Just launched the second Online Gobbledygook, Gibberish and Jargon Awards (www.GobbledygookAwards.com). I encourage you to submit entries.
The awards highlight the “best-of-the-worst” gobbledygook on the Web, specifically techno-babble, legalese, bureaucratese and other meaningless terms, vague generalities, and wordy, nonsensical writing.
You can submit entries at www.GobbledygookAwards.com/EntryForm.html. All types of writing are eligible, including websites, articles, news releases, blogs and presentations, as long as the item can be verified online. Entries will be posted on the Gobbledygook website as they are reviewed and approved.
The people nominating the top three winners will receive their choice of one of the following books: Anguished English, Revenge of Anguished English, The Party of the First Part, Gobbledygook, Doublespeak Defined and The New Doublespeak.
I founded the awards and am a judge. The other judges are:
- Richard Lederer, author of more than 30 books about language, history, and humor, including his best-selling Anguished English series
- Adam Freeman, one of America’s leading commentators on law and author of the book The Party of the First Part, and
- Jeff Rubin, the Newsletter Guy who founded Punctuation Playtime and National Punctuation Day
We look forward to seeing your entries.
Don’t know if this quite qualifies, but an expression that sets my teeth on edge for sheer “aren’t we cool?” points is “socialize.” As in, “We socialized the concept throughout the business unit.”