Calling Out Corporate Doublespeak
Origin, evolution, and metamorphosis of language and its weaponization in the corporate world
“We’re facing challenges in organizing the client deliverable,” my manager chanted in a flat and unemotional tone. He threw his arms out as if to figuratively demonstrate the extent of the “challenges.” He made his message clear and that was we in the meeting are guilty. We have let down our manager. However, we debated in our minds why our manager refused to see the obvious. Our manager’s haste to score ignored the pitfalls of shortcuts. My erstwhile colleague raised the subject with us and despite our counsel, raised the same with our manager which resulted in him becoming “erstwhile.” This colleague forgot the core tenets, one of which debars you from contradicting your manger’s initiative or project. To do so is, in corporate jargon, a career-limiting move. He must have read Jack Higgins who wrote this dialog for an admiral:
“My dear Max. I don’t think you quite get the point. The more absurd the idea put forward by your superiors in this game, the more rapturously should you receive it, however crazy. Put all your enthusiasm — assumed, of course — into the project. Over a period of time allow the difficulties to show, so that very gradually your masters will make the discovery for themselves that it just isn’t on. As nobody likes to be involved in failure if he can avoid it, the whole project will be discreetly dropped.”
—Jack Higgins, The Eagle Has Landed
Incompetent employees fail; incompetent managers, on the other hand, “face challenges.” This is to say that the failure of the manager must be attributed to some external, insidious, and loathsome agency that prevents the manager from succeeding for some devious purpose. Managers can never fail except perhaps out of their own volition. Our manager goes beyond and hides our failure to fulfill the client’s need by not naming it as such, and instead softens the blow by the soporific sobriquet of “the deliverable.”
“I cannot doubt that language owes its origin to the imitation and modification, aided by signs and gestures, of various natural sounds, the voices of other animals, and man’s own instinctive cries.”
— Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex
The bow-wow theory, propounded by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Johann Gottfried Herder, and Friedrich Max Müller among others, delineates the origin of language to onomatopoeia, i.e., the imitation of natural sounds and animal sounds to convey meaning. The theory suggests that the naming of things flows from the vocal imitation of the sound associated with it, e.g., bang, boom, bump, buzz, cackle, hiss, hiccup. This primal communication could only be imprecise, incomplete, or inadequate. Among the many theories postulating on the origin of language, bow-wow may be credited with originating at least a group of words. Philologists, linguists, and philosophers have for long wrestled with the study of the origin of languages. While they postulated umpteen theories, none could establish a definitive answer. However, through their work and research, we could gauge the humble origins of the languages. The language then evolved and acquired a life of its own with its increased utility and became an organic living being that was in a constant flux. Down the ages the language fine-tuned itself toward its finest application in speech, thought, and writing. Reams have been written on how to use language with precision, perspicuity, and purity. Language must convey the exact and precise meaning using the minimum possible number of words. It also must convey the most with the least ink. Ergo, the question why a section of the populace finds it rewarding to use language in the opposite way.
To answer that question, I must trace the remaking of “Cogito Ergo Sum” to “I believe; therefore, I’m right.” Welcome to the post truth era. Post truth has been developed now to an exalted philosophy or an “ism.” The new-age dictum — when you can’t win, change the rules of the game. If you are unable to face the truth which hurts your beliefs, convictions, and benefits, then you must redefine truth itself. You will bend, discolor, and manipulate truth so that it serves your self-interest. To convince others of your post truth, you will appeal to their emotions and passions instead of their logic, common sense, or intellect. You will ignore and continue to ignore any facts to the contrary and overwhelm others with a hail of repetitive talking points. In this project, you will take language for a partner and use it to control the narrative. Unsurprisingly, the corporate honchos, living at the intersection of competition, insecurity, and ambition, set much store by this modus operandi.
When reality does not comport with your beliefs, desires, and wishes, you suffer from cognitive dissonance. Since cognitive dissonance causes persistent pain in the mind and heart, you must treat it through cognitive consonance. Consequently, you cultivate the acumen to notice and cathect anything that increases your cognitive consonance and develop selective amnesia regarding anything that increases cognitive dissonance. This explains the choices and speeches that some people make, which we find hard to reconcile to. In effect, a small clique of prestidigitators uses corporate doublespeak with post truth philosophy to deny truth and force consonant chords.
Language comprises words. For a meaningful application of a language, its words are classified into various parts of speech and these are used in a logical and consistent order. An arrangement of the English language is given below:
Phrase: A group of words without a subject-verb component and is dependent on other parts of the sentence.
Clause: A group of words with a subject-verb component and can stand on its own.
Sentence: A group of words with a subject-predicate component that makes complete sense.
On a broader level, the English words can be classified into 2 types: content words or open ended and function words or close ended.
Content words or open ended: Content words represent something and provide life to a sentence through meaning. They show names and actions and convey something about those names and actions. Hence, content words primarily consist of nouns, adjectives, verbs, and adverbs. These words take affixes. They readily accept new words; therefore, they are described as open ended.
Function words or close ended: Function words help make the sentences grammatically correct. They don’t represent content or meaning — they ensure the precision in the use of language by clarifying relationships between words in a sentence. Function words are primarily pronouns, prepositions, conjunctions, and determiners. Function words don’t change often and don’t accept new words or variations; they don’t change their forms (except personal pronouns). The function words are described as close ended.
A plethora of devices contribute to increase the lexicon of the English language. The openness, adaptability, and flexibility of the English language bolsters its capacity to absorb a wide continuum of words from across a broad swathe. Some of the primary devices for new words formation:
Self-manifesting: New words start their life without any apparent linguistic pedigree. They came; they saw; they conquered.
Borrowing: Words borrowed from other languages, as no fair equivalents can be found in the original language.
Affixing: New words coined by adding prefixes or suffixes to existing words.
Truncating: A long word clipped to form new, short words.
Compounding: Existing words fuse together to form new compound words.
Changing: Existing words change their meanings and thus form new words.
Many other devices contribute to the increase in the lexicon of a language. A recent trend blends parts of existing words to make new words to represent new shades of meanings. They do this by i) combining the first part of a word with the last part of another word, e.g., “edutainment” from “education” and “entertainment” and ii) by combining the first part of a word with the first part of another word, e.g., “Pokémon” from “pocket monster.”
Portmanteau: A word or morpheme whose form and meaning are derived from a blending of two or more distinct forms (such as “smog” from “smoke” and “fog”).
— Dictionary by Merriam-Webster
The world of technology, business, and politics fosters word formation at a rapid pace; the suave adopt them in quick time and use them to establish themselves as the authority figures. They redefine the meaning of the words so that the words no longer mean what they usually mean in the dictionaries. In fact, they need a special class of dictionary such as a “dictionary of business terms.” This specialized lexicography used by the businesspeople at their employees tries to convince and compel. The employees must perforce must not only read in between the lines, but also use their telepathic powers to pick their manager’s brain to stay on the right side of things.
“What is really important in the world of doublespeak is the ability to lie, whether knowingly or unconsciously, and to get away with it; and the ability to use lies and choose and shape facts selectively, blocking out those that don’t fit an agenda or program.”
— Edward S. Herman
If “pork” disturbs your conscience, then “ham” may not. If “homeless” makes you uncomfortable, then “outdoor urban dweller” may not. No attempt is spared to couch uncomfortable truths in polished language. Distortion is fine-tuned to a fine art in the corporate world and obfuscation is its fancy consort. Argot meant a special shorthand — a secret vocabulary or a peculiar idiom; however, specialization at its apex today means “argot” stands for disguise, ambiguity, and euphemism all rolled into one organic whole. Language turns into gobbledygook in the corporate manager’s lexicon and is employed for the specific purpose of disempowerment and disenfranchisement of the employees. Often pithy and epigrammatic fustian, doublespeak serves as an agent of power and control. The increasing awareness about this toxic culture have spawned fresh discussions on the need to implant humanity and empathy in the corporate halls and boardrooms.
To decipher the corporate doublespeak, one truly needs a new dictionary specific for this purpose. Maybe, this will be an apt thesis idea for an ambitious student. The dictionary must enumerate what is said, what it means, and what it “really” means.
Some examples that readily fits into this dictionary:
