Some people find jargon annoying. But lots of managers use it. Pippa and Phil explain some of the strangest business jargon and why we use it with the help of Anne Curzan, Professor of English Language at the University of Michigan. TRANSCRIPT Find a full transcript for this episode and more programmes to help you with your English at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/english/features/business-jargon/241104 FIND BBC LEARNING ENGLISH HERE: Visit our website ✔️ https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish Follow us ✔️ https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/followus SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER: ✔️ https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/newsletters LIKE PODCASTS? Try some of our other popular podcasts including: ✔️ 6 Minute English ✔️ Learning English from the News ✔️ Learning English Stories They're all available by searching in your podcast app.
Hello, and welcome to Learning English for Work.
I'm Pippa.
And I'm Phil.
Today we're talking about business jargon.
The world of work is full of strange phrases and metaphors, and we have some great ones to talk about today.
That's right.
In today's episode, we're looking at some jargon we use when talking about the organization that goes on in a workplace.
Phil, have you noticed that people like to use jargon when they're talking about organizing at work?
Yes, definitely.
And lots of work is about managing people.
So managers often use corporate jargon to talk about concepts related to that.
Yeah.
And we've talked before in the program about how people find corporate jargon sometimes confusing or annoying.
Interestingly, a survey of UK business leaders found that they actually liked using work jargon.
They found those phrases useful rather than annoying.
There's also a lot of jargon around management styles.
Micromanaging is a word used often at work, and it's used often negatively to describe someone who wants to control every small part of a task, who won't let someone else help or get on with the job.
A lot of the phrases used to describe organizing things and people are quite strange and don't make that much sense.
So I spoke to Ann Curzon, who is a professor of English language at the University of Michigan, about a few of them.
We have a couple of slangy phrases that involve animals.