two reported on the nominees received by Anne Fisher of Fortune for her awards for “Business Buzzwords That Make You Gag.” The winner, and recipient of the Most Annoying Lingo award (Mallie) for the top spot, was “Any phrase . . . that contains the word ‘vision’” (Fortune, online edition, August 3, 2005).

Mindy Hoffbauer responded to my call for readers to submit their own candidates for the Mallies:

"I grind my teeth every time someone uses the word ‘impacted.’ I believe that’s a dental term. Business people generally use the word ‘impact’ simply because they can’t figure out if they’re to use ‘affect’ or ‘effect,’ so they skirt the issue altogether and (over)use the word ‘impact.’ Enough already!"

Thanks, Mindy.

The number of CAV immediately preceding this one reported on the Plain English Campaign (PEC). PEC’s Golden Bull Awards for the year 2005’s worst example of gobbledygook have been announced since the publication of that number of CAV. One of the winners is the Australian Taxations Office for its Goods and Services legislation:

For the purpose of making a declaration under this Subdivision, the Commissioner may:

a) treat a particular event that actually happened as not having happened; and

b) treat a particular event that did not actually happen as having happened and, if appropriate, treat the event as:

i) having happened at a particular time; and

ii) having involved particular action by a particular entity; and

c) treat a particular event that actually happened as:

i) having happened at a time different from the time it
actually happened; or

ii) having involved particular action by a particular entity
(whether or not the event actually involved any action by that entity).’

(www.plainenglish.co.uk/goldenbull.html)

The other Golden Bull Awards winners for 2005 may be found in the same place.

Even more recently, Jim Dillon, Business Editor of the Dayton Daily News weighed in on the subject of objectionable business usage of the English language (January 22, 2006). Dillon wrote:

"A bit of business-speak has infected our everyday language and its improper use should be stopped. The word is utilize. I hear it constantly in television and radio commercials, sportscasters [sic] descriptions of game action, newscasters’ reports and even in casual conversations."

Dillon invites submission of “other examples of businessspeak run amok” (jdillon@daytondailynews.com).

And all that does not even begin to address the 2005 Word of the Year from the American Dialect Society. That word is “truthiness,” which “refers to the quality of preferring concepts or facts one wishes to be true, rather than concepts or facts known to be true” (www.americandialect.org, January 6, 2006).

Obviously, such a concept has no place in the writing we do professionally, so I am not going to comment further. If you are interested in the other nominees for Word of the Year and the winners in each of the categories, refer to the Society’s website (URL cited above).

Anyway, three issues of CAV in a row on this subject seem to be plenty, if not a surfeit. If you have “other examples of businessspeak run amok” that you would like to pass along, send them to Jim Dillon, not to me.

The puzzler from the preceding column is the following:
It is claimed that only one word in the English language contains the letter combination GNTY. What is it? Hint: You may have read or heard it frequently in the spring/summer of 2004.

Answer: “sovereignty,” frequently in the news leading up to the event referred to as “the transfer of sovereignty to the provisional government of Iraq”

For a puzzler for this number of CAV, we have another from “Ask Marilyn” (Parade, January 15, 2006). A reader, Raymond Love of Tucson, Arizona, submitted this one:
What is unusual about these words: assess, banana, dresser, grammar, potato, revive, uneven, voodoo?

Until next time, send me your solutions (or suggestions or complaints or stumpers) at hfox@juno.com or 2005 Burroughs Drive, Dayton, Ohio 45406.