Focusing on Words Newsletter #13
A newsletter that is dedicated to enhancing your English-vocabulary knowledge and skills!
Experience the wonder of words by focusing on the Latin and Greek elements used in English.
This newsletter is produced whenever time can be found,
so there is no regular schedule.
Senior Scribe, John Robertson
“I never write metropolis for seven cents because I can get the same price for city. I never write policeman because I can get the same money for cop.”
—Mark Twain
“The finest words in the world are only vain sounds, if you cannot comprehend them.”
—Anatole France
Table of Contents
An Obfuscation Chart for Creating Bureaucratic Jargon
Words poem
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The “Baffle-Gab Thesaurus” below can be used to create authentic bureaucratic jargon. As any self-respecting bureaucrat knows, it is bad form to use a single, simple-understandable word, or phrase, when obfuscating ones are more confusing.
Where can the Washington phrase maker go if he/she finds it difficult to think up an applicable phrase so no one can challenge an easy-to-comprehend title? Well, the combination of words shown in the chart below can be used to create common government phrases. It consists of a three-column list of 30 over-used but appropriately portentous words.
Whenever a government official needs an opaque phrase, he/she simply comes up with a three-digit number and selects the corresponding “buzz words” from the three columns. For example, 233 produces “Total Monitored Capability” which has the ring of absolute authority and means absolutely nothing. Perfect for governmeant jargon, don’t you agree?
| |
A |
B |
C |
| 1 |
Integrated |
Management |
Options |
| 2 |
Total |
Organizational |
Flexibility |
| 3 |
Systematized |
Monitored |
Capability |
| 4 |
Parallel |
Reciprocal |
Mobility |
| 5 |
Functional |
Digital |
Programming |
| 6 |
Responsive |
Logistical |
Concept |
| 7 |
Optional |
Transitional |
Time-Phase |
| 8 |
Synchronized |
Incremental |
Projection |
| 9 |
Compatible |
Third-Generation |
Hardware |
| 10 |
Balanced |
Policy |
Contingency |
This “Baffle-Gab Guide” was popularized in Washington, D.C. by Philip Broughton, a U.S. Public Health Service official, who circulated it among civil servants and businessmen circa 1968.
Information about the guide was presented on September 13, 1968, by Time magazine, page 20.
Related to the jargon chart is this list of “Translating Politgabble” by a teacher named William Lambdin of Colorado:
Decentralizing the Government: Akin to dehorning a herd of stampeding bulls.
Fact-Finding Trip: A mission during which a candidate discovers the alcoholic content of drinks made in foreign countries.
Government Reform: a plan for tennis courts, swimming pools and rooftop restaurants in congressional office buildings.
In the National Interest: Used to express the preferences of Wall Street and Chase Manhattan Bank.
Lunatic Fringe: A geographic term designating the coastline of California.
Ship of State: An over-inflated rubber raft hurling out of control down a huge, economic drain.
Urban Renewal: Relocating the ghettos; for profit, of course.
Viable solutions: The used baptismal waters of officials in power.
War Against Inflation: A limited war, like that fought in Vietnam and Korea, which the government has no intention of winning.
Whirlwind Campaign: The important word in this phrase is wind.
Will of the People: An expression not heard when politicians talk of their own salaries.
Words
There are words that make us
Shudder, wince:
Wormwood, persimmon,
Alum, quince.
There are words that soothe
And tranquilize:
Slumbering, rainbows,
Butterflies.
There are words that tighten,
Words that roil:
Tension, turmoil,
Chaos, spoil.
There are words that shimmer,
That beguile:
Stars, ships, peacocks,
Firelight, smile.
And always, words
That make life full:
Love, laughter, home,
Peace, beautiful.
—E.B. de Vito
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