Gobbledygook (5)

I’ve discussed gobbledygook in four previous posts (for example, here and here). Today I have another good example of gobbledygook for you.

It’s an article by James Kobielus, who works at IBM. In the article, Mr. Kobielus uses gobbledygook such as “the pivotal concept of a holistic customer journey.” He appears to be fond of trendy, overused and misused words (core, drive, experience, focus, issue and parse) and phrases (at the heart of, reality check, and subject matter expert).

Even his job title contains gobbledygook:

IBM Senior Program Director, Product Marketing, Big Data Analytics solutions

Not Big Data Analytics, mind you. Big Data Analytics solutions.

Many other users of gobbledygook do likewise; in an attempt to make topics (and indirectly themselves) sound more important, they add unnecessary nouns after other nouns:

seafood solutions
crisis situation
boarding process
flooding issue
emergency condition
strike action
clearance sale event
audience interactivity elements

You have to keep a close watch on these people; every time you turn your back they debase, dilute and corrupt the language a little more.

The Takeaway: Read the whole article; it’s a good example of how not to write. Don’t use gobbledygook. Shun those who do.

See disclaimer.