Guide To Buzzwords and Jargon

I ran across this list in my notes today and thought folks might get a kick out of it.


From Cabinet Secrets, (1987) by London antiques dealer Alistair Sampson, member of the British Antiques Dealers Association,

Selected from his cheeky glossary of terms in the book.

A touch of worm: Infested. If you buy the object, check all floorboards, beams and so on with great regularity.

I'm not sure about one leg: I am sure about one leg; we had it made.

Difficult to date: Easy to date, made yesterday.

It's a tremendous bargain and a wonderful investment: I am sure it will come back into fashion some day.

Rare: It's been a month since I've had another one.

Very rare: Fairly uncommon.

Unique: One of a pair.

It's gone a lovely color: Our refinisher is brilliant.

Mint: We defy you to spot what's wrong with it.

You are the first to see it: I have sworn all others to secrecy.

I very nearly took it home: I very nearly had to.

I am only making the teeniest weeniest little profit: I am barely doubling my money.


Furniture dealers have their own vocabulary. Sampson writes:

Bombe is not a place in India but the protuberant front on a chest or commode.

A tester bed is not a demonstration model but an expensive name for a four-poster.

A long case clock is not a clock for timing cases at court but the term for grandfather clocks.

Sampson advises:
Do carry a pin at all times, The mere production of a pin will concentrate the mind of the ceramics dealer quite wonderfully. Just as you are about to cause the expensive repair to be undone again (by poking it with the pin) the concerned dealer will slap himself upon the brow and bleat, 'Don't do that - I do now recall that the person from whom I acquired it did mention that there was a small crack bisecting the entire piece which he had taken the liberty to have sprayed out'



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A book I have on my shelves somewhere.

 

Love all of this ... will come in handy! A big laugh even after reading both posts several time, so a keeper. Thanks.

 

"A tester bed is not a demonstration model but an expensive name for a four-poster."

Just curious. How do any/all of you pronounce "tester" in the above sentence?

Around here it is pronounced "teester" but still spelled "tester."

 

I pronounce it "too tall to fit in my mid-century low ceiling house!"

 

Each January I have handed out prizes to the finest, freshest examples of corporate guff spoken or written in the preceding 12 months, writes author and Financial Times columnist Lucy Kellaway.
Every year they just get better, the 2013 crop being the best of the lot.
To make them more manageable, I break them down into categories, the first of which is the "best euphemism for firing people".
Companies did a lot of firing last year and were more imaginative than ever in telling it like it is not.
Reuters caused staff to be "transitioned out of the company", while other businesses "disestablished" or even "completed" roles.
An affordable, portable lifestyle beverage?
But the winner is HSBC, which "demised" about 900 of its managers. In doing this it has invented a euphemism that is harsher than the real thing. It made it sound as if it was not merely sacking staff but exterminating them.
'Nerbs and vouns'
The next prize is for the worst way of meeting/talking to/emailing someone.
"To reach out", a previous winner, almost won again as the loathsome phrase has spread into "reaching down" (talking to underlings) and "reaching around" (talking to a group).
But in the end, the prize goes to a new verb: "to inbox". The genius of this new verb lies in its unintentional accuracy. To say "I'll inbox you" implicitly acknowledges that though the message will arrive in your inbox, you will never actually read it.
"To inbox" is also a strong contender for the "Nerbs and vouns" prize - for nouns moonlighting as verbs and vice versa.
"To solution" and "to road-map" were both hot contenders but lost out to the voun seen attached to a sofa in a shop in London declaring it to be "a medium sit". For me, "sit" is standout.
Sticking with nouns, the next category is for "rebranded common object", awarded to a household item with an extravagant new name.

The two hottest contenders were a bottle of water, recently described as an "affordable, portable lifestyle beverage", and a swimming cap, rebranded by Speedo as a "hair management system". Both are equally bad, though the water surely wins.
Wheelhouses and sweetspots
Easier was deciding on the winner of this year's "chief obfuscation champion", given to the CEO who never opens his or her mouth without a blue streak of guff pouring out.
My winner is Rob Stone, CEO of Cornerstone, who wrote about his ad agency's expansion: "As brands build out a world footprint, they look for the no-holds-barred global POV that's always been part of our wheelhouse."
Thus he came up with a four-way mixed metaphor that managed to say nothing whatsoever.
He also managed to use the word "wheelhouse", which was on the longlist for the "guff word of 2013".
Other candidates included "sweetspot" and "experience", both narrowly beaten by "curate" - referring not to something that happens in art galleries, but to the activity that every company, no matter how basic, claims to be doing. Even a vendor of T-shirts in New York boasts that it "curates iconic street culture".
My final category is a new one. The "flannel-free award" goes to a person who eschewed jargon for a few seconds to say something straight.
The runaway winner is Wan Long, founder of Shuanghui International and a global leader in the pork chop space: "What I do is kill pigs and sell meat."
With joy, I award him the prize.
Lucy Kellaway is an author and Financial Times columnist.