Corporate Speak - Page 1

Activate - To make copies and add more names to the memo.

Advanced Design - Beyond the comprehension of the ad agency's copywriters.

All New - Parts not interchangeable with existing models.

Approved - Subject to Comment. Redraw the damned thing.

Automatic - That which you can't repair yourself.

Channels - The trail left by interoffice memos.

Clarify - To fill in the background with so many details that the foreground goes underground.

Conference - A place where conversation is substituted for the dreariness of labor and the loneliness of thought.

Confidential Memorandum - No time to photocopy for the whole office.

Consultant - Someone who borrows your watch to tell you what time it is - then walks away with the watch.

Coordinator - The person who has a desk between two expediters

Developed After Years of Intensive Research - Discovered by accident.

Expedite - To confound confusion with commotion.

Forwarded for Your Consideration - You hold the bag for a while.

FYI - Found Yesterday, Interested?

Give Someone the Picture - To make a long, confused, and inaccurate statement to a newcomer.

Give Us the Benefit of Your Present Thinking - We'll listen to what you have to say as long as it doesn't interfere with what we've already decided to do.

In Conference - Nobody can find him/her.

In Due Course - Never.

It's Complicated - We have no clue how to do that.

Infrastructure - 1. The structure within an infra. 2. The structure outside the infra. 3. A building with built-in infras.