if they don't know, how are you supposed to?

I'm afraid that some of the people who confuse us with their language are often confused themselves.

For example, in my old life, culture became a bit of a buzz word. But the definition of what it actually meant kept shifting, thus resulting in all sorts of confusion.

I'm aware of interminable discussions centering around whether health was part of culture, or culture part of health.

And if you think that's baffling, I waited two years for an adequate description of something called media literacy. I asked three times and each time got more confused.

However, I did receive one explanation - media literacy is what allows media studies teachers and others with far too little to do to attend conferences once or twice a year where they can talk about...erm...what media literacy actually means.

And don't get me started on diversity. Diversity is like equal opportunities, but its not. In fact its something completely different.

And soon it emerged that just about everyone and everything could be included in the term diverse groups. The young, the old, the ill, wheelchair users, young offenders, milkmen, television presenters, priests, shepherds, etc.

With all that navel-gazing, why it left hardly any time to any real work at all...

Keep it simple

Will

the advancement of the...eh?

That's my boy!

What is it about job adverts and terrible jargon?

In my past life I saw an advert for a new chief executive. It said the job was being advertised following...

The advancement of the founding postholder.

Christ knows what that means. It was so awful I complained, only to be told that my comments would be passed to the recruitment agency who, at great expense, wrote the advert.

And this week I see a job - sorry, vacancy - for an interpretive co-ordinator.

The ad, by some Government quango, says the ideal candidate should ensure the successful delivery - that word again - of the interpretation plan.

But nowhere in the entire ad does it describe what on Earth an interpretive co-ordinator might do or what they look after.

I'm thinking signs or maps, but that's a wild guess.

Does anyone know what these people are talking about?

Keep it nice and simple.

Will

ownership

Lets get something straight, the only way you can own something is if you've bought it in a shop.

Today, I see a job advert which states that the successful applicant will work with various (web) site "owners".

In my previous life, people went big on "ownership" and they also went big on something called "buy-in".

Whenever we came up with an idea, we had to encourage buy-in from other people.

And of course, if you got buy-in, you got ownership - which brings us right back to where we started.

The job advert goes on to say that the successful candidate will have to "repurpose existing content".

Repurpose, there's an horrendous misuse of the English language I haven't come across before. I think it must mean change or edit.


Keep it simple.

Will