“Gobbledygook may indicate a failure to think clearly, a contempt for one’s clients, or more probably a mixture of both.”– Michael Shanks, former chair of the National Consumer Council of the U.K.

I recently read an article in Wired magazine that looked back on the 10 year anniversary of the dot com craze. One of the things it notes from this period was some of the “business goobledygook” forged at the time – a list that includes “Data warehousing“, “ERP“, “ETL“, “OLAP“, “OLTP“. I was somewhat taken aback. I deal with these terms on a daily basis and they are not Greek to me – these are words and acronyms with very specific technical meaning. Dropping them from my vocabulary would mean not being able to communicate professionally.

I do exercise care when using these terms and ones like them (I always tell people I am a computer consultant, not that I am in “business intelligence” lest I be mistaken for a corporate spy). But it was a revelation to me that our lingo is incomprehensible even to other techies. Imagine! Yes, it is technical jargon. But it’s only gobbledygook in my opinion when used to deliberately bewilder or belittle others. So use with care!