Age of Euphemisms..
Archie and his pals introduced me to euphemisms. Verbal window dressing was how it came across. Especially handy when you are in serious trouble and do not want to spell out the specifics in so many words to strict parents, teachers or worse still a dumb boss.
It was stored away somewhere on the hard disk and was retrieved when I got admission into a business school. Every other word seemed to have a fancy replacement, a value added elder sibling, self assured and aloof. Like Percy, Ron's elder brother in Harry Potter. Leaving you quite embarassed in your ignorance and lack of understanding.
As the first year rolled on, I accepted the deluge of jargon with a philosophical shrug - If you cant beat them, join them. So I began to mouth expressions just as well like the rest of them. Well that was till todays class.
During a SWOT analysis it was explained - There are no weaknesses, only Improvement Areas. Hmm... What was that again? Weakness is a negative term. Puts you down. Shackles your limbs and leaves you with a sense of defeat and hopelesness.
Move over to Improvement areas and voila! There's light at the end of the tunnel..
The point here is not whether improvement areas can be improved upon or not. That totally depends on the individual and his desire to effect a change. The point is that I can not help but feel that we are evading truths by giving them fancy names.
There are no longer interviews, but discussions; no critisism but construcitve dialogues; no war but pre emptive action. A senior official in a reputed firm told me, there aint no interviews in this organisation, only mutual discussion. The problem is that he is the only one who believes so.
A verbal evasion. Quite forgetting that a rose by any other name..........
It was stored away somewhere on the hard disk and was retrieved when I got admission into a business school. Every other word seemed to have a fancy replacement, a value added elder sibling, self assured and aloof. Like Percy, Ron's elder brother in Harry Potter. Leaving you quite embarassed in your ignorance and lack of understanding.
As the first year rolled on, I accepted the deluge of jargon with a philosophical shrug - If you cant beat them, join them. So I began to mouth expressions just as well like the rest of them. Well that was till todays class.
During a SWOT analysis it was explained - There are no weaknesses, only Improvement Areas. Hmm... What was that again? Weakness is a negative term. Puts you down. Shackles your limbs and leaves you with a sense of defeat and hopelesness.
Move over to Improvement areas and voila! There's light at the end of the tunnel..
The point here is not whether improvement areas can be improved upon or not. That totally depends on the individual and his desire to effect a change. The point is that I can not help but feel that we are evading truths by giving them fancy names.
There are no longer interviews, but discussions; no critisism but construcitve dialogues; no war but pre emptive action. A senior official in a reputed firm told me, there aint no interviews in this organisation, only mutual discussion. The problem is that he is the only one who believes so.
A verbal evasion. Quite forgetting that a rose by any other name..........
posted by CDey at 10:15 PM
3 Comments:
Looks like you were actually listening in class.
There a euphemism for sleeping...its called Reflecting (my 2 years at BIM)
Sometimes simpler words have deep & complex meanings, at least jargons are used in a particular context
Euphemisms have always been the order of nobility and the educated. Our new world order has distributed power and all of us have learned to be Euphemistic.
En Vogue...
Post a Comment
<< Home