The most important part of speaking English is being understood, and that is especially important when you are speaking English for Business. There’s no point giving your team instructions in a language they don’t speak.

What is Corporate Jargon?

Corporate Jargon is a term for phrases that get used a lot in corporate offices that team leaders have learned at management training.

Why Does Corporate Jargon Have a Bad Reputation?

Because it makes no sense! Corporate Jargon, or “management speak” takes a simple idea and uses a figurative (non-literal / complicated) phrase to describe it. It adds extra thinking and understanding time for native English speakers, but you can double that processing time for non-native English speakers. Why complicate the simple?

Translations for the Most Annoying Corporate Jargon

According to a study by Preply in 2022, the following phrases were voted the ten most annoying examples of corporate jargon, and I’ve added some “normal-people English” translations for you:

Corporate Jargon ↔ Normal-People English

• We will circle back to that later. ↔ We will talk about this later

• We work hard, play hard here. ↔ We work hard here but we also drink and enjoy ourselves a lot.

• Make sure we have boots on the ground. ↔ Make sure there are people at the location in person.

• Let’s table this. ↔ Let’s stop what we are doing for a while and come back to it later.

• I’m looking for as much synergy as possible. ↔ I want things to be more efficient, see where we can save money and time.

• Ok, put a pin in it for now. ↔ Remember that, we will talk about it later.

• Get all your ducks in a row before you leave tonight. ↔ Make sure everything is organised and prepared before you leave tonight

• Just focus on the low-hanging fruit this week ↔ Just focus on the easy bits this week.

• We don’t need to reinvent the wheel ↔ Just alter an existing design.

• Throw it up and see what sticks ↔ Try lots of things and see what works.

What’s the Benefit of “Normal-People English”?

Native speakers, young colleagues new to your industry, older colleagues not used to new phrases, and non-native English speakers can all understand you when you use standard English to explain things. If you find it hard to say goodbye to the corporate Jargon, ask yourself why. Are you trying to get results, or to sound “businessy”?