Avoid Using This Confusing Jargon
One of the challenges when starting a new job is learning the jargon, acronyms, and terminology that are specific to the workplace and the industry as a whole.
While much of this cannot be avoided, many people can put more effort into it when it comes to common professional jargon. You know what we’re talking about: those words and phrases that supposedly started out as a way to make certain concepts easier to understand, but somewhere along the way became so clichéd that they lost their meaning.
In addition, there are also phrases that are often used but often misunderstood or don’t make much sense. Here are 10 examples of confusing professional jargon to avoid.
Why You Shouldn’t Confuse Workplace Jargon
According to a recent survey conducted by LinkedIn in partnership with Duolingo , 41% of participants said they experienced misunderstanding or made a mistake at work because they didn’t know what certain jargon terms meant or misused them themselves. . In addition, 50% of those surveyed said that misunderstanding professional jargon results in wasted time every week.
So why are all these misunderstandings happening? Hope Wilson, PhD, Senior Learning and Language Expert at Duolingo , says :
“Jargon is by nature a type of language that is used exclusively in professional circles. The main way to learn how to use a language is to observe how others use it. So new hires, younger employees, remote employees, they’ll be less likely to come across the jargon, which means they won’t grasp its meaning, let alone the nuances of its use.”
The most confusing examples of professional jargon
Participants in a LinkedIn and Duolingo survey identified these 10 phrases as the most confusing workplace slang terms used in the United States:
- ocean boiling
- Shepherd cats
- ducks in a row
- Move the needle
- Run it up on the flagpole
- Drink Kool-Aid
- from the pocket
- Assembly of the aircraft during the flight
- Throwing spaghetti at the wall
- Juice worth squeezing
LinkedIn career expert Andrew McCaskill recommends not relying on these phrases to get your point across at work, plain and simple . For example, instead of saying “Let’s get together before this meeting,” he suggests replacing it with something more literal, such as “Let’s get together before this meeting.”