Orientating Language Views

For the last few months I've been on a mission to rid the world of the phrase"going forward". But now I see that the way forward is to admit defeat. This most horrid phrase is with us on a go-forward basis, like it or not.

There is so much more to object to in "going forward". It clings to the tongues of speakers compelling them to utter it again and again. It is a grown up equivalent of the word "like", which seems to trip off the tongue of the average teenager every two or three waking seconds.  The actual replacement for "going forward" should be "until the next politician is elected" or  "in slightly less than four years" , or any statement without an indeterminate timeframe.

Like "like", "going forward" is as contagious as smallpox.

 "We are going forward" poor Hillary Clinton said just before the last, fatal primary last month when it became indisputable that she was going nowhere of the kind.

The President talked the talk. Or rather, he added value by reaching out and sharing his blue sky thinking. At the end of the day he stepped up to the plate and delivered world class jargon that really pushed the envelope. After eight years of being him I came to accept the nouns pretending to be verbs. To task and to impact. Even the new verb to architect I almost took in my stride. I didn't even really mind the impenetrable sentences full of leveraging value and paradigm shifts. He said myself instead of me and he would never talk about a problem, when he could dialogue around an issue instead.

The biggest lie of all in business speak is about ownership. In order to make it appear that there is a strong bond between customers and companies there isMy e-Bay and My EasyJet and - most successfully of all - My computer. At the risk of being as pedantic, I'd like to point out that it isn't my My computer. It isn't yours either. Neither is it even Bill Gates' computer. The company belongs to its shareholders.

Last week I got an e-mail from someone I had never met that began by saying "I'm reaching out to you" and ended "warmest personal regards". Her regards had no business to be either warm or personal .

The evolution of the language is what keeps it from following Latin into obscurity. But sloppy cliches, impenetrable jargon and meaningless verbal litter, like, just clutter and obstruct clear communication and hide superficial thinking. What we need is a new Oftalk to regulate the use of language, headed by Communication Czar who is passionate about going forward to champion the cause of the deep-rooted values that underpin the language that we all cherish as embodying the lasting and universal but distinctively English values of ... now hang on, where was I?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7453584.stm