Jargon and Obfuscation

Was reading an article about the attempts to turnaround Ford's fortunes (well, shame on them for sticking so long to fuel-inefficient SUVs) and came across this quote by Mark Fields, president of Ford’s Americas operations:
“My intent is that, going forward we bring that to the next level,” Fields said on CNBC. “We have to do and we are going to do a much better job of leveraging our global architecture to spin more products through product development.”
Um, could you have any more jargon in two sentences? "Going forward", "leveraging"... ugh. The worst thing from a communications and clarity point of view is after reading that you have not much idea what the company will actually do to develop new products. Or maybe I'm just not used to leveraging global architecture...

Plain English Campaign

Comments

Anonymous said…
Why can't the English teach their children how to speak?
Norwegians learn Norwegian; the Greeks have taught their Greek.
In France every Frenchman knows
his language fro "A" to "Zed"
(The French never care what they do, actually,
as long as they pronounce it properly)
Arabians learn Arabian with the speed of summer lightning.
And Hebrews learn it backwards,
which is absolutely frightening.
But use proper English you're regarded as a freak.
Why can't the English,
Why can't the English learn to speak?

An Englishman's way of speaking absolutely classifies him,
The moment he talks he makes some other Englishman despise him.
One common language I'm afraid we'll never get.
Oh, why can't the English learn to set
A good example to people whose
English is painful to your ears?
The Scotch and the Irish leave you close to tears.
There even are places where English completely disappears.
In America, they haven't used it for years!
Anonymous said…
Sorry for the long quote. I must learn to restrain myself.
Yeah, when as soon as I heard him say that cluster-fuck of verbal babble I shook my head and said, "Ford is in some serious trouble.."

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