Monday smile – Guffipedia

I think you might enjoy Guffipedia – a “dictionary of business jargon and corporate nonsense”. It is published by the Financial Times newspaper from a column by Lucy Kellaway, in which she has been “prosecuting corporate crimes against the English language for two decades”. There are also annual Guff/Golden Flannel Awards. 🙂

Here are a few of my favourites.

waterAffordable portable lifestyle beverage

  • Translation into plain English: Bottle of water
  • Perpetrator: Food industry analyst
  • Usage example: “It has become an affordable portable lifestyle beverage in the last 20 years”.

phoneconfBilateral telephonic meeting

  • Translation into plain English: Telephone call
  • Perpetrator: From an internal memo
  • Usage example: “We need to set priorities for the next bilateral telephonic meeting”.

fornoOven-ready projects

  • Translation into plain English: Almost-finished projects
  • Perpetrator: CEO, Legal & General
  • Usage example: “Liquidity isn’t a problem. There are not enough ‘oven ready’ infrastructure projects”.

To whet your appetite…

  • “Chief manifesto catalyst”
  • “the hair-involved consumer”
  • “to language it”
  • “Robustify learnability”

You can find the Guffipedia here. Enjoy! 🙂

One thought on “Monday smile – Guffipedia

  1. Pingback: Monday smile – Guffipedia II | From Words to Deeds: translation & the law

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