61 Overused Words and Phrases to Avoid in Business Writing

61 Overused Words and Phrases to Avoid in Business Writing

When it comes to business writing, being direct and precise is key. It’s easy to turn on auto-pilot and respond with cliché words and phrases when we’re being bombarded with all sorts of emails and reports. Common words such as “incentivize” and “actionable” are tired and should be eliminated from your vocabulary.

[social_quote duplicate=”no” align=”default”]Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. – Clare Boothe Luce[/social_quote]

According to Tim Askew, business writing doesn’t have to be dull. “Authentic, interesting writing is personal,” he says. We shouldn’t rely on words and phrases such as “client-centered” and “push the envelope” to carry our writing. Askew refers to these as “herd words”. Our writing should be clear and precise—and our own.

In Askew’s article on Inc.com titled “61 Words and Phrases to Eliminate From Your Business Writing Immediately,” he refers to the writings of SMU Distinguished Research Professor of Law Bryan A. Garner. In the opening for one of several essays for the Harvard Business Review, Garner starts with a paragraph consisting mainly of clichés.

“It’s mission-critical to be plain-spoken, whether you’re trying to be best-of-breed at outside-the-box thinking or simply incentivizing colleagues to achieve a paradigm shift in core-performance value-adds.  Leading-edge leveraging of your plain-English skill set will ensure that your actionable items synergize  your global-knowledge repository.”

Simplify Your Business Writing

After consulting with his Twitter followers, Garner then revealed what he thought of as an “index expurgatorius”. In other words, these are 61 words and phrases that should we should stay away from.

actionable ~ CYA ~ incent ~ monetize ~ pursuant to ~ strategic dynamism ~ agreeance ~ drill down ~ incentivize ~ net-net ~ recontextualize ~ synergize ~ as per ~ ducks in a row ~ impactful ~ on the same page ~ repurpose ~ think outside the box ~ at the end of the day ~ forward initiative ~ kick the can down the road ~ operationalize ~ rightsized ~ throw it against the wall and see if it sticks ~ back of the envelope ~ going forward ~ let’s do lunch ~ optimize ~ sacred cow ~ throw under the bus ~ bandwidth ~ go rogue ~ let’s take this offline ~ out of pocket ~ scalable turnkey ~ bring our A game ~ guesstimate ~ level the playing field ~ paradigm shift ~ seamless integration ~ under the radar ~ client-centered ~ harvesting efficiencies ~ leverage ~ parameters ~ seismic shift ~ value-added ~ come-to-Jesus ~ hit the ground running ~ liaise ~ per ~ smartsized ~ where the rubber meets the road ~ core competency ~ impact ~ mission-critical ~ push the envelope ~ strategic alliance ~ win-win ~ awesome

Garner is able to sum up his point rather precisely:

Bizspeak may seem like a convenient shorthand, but it suggests to readers that you’re on autopilot, thoughtlessly using boilerplate phrases that they’ve heard over and over. Brief, readable documents, by contrast, show care and thought–and earn people’s attention.

Business Writing-P

 

 

 

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