In the UK we have organisations to campaign for nearly everything. We have CAMRA (The Campaign for Real Ale), which fights to preserve traditional British beer, CND (The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament), and even something called the Atheist Movement (which campaigns for the right of people NOT to be religious). Then of course there's the Plain English Campaign (PEC - www.plainenglish.co.uk), whose mission is to fight against "gobbledygook, jargon and misleading public information".

Yes, Anglo-Saxons do have a tendency to stick their noses in other people's business, and it's true that this can be almost hypocritical at times. Brits love to lecture each other on the dangers of smoking, drink-driving, obesity and, of course, anything involving children.

But I think that PEC is doing a good job in keeping English clear and concise. And, since English is an international lingua franca, keeping it comprehensible is especially important for non-mother tongue speakers.

The PEC website has some wonderful examples of gobbledygook, including job descriptions and their "real world" titles. These include: Head of Verbal Communications (secretary), Revenue Protection Officer (ticket inspector), Knowledge Navigator (teacher) and, my personal favourite, Space Consultant (estate agent).

But it is in the corporate world where jargon and management-speak is at its worst. Some more examples from PEC:

- blue skies thinking (creativity)
- moving the goalposts (changing the conditions)
- core competencies (skills)
- thinking outside the box (being original)
- deliverables (results)

The problem with all this jargon is that people hide behind it, almost distancing themselves from the human aspect of communication. And, as a corporate meta-language, the effect can be aggressive - you're either "in" or you're "out" (or in jargon you're either "on message" or "off message").

So here are my top five hates, in reverse order:

[5] "Learnings and outcomes"
A favourite of training and HR people:
"The key learnings for the training are..."
Translation: Goals

[4] "Heads up"
This one exists as a verb and a noun!!
(i) "He heads up the marketing division".
Translation: He heads the marketing division. (Why the unnecessary preposition?)
(ii) "Can you give us a heads up?"
Translation: Advance warning

[3] "Ring fence"
Sounds like something to do with cattle ranching:
"We need to ring fence the problem"
Translation: Limit, contain

[2] "Align, alignment"
This one was used constantly when I worked briefly for a US multi-national in Japan. The effect was always aggressive, and somehow threatening:
"We need to align with Sales".
Translation: Agree, be in line with

And in first place...

[1] "Leverage"
This is the worst offender by far:
"We need to leverage all opportunities".
Translation: Take advantage of

Perhaps you, the reader, would like to send in your examples of management gobbledygook. If you are in alignment with me, then let's try to ring fence this problem, and share our key learnings. If you all give me a heads up, then perhaps we can leverage our core competencies.