If you do any work in an office, odds are you’ve heard and used hundreds of meaningless buzzwords over the course of your career. In brand rhetoric, buzzwords should be avoided like the plague, so keep an eye on your tongue as you get through the corporate day.
Buzzwords are words that sound professional or exciting, but have become so overused that they’ve lost their original significance. The more you use them, the more you sound like a tired salesman or a repetitious robot. These 10 are some of the worst offenders:
1. Low Hanging Fruit. It’s a phrase, not a word, but it’s buzzy as all hell. Low hanging fruit used to be an articulate metaphor, but now it’s just a tired clip flung around by salespeople looking for a quick interest.
2. Leverage. Harness. Take advantage of. Seize. Exploit. Explore. Utilize. Control. Employ. Channel. There are dozens of other words you can use. Stop using leverage.
3. Game-Changing. This one sounds cool. But it stopped being cool when everyone else in the game started using it.
4. Epic. We’d like to put forth a notion that the word “epic” should not be used for the next 100 years or so. It used to mean something.
5. Disruptive. Disruptive is another word that started out cool, and slowly dissolved as every tech company under the sun started using it.
6. Solution. Do you actually have a solution? If so, bravo, but if you’re just using the word “solution” to pitch to people, it’s time to reconsider your phrasing.
7. Reinventing the Wheel. This metaphor works well the first couple of times you use it. After that, you’re just going in circles.
8. Impact. Or its cousin, impactful. You can find a better word. I believe in you.
9. Optimize. If you’re referring to SEO, this one can slide. Other than that, be more specific.
10. Streamline. Don’t get me started.
We use buzzwords too, unintentionally, of course, so don’t sweat it if one or two slips into your everyday conversations. Just do everything you can to vary your language and stop yourself from using buzzwords like linguistic crutches.
photo credit: aussiegall via photopin cc
