April 25, 2018
Have you ever caught yourself “thinking outside of the box”? Don’t mention it to colleagues, who are likely to roll their eyes at your choice of words.
New research suggests that fully 70% American workers have added “office jargon” to their vocabularies—with “give it 110%” the phrase that is odds-on the most annoying, according findings of a poll covered by SWNS on April 24.
The study, conducted by OnePoll in conjunction with Jive Communications, looked at the shop talk of 2,000 U.S. workers and compiled the 40 most cringe-worthy office phrases.
We’ve all been there—whether we were the ones wincing or actually using these phrases. According to 72% of American workers, these annoying words and phrases are used out of habit. We also would guess that workers use jargon such as “let’s ballpark this” and “run it up the flagpole,” in order to sound professional.
What about “synergy”? Ranked at 13, this oft-used word is one that many people detest. And, while we all have gone “back to the drawing board,” 27% of American workers draw the line at that phrase.
Interesting enough, fully 29% of workers have used these buzzwords just to get a backlash from their co-workers; and 22% use them for assimilation purposes.
What’s more, while many people are cringing at office communications on a daily basis 60% of Americans can’t even understand what they mean.
Below, are the most annoying examples of office jargon, as determined by the recent poll:
- Give it 110%
- Think outside the box
- Hammer it out
- Heavy lifting
- Throw them under the bus
- Don’t count your chickens before they hatch
- Pushing the envelope
- Let the cat out of the bag
- Let’s circle back
- Win-win situation
- Blue-sky thinking
- Boil the ocean
- Synergy
- Low-hanging fruit
- Take it to the next level
- Barking up the wrong tree
- Going forward
- Let’s ballpark this
- Run this up the flagpole
- Back to square one
- There’s no I in team
- Back to the drawing board
- Paradigm shift
- Elephant in the room
- Raise the bar
- Drill down
- Best thing since sliced bread
- Deep dive
- Skin in the game
- Reach out
- Touch base
- Play hardball
- Don’t reinvent the wheel
- Kept in the loop
- The bottom line
- Down the road
- I’ll loop you in
- Hit the nail on the head
- ASAP
- Team player
And we’d like to add a number 41: “Let’s unpack that” has been used far too frequently during the past year.
Research contact: jack.peat@swns.com
