The buzzwords that refuse to die

Partly, it was the cliché-in-the-making “zeitgeisty” that got my attention.

Partly, it was a series of provocations from Twitter spirit @sheigh, who shares my fear of buzzwords and has been known to scare me with tweets such as this: “Leverage hyperlocal onboarding tactics to capture the low hanging fruit…”

Either way, we at Ragan Communications have decided that Halloween week is an ideal time to terrify ourselves with tales of jargon and corporate-speak that strangle organizational speech and writing.

Although Forbes’ jargon madness season has passed and end-of-the-year roundups are still two months off, it’s never a bad time to list our most dreaded buzzwords.

In that jugular vein, my Ragan colleagues and others helped me scare up a crypt load of terrifying terms and frightful phrases that might your cause friends, family and editors to gnash their teeth in dismay:

‘Zeitgeisty’

This word came to my attention via Walter Kirn, author of “Up in the Air.”