In trying to keep track of this year’s blizzard of buzzwords I’ve been helped out by Business Life readers. From the US Nick Harrison writes to signal a new usage: the noun shutter has suddenly become a verb, signifying both closing down and boarding up, as in “Madam K’s is soon to shutter”, or “Granco has shuttered its operations”.
He spotted four examples within four days from the Seattle Times, the “sole remaining daily paper in this town since the 150 year-old Post-Intelligencer itself shuttered a month or so ago.”
Another novel Americanism yet to cross the oceans is shovel-ready, referring to a major project that is all set to go but awaiting public funding which may not now materialise.
In times of turmoil an upsurge in acronyms and abbreviations is only to be expected, and examples noted by correspondents include GFC (the Australian government’s own shorthand for global financial crisis) and CC, which can stand for credit crunch or current climate.
Irish informant Ros Waverley has picked up on the fact that RIF, the euphemistic reduction in force(s) (aka downsizing) from a year or so ago, has first become an acronym pronounced ‘riff’, and more recently a verb, as in “We’re riffing”/”We’ve been riffed.”
Several readers were amused when Lord Mandelson testily insisted that his £2.5bn rescue package for the UK car industry was not a bailout (Merriam-Webster’s word of the year for 2008), but a greening initiative. Others were tickled by the portentous language governments have come up with to boost their anti-recessionary credentials: a little too late perhaps Australia has embraced countercyclicality, which simply means anticipating periodic economic downturns, while Britain has been promoting flexibilism; adapting your working practices to cope
with unexpected crises.
I can’t help chuckling cynically at the latest catchphrases circulating among the cheerfully desperate — or desperately cheerful — flat is the new
up is one such, while I heard someone the other day assert in all seriousness that we’ve got to take the HAV (high-altitude view) and look beyond the beyond. Thankfully professional trendspotters also remain resolutely upbeat, promoting something they call innovation jubilation, celebrating nimbleness (marketing’s successor to agility) and announcing the imminent appearance of Generation G (for generous).
Send your favourite buzzwords, jargon and new and exotic usages to tony.thorne@kcl.ac.uk
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