Language economy: recession sparks jargon cutbacks

Global recession - that's what it takes to make people say what they mean, clearly and concisely. At least, that's what prompted UK Council leaders to ban a long list of expressions deemed jargon from their offices.

"During the recession, it is vital that we explain to people in plain English how to get access to the 800 different services that local government provides with taxpayers' money', says Local Government Association chair Margaret Eaton. So after the recession they can go back to utterly confusing everyone with coterminosity and potentialities?

I checked out the full list of banned words and saw some familiar arch-enemies:

• blue-sky thinking
• thinking outside the box
• synergies
• utilise
• step change
• going forward
• best practice
• transparency

...and so on. Some of the entries were truly puzzling - what's so obscure about words like 'client', 'wellbeing' or 'robust'? But mostly I wished some higher authority would publish (and enforce) a similar list of no-no's for B2B marketing.

We're not so terribly infected by jargon at Base One - certainly the copy team works to take our client content beyond the lazy conventions of jargon. Especially in digital comms, we strive to make it plain, simple and short - screens are already hard on the eyes, and no one wants to read block after block of...well, anything. Save it for a pdf, already.

But there's only so much we can do when well-meaning clients and marketing folk insist on stuffing familiar but murky corporate-speak into ads, websites, emails, print pieces, brand guidelines and other communications.

Which expressions or words would you ban from B2B? Comment and let us know...