Business Words to Impress?

Ever notice that business leaders have a language all their own to impress or look good? After all, the ability to "take charge" depends on just the right words. How many of the following business expressions shared in the University of West Florida Writing Lab have you used or encountered?

1. IT 'S IN PROGRESS - So wrapped in red tape that the situation is almost hopeless.

2. WE'LL LOOK INTO IT - By the time the wheel makes a full turn, we assume you will have forgotten about it.

3. A PROGRAM - Any assignment that can't be completed by one telephone call.

4. CONSULTANT (or expert) - Any ordinary person more than 50 miles from home (must have briefcase).

5. TO ACTIVATE - To make copies and add more names to the memo.

6. TO IMPLEMENT A PROGRAM - Hire more people and expand the office.

7. UNDER CONSIDERATION - Never heard of it.

8. UNDER ACTIVE CONSIDERATION - We are looking in the files for it.

9. A MEETING - A mass mulling by master minds.

10. TO NEGOTIATE - To seek a meeting of minds without a knocking together of heads.

11. RE-ORIENTATION - Getting used to working again.

12. RELIABLE SOURCE - The person you just met.

13. INFORMED SOURCE - The person who told the guy you just met.

14. UNIMPEACHABLE SOURCE - The person who started the rumor originally.

15. A CLARIFICATION - To fill in the background with so many details that the foreground goes underground.

16. WE ARE MAKING A SURVEY - We need more time to think of an answer.

17. NOTE AND INITIAL - Let's spread the responsibility for this.

18. SEE ME OR LET'S DISCUSS - You're in trouble.

19. LET'S GET TOGETHER ON THIS - I'm assuming you're as confused as I am.

20. GIVE US THE BENEFIT OF YOUR PRESENT THINKING - We'll listen to what you have to say as long as it doesn't interfere with what we have already decided to do.

21. WILL ADVISE YOU IN DUE COURSE - If we figure it out, we'll let you know.

22. TAKE SOME DICTATION - Correctly type this document for me.

When you consider all these phrases, you'll think twice when you hear one!

Interestingly the brain's mirror neurons give away intentions behind these words to folks on the other end...

"Understanding the intentions of others while watching their action is a fundamental building block of social behavior," said principal investigator Dr. Marco Iacoboni, an associate professor in-residence of psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences at the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute's Ahmanson Lovelace Brain Mapping Center and the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. "Our findings show for the first time that intentions behind actions of others can be recognized by the motor system using a mirror mechanism in the brain. The same area of the brain responsible for understanding behavior can predict behavior as well."

Goes to show that words can work for or against us! Check out Brad Shorr's Word Sell to see how.

Heard any other expressions you could add to the list?