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Bill Clinton, the Lothario of world politics, when giving evidence to a grand jury in the USA during 1998, said: "It depends on what the meaning of 'is' is." That was a memorable and breathtaking piece of sophistry, but language has an endless capacity to shock.

Language can be evasive, deceptive, euphemistic, confusing and self-serving on occasions. These are the characteristics that I attribute to a great deal of corporate English. For sceptical readers, I cite the multiple expressions that have been concocted to describe the whittling down of a workforce. They include downsizing, chemistry change, dehiring, involuntary separation, negotiated departure, personnel surplus reduction, rightsizing, reducing headcount, skill-mix adjustment, destaffing and deselection. Even more brutal is executive culling, which contrasts with the more self-pitying ‘we had to let him/her go’.

Arguably, the foregoing expressions were coined to spare the feelings of managers charged with the unenviable task of announcing redundancies, but the face-
saving language would scarcely mollify those discarded. Mendacious would be an unfair description of the corporate jargon, but a more direct approach would be beneficial for everybody.

Management terms are not alone in being corrupted by modern preoccupations and sensitivities. Another that has an impact on industry is the refusal of educationalists to acknowledge failure; instead, the hideous deferred success is substituted. Acceptance of reality would seem to be a prime lesson to learn before leaving school.

Perhaps the whole of the above text can be explained by the words of Henry Adams. ‘No one means all he says and yet very few say all they mean, for words are slippery and thought is viscous’.

Lawrence Wallis held international pre-press marketing positions and was a respected author and print historian.