Every new year, offices promise transformation. Strategy decks are refreshed, calendars are cleared, and optimism is cautiously rebooted. This year, however, there is a far simpler resolution the workplace desperately needs—lesser office jargon.
Surge of jargon-based office communication
Jargon has become the corporate equivalent of background noise. Everyone hears it, no one really listens to it, and yet it refuses to go away. It has grown unchecked, like an invasive species. As a result, meetings no longer begin, they “kick off”. Tasks are not finished, they are “closed out”. Problems are not solved, they are “taken offline”, which is where most issues go to live out the rest of their natural lives. People don’t work, they “deep-dive”, “circle back” and “leverage synergies” until everyone forgets what the original question was.
Consider the humble sentence. Once upon a time, someone could say, “This will take two days.” Today, it has evolved into “Let’s align on timelines and revert with a revised roadmap.” The information content is identical. The confusion is far greater.
Why does jargon thrive?
Jargon thrives because it sounds busy. Saying “I don’t know” feels risky; saying “We’re still ideating on that” feels strategic. A delay is no longer a delay—it is a “phased recalibration”. A mistake is not a mistake, it is a “learning opportunity”, preferably captured in a post-mortem with no actual cause of death.
Emails are the worst offenders. “Just flagging” usually means panic. “As discussed” often means “I am about to hold you accountable for a conversation you don’t remember.” And “per my last mail” is workplace code for restrained outrage.
The tragedy is not just aesthetic—it is practical. Somewhere along the way, clarity became unfashionable.
Admitting “we made a mistake” seemed dangerous, so it morphed into “there were some executional learnings”. Nobody delays a decision anymore, they “park it for now”, which is corporate-speak for abandoning it without the emotional responsibility.
Meetings are where jargon truly shines. They are no longer meetings but “sync-ups”, “touch-base sessions”, or “alignment calls”. An hour passes, nothing is decided, but everyone agrees it was a “productive discussion”. Productivity, in this context, is measured by the number of times someone says “moving forward”.
The tragedy is that jargon rarely saves time. Meetings run longer because everyone is translating in their heads. Junior employees nod vigorously while Googling terms under the table. Decisions get postponed because nobody is sure whether “parking this” means temporary delay or permanent burial.
Here is some more office jargon which will drive you up the wall. One is “Over the wall”. An executive got a request from her boss to send a document “over the wall”. Did he want her to print out the document, make it into a paper airplane, and send it whooshing across the office? Finally, she asked for clarification. It apparently means to send something to the client. Then there is the often-expressed “paradigm shift”.
The phrase makes you feel like you’re about to witness a groundbreaking scientific discovery, when in reality it usually means “We’re changing something that should have been changed years ago.” “Blue sky thinking” is another familiar jargon. It makes you feel like you should be lying on a grassy hill, staring at the clouds, waiting for inspiration to strike. It actually means thinking creatively, but often gets used as “We have no idea what we’re doing, so let’s throw ideas around and see what sticks.”
So here’s a modest New Year wishlist. Let deadlines be called deadlines. Let problems be called problems. Let people say “yes”, “no”, or “I need help” without wrapping it in three layers of corporate cushioning. That would mean fewer “deep dives” and more decisions and fewer “roadmaps” that lead nowhere.
If offices manage this one resolution, productivity may not double. But meetings might end early, emails might get shorter, and everyone might leave work with their dignity—and dictionaries—intact. Will this happen? Probably not overnight. Jargon is resilient. It will fight back, disguised as “best practices” and “industry standards”. But perhaps, just perhaps, this year someone will dare to say, “Can we just say what we mean?” That would be a new year well spoken