Whether you’re speaking with your colleagues in a meeting, or firing off one last email before lunch, if you work in an office environment, chances are you utilize certain words or phrases that you wouldn’t necessarily use in your personal life. For instance, you probably don’t ask your kids whether table manners are “on their radar,” or tell your parents that you’re “circling back” to see if they had a chance to finalize their will.
One reason for this is that maybe you tolerate that kind of corporate jargon at work, but think it’s annoying, and would prefer to avoid it the rest of the time. But is it all equally obnoxious, or is some of it particularly bad?
To find out which words and phrases people favor over others, the language-learning website Preply asked more than 1,000 Americans across all 50 states working in corporate jobs about some of the most common workplace jargon in use today. Here’s what the respondents deemed the most and least irritating.
The most annoying corporate jargon
According to the survey results, these are the top-10 most annoying corporate jargon words and phrases:
Circle back
Work hard, play hard
Boots on the ground
Let’s table this
Synergy
Put a pin in it
Get ducks in a row
Low-hanging fruit
Reinvent the wheel
Throw it up and see what sticks
The least annoying corporate jargon
Although the survey participants indicated that these are the least annoying corporate jargon words and phrases, that’s not necessarily a ringing endorsement. Still, here’s what they deemed the best of an irritating bunch:
Sync
Pushback
Pipeline
Level set
Have in back pocket
Window of opportunity
Loop in
Align
Take offline
On the same page
The full survey has even more information, including the 20 most commonly used examples of corporate jargon, and the influence of Gen Z on workplace communication.