Admit it. When you walk through the office door, suddenly you begin employing vocabulary that you'd never be caught dead saying at the pub.
Your day is replete with dialogues, offline chats, and partnerships. All of which make you feel empowered to move your project forward.
But are buzzwords a trap, designed to obfuscate the truth and mangle our thoughts? Or could these phrases allow us to communicate professionally, so we can reach beyond the realms of our dull, domestic lexicon?
Last year, the Government issued a style guide to encourage the use of simple language in official documents.
"We also lose trust from our users if we write government ‘buzzwords’ and jargon. Often, these words are too general and vague and can lead to misinterpretation or empty, meaningless text," explains the gov.uk guidelines.
Phrases to be avoided include agenda (unless it's for a meeting), collaborate (use ‘working with’), deliver (pizzas, post and services are delivered – not abstract concepts like ‘improvements’ or ‘priorities’) and dialogue (we speak to people).
The guidelines also advise writers not to use formal or long words when easy or short ones will do.
They suggest using ‘buy’ instead of ‘purchase’, ‘help’ instead of ‘assist’, ‘about’ instead of ‘approximately’ and ‘like’ instead of ‘such as’.
HuffPost UK Lifestyle has looked at some of the silliest and most commonly used phrases spoken in UK offices today, and given them a thumbs up, and down.
But do you agree with our decisions?
