Thinking outside the goalposts

THE last straw came a few weeks before Christmas, and the managing director wanted to talk about sales. Carl Newbrook was under no illusion that it would be good news. He realised it was worse than he thought when everybody in the meeting started talking about "holding our nerve".

"Translated, that means we're all doomed and most of us are going to lose our jobs in the New Year," he recalls. "In order to cheer us up, somebody produced this cassette player and they'd completely rewritten the words to Once in Royal David's City in retail speak.

"I've completely forgotten it apart from one line, 'And the tills go ker-ching'. I left that meeting thinking I have literally been asked to sing from the same hymn sheet."

It was then that Carl realised the spread of office English had gone too far. He had worked in offices for several years by that point, and had become used to hearing jargon which meant nothing but seemed to be understood by everybody. Now he was determined to do something about it.

Singing from the same hymn sheet, going round the houses, pushing at an open door - all phrases guaranteed to produce involuntary spasms whenever Carl heard them, either of laughter or of pain. But now he resolved to collect them in a definitive guide to Office English, or Offlish.

"I was an English graduate and I was always interested in how language gets used, and when I started working in an office I was hearing this kind of language from people in marketing and retailing," says Carl, originally from South Shields and then working for a publisher in London.

"The first few weeks I was absolutely bowled over by the fact that I almost literally couldn't understand what they were talking about. I was sitting in meetings and I could get the gist of what they were on about, but I couldn't follow what they were saying."

So began a quest to collect all the examples of Offlish he could find. Company reports were a good source of material, as were the appointments pages in newspapers, full of the sort of language which sounds smart. But best of all were the phrases Carl heard first hand, or those passed on to him by colleagues.

"I started to take notes in meetings whenever I heard anything particularly funny, and once word got out with my colleagues that I was doing it I had them coming up to me with ones they'd heard," he says.

But while a lot of the language is funny in itself - many times Carl sat in meetings with his shoulders heaving with suppressed laughter while everyone else looked on bemused - there is a serious side to it, too. Offlish can leave those who are not in on the jargon feeling excluded.

"I used to think it was very funny but when the entire management team was saying it, I felt I was the odd one out," Carl says. "It is bad because it is dead language, it just doesn't mean anything. People use it because they think everyone around the table knows what it means, but actually it has become such a shorthand they're not really saying anything.

"If you used correct English to try and explain what you are trying to say, it would flush out what you really mean. If someone says 'no brainer', it might mean you are an idiot, or I'm an idiot, or he's an idiot, but the meaning isn't clear."

He quotes a book by American academic Harry G Frankfurt On Bullsh*t, which suggests the increasing prevalence of Offlish is partly a result of people being put in a situation where they have to talk about something they don't really understand.

Carl himself believes the rise in the number of courses has generated its own jargon, with the Internet ensuring new phrases move almost instantaneously from office to office and country to country. But it is not just businessmen to blame.

"Politicians talk like this all the time. Just the other week Tony Blair was talking about change makers, but I defy anybody to know what he means. I don't think he knows," he says. "Clearly, for the most part it's not the worst sin in the world, but when Tony Blair talks about change makers it's rather important we know what he means.

"It gets used for different reasons. People think it is the way you should talk in business, and some people use it cynically to get on. Then there are people who don't want to stand out and use it to blend in."

And not even Carl is immune to the occasional lapse into Offlish. "It is contagious," he says. "Once it is in a place of work it is almost impossible not to use it, although I try not to, very hard."

One of his own favourites provides the title for the book, 'Ducks in a row'. "It means let's get prepared, let's get united, but usually it is also a sort of threat, meaning you had better not make a mistake," he says.

Then there is 'Make it happen', "one of those horrible phrases that turns my stomach every time I hear it", and the acronyms, including 'JFDI', or 'Just f*cking do it'. "You hear that in business a lot, usually from people who haven't got a sense of humour and want to demonstrate they know about joking."

But there was a downside to Carl's quest for Offlish. He became obsessed. "I got stuck in a world of Offlish, I could hardly get out, and I found I got more and more angry at the kind of people who use it."

It's a trap which will feel horribly familiar to a few office workers. That is, unless they're all ducks in a row.

* Ducks in a Row: An A-Z of Office English by Carl Newbrook (Short Books, £9.99).

A brief guide to Offlish

Action-orientated: predisposed to action. Used by unblushing executives who don't care if they are talking nonsense.

Box, thinking outside the: an unconventional approach. Used by anyone who likes to think of themselves as unconventional and inspirational.

Cigar, close but no: almost correct or successful. Humourless managers putting down an underling in a meeting.

Door, pushing at an open: pointless activity. Supercilious managers adopting the latest vogue phrase to demonstrate they are up-to-the-minute.

Envelope, pushing the: finding new ways of working. Used to make any kind of new development, no matter how humble, sound like a revolutionary leap forward.

Goalposts, moving the: setting new objectives. Managers complaining of their dithering superiors.

Hymn sheet, singing from the same: collective action. Should this become more than metaphorical, it may be time to redraft one's CV.

Mission statement: a distillation of a company's purpose. A general urge to define and explain which has resulted in widespread nonsense and absurdity.

Plate, step up to: accept a challenge: Managers using an Americanism to try and make themselves sound decisive.

Pressure! No: don't worry. An invitation to either collect your belongings and head for the exit, or knuckle down to a life of corporate serfdom.

Ride, bumpy: difficult period. Used by uncaring senior managers to describe an upcoming period of change.

SUMO: acronym, Shut Up and Move On. Managers who have grown far too fond of their own voices.

Take that on board: to accept a point or argument. The conventional method for agreeing to disagree.

Value-added: something additional to a product or service. Used by cynical marketing managers suggesting yet another idea for duping the customer.

Wheel, reinvent the: an unnecessary repetition. Managers apportioning blame or reflecting on another corporate gaffe.

Yes: confirmation. Almost always the right answer.