Sunday, March 28, 2010

Bad Copy of the Day Award: Verbal Edition

I generally hate "businessisms" such as "I'll ping you later on that" or "at the end of the day." I hate them a lot. Just use normal words, and stop talking like an asshat. Usually, the same tired phrases are recycled for years, mostly because salespeople have very little imagination. So my ears always perk up when I hear a new one. In this situation, a business deal had stagnated, and my coworker was discussing the need to allay her client's anxiety regarding lack of progress:

"We just want to show him some movement in the water."

Why "in the water"? Why do you need that metaphor at all? If she had been talking directly to me, which she wasn't, I would have been terribly distracted by imagining all the things that might create movement in water -- a boat wake? The Loch Ness Monster? Underwater volcano? Corpse floating downstream?

I'm just not cut out for Corporate America, I guess.

1 comment:

Auntie Mary said...

"asshat?" Have you been listening to Stephanie Miller on the radio?