Business/Marketing speak

I agree, I hate business speak too, also abbrievated words like LOL that have become so popular drive me crazy.

Didn't it all go wrong when Lockheed, desperately avoiding upsetting their shareholders, announced they had made "a negative profit"?

LOL (Oops, mean't to say "Ha Ha!")

Dave

Using the latest slang is one way mid-level bureacrats try to survive all those boring committee meetings they have to sit through -

'Downsizing' and 'bad optics' are transparently clear to me - but might have seemed less so had I decided to retire early and become a bum for the duration.

Also, the optics of 'downsizing' are a way better than those of 'laying people off'.

As a non-native Eng speakers I usually perceive a new word, or expression, in a logical way, if the root words are known to me.
Downsizing sounds very logical, but seeing "bad optics" first time, I'd think that would mean poor quality sight, or blurred vision. For sure not that something looks bad.

That is something for SiT. They'd be delighted to dissect this problem.

While 'bad optics' certainly makes more sense for describing the shortcomings of a cheap camera or telesope than a suspicious "smell" given off by some political gambit, it can be somewhat rehabilitated in the latter sense by thinking of the marketer, politician or spin doctor as a lens grinder who has fallen short in his professional task of crafting a specious lie.

Optics in England are the bar fittings for whisky bottles and the like, so I'd simply have looked the speaker straight in the eye and asked 'So you can't get a decent drink out of it, then?'

As for 'challenged', why not ask (always with a smile) 'And how does s/he meet those challenges?'

I simply love challenging such jargon - and it's always more effective if you do so 'innocently' (so to speak). It throws the users into no end of turmoil. :>)

Good fences make good neighbours.

Bad fencing makes frostier ones.