Here I am posting against bureacratese and MBA speak and I missed this on the Huffington Post this week:
They’re utilizing “utilize” when they could just as easily use “use.” They’re talking about “selling solutions” when the company really makes and sells nuts, bolts, or ball peen hammers.
In the process, they’re throwing away the common sense language of American business — a language where people say what they mean, mean what they say, and make real money in the process.
There is pure business genius in simple language. Consider, “Lather. Rinse. Repeat.”
In “Lather” and “Rinse” we have a complete set of instructions for shampooing our hair. The genius — the American business genius — is in “Repeat.” This one word, written in the imperative instructs us to double the rate of product consumption. Untold gallons of shampoo have gone down the drain because America, “repeats.” Billions of dollars have been amassed and dispersed to stockholders.
And make no mistake about it. America doesn’t “reutilize.” It “repeats.”
Peter Smith is mainly a humorist, I gather, but sometimes humorists are writers. It’s a good reminder, and funny too. Here’s the link to the story:
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