Banned Phrases by Councils

Burnsy2023 · 18 Mar 2009 at 12:32

This annoys me quite a lot:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7948894.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7949077.stm

Some of the words banned in this list are perfectly good English words. Personally, I think we have too little words in our vocabulary and rather then dumbing down, we should be learning a better range of words to express ourselves properly and concisely.

Some of the banned words:

Advocate
Agencies
Capabilities
Capacity

Challenge
Champion

They're not even uncommon :confused:

Spuff Monkey · 18 Mar 2009 at 12:35

Bloody council workers makes my skin crawl with their PC BS

uber soldat · 18 Mar 2009 at 12:35

Jargon? How are any of those words jargon unless you are special needs? lol :confused:

Ciphon · 18 Mar 2009 at 12:37

lol... idea is on the list too... it all get's a little to much, doesn't it!

4T5 · 18 Mar 2009 at 12:38

Benchmarking

Core developments

Core Value

Customer

Well they can kiss my skinny white ****
Benchmarking banned what the ****, Madness.

Abraham · 18 Mar 2009 at 12:38

Spuff Monkey said:
Bloody council workers makes my skin crawl with their PC BS

eh? what's PC got to do with it...

they may not be jargon but a lot of them are management buzz words, they're usually used as cover up words when a better descriptor could be used. Not sure any way in which this is a bad thing...

SlyReaper · 18 Mar 2009 at 12:38

I'm not normally one to advocate the capabilities of these agencies, and I'm not going to start now. Champion.

ScarySquirrel · 18 Mar 2009 at 12:39

As much as a I hate some of the **** on that list, banning them is bloody ridiculous!

Azagoth · 18 Mar 2009 at 12:39

Our 'Equality & Diversity Officer' won't allow us to us the word "winner"! Apparently the use of such an offensive term automatically implies that the opposing person is a "loser", which incidentally is another word she frowns upon.

It makes playing certain 2-player computer games during breaks very frustrating as we never know who bloody won, even if one of our characters has the other's head impaled on a spike and the words "FATALITY" plastered across the screen in blood.

antijoke · 18 Mar 2009 at 12:40

They should ban councils.

Abraham · 18 Mar 2009 at 12:40

Burnsy2023 said:
Some of the words banned in this list are perfectly good English words. Personally, I think we have too little words in our vocabulary and rather then dumbing down, we should be learning a better range of words to express ourselves properly and concisely.

I dont think it's anything to do with dumbing down, it's trying to prevent unnecessary use of these words, anyone who's worked with middle management will know the type of BS they can construct using them without actually saying anything of merit

firstborn · 18 Mar 2009 at 12:42

Abraham said:
eh? what's PC got to do with it...

they may not be jargon but a lot of them are management buzz words, they're usually used as cover up words when a better descriptor could be used. Not sure any way in which this is a bad thing...

Exactly, a lot of the phrases are pointless management/corporate nonsense. Why is this so bad?

Burnsy2023 · 18 Mar 2009 at 12:46

Abraham said:
I dont think it's anything to do with dumbing down, it's trying to prevent unnecessary use of these words, anyone who's worked with middle management will know the type of BS they can construct using them without actually saying anything of merit

firstborn said:
Exactly, a lot of the phrases are pointless management/corporate nonsense. Why is this so bad?

I agree some mangers do use certain words without getting across their actual meaning. Banning the words doesn't help though. Especially when those words could make a sentence clearer rather than more ambiguous.

You don't ban cars just because someone uses one irresponsibly.

Azagoth · 18 Mar 2009 at 12:49

Probably got sick of people playing 'Buzzword Bingo' all the time.

rsatd · 18 Mar 2009 at 12:50

I see what they did there by banning "Welcome"

uber soldat · 18 Mar 2009 at 12:52

And how exactly do they plan to enforce this?

antijoke · 18 Mar 2009 at 12:53

uber soldat said:
And how exactly do they plan to enforce this?

By blowing more tax payers money on some numpty to keep tabs on people no doubt.

semi-pro waster · 18 Mar 2009 at 12:57

Burnsy2023 said:
I think we have too little words in our vocabulary and rather then dumbing down

Sorry but since you are complaining about a lack of options in vocabulary I feel somewhat obligated to step in and point out a better choice of word would be few, which relates to number rather than little which more usually relates to size.

You are however right that many of those words should not be removed, I suspect my work would struggle to function at all if most of them were removed as, for instance, tranche is a recognised and necessary term.

Phrases like "product champion" and "blue sky thinking" are just unnecessary toss though frankly, get people to stop using pointless buzz phrases rather than attempting to ban the component parts of them and then we might be making progress.

craptakular · 18 Mar 2009 at 12:58

I used to work for the Environment Agency. lol they used all those words on that list.

There was the capabilities dictionary, used to con us out of pay increases.

the term "champion of the the environment" was a real favorite. They also had business champions, dont know what that means even now.

It made my skin crawl, one of many reasons why I resigned.

The Environment Agency is a huge waste of public money.

Dark_Angel · 18 Mar 2009 at 12:58

Ummm.... how can "thinking outside of the box" be banned,and yet:

A Plain English Campaign spokeswoman said: "This gobbledegook has to go. Jargon has its place within professions but it should not be allowed to leak out to the public, as it causes confusion.

So "thinking outside the box" is hart for a retard to understand, yet telling them gobbledegook will be ok and they will be A-Ok?

What the hell?