Jargon Hunting

Canberra is the national headquarters of stakeholder engagement, thought leadership and the run-on sentence. This city is awash with jargon, wherein words such as actionable, facilitate and silo are ceaselessly smashed into phrases like core competencies, value chain and driving innovation, to make even the most mundane task sound weighty with deliverables.

Unfortunately, this habit of loading sentences with empty emphasis has slopped over into every day conversation and is now the ambient noise of television. Here are six of the worst.


Passion

Unless you fight, fuck or breastfeed someone it isn't a passion. It could be an enthusiasm, it might even be a career or the sort of hobby that gets you a spot on Collectors but rarely does it require the dreaded 'P' word.


Paradigm

Is worth approximately 20 cents and if you really need to shift one I will happily put it in my pocket.


At the end of the day

It gets dark and I can go home without listening to any more of this bullshit.


Journey

It's not a journey unless you change your mailing address. Try using process, experience or, in the case of reality television contestants, 'transitory moment of lessened obscurity'.


Upskill

If you use this word it's a fair bet you haven't.


May I just say

Absolutely not. Just because you're in front of a camera, flanked by a journalist and sitting under television lights in no way indicates an interest in your opinion.