Name: 【商業英文】蹩腳的「企業術語」從何而來？ (Where Did Cringey Corporate Jargon Come From? | Otherwords)
Uploaded: 2025-05-29T21:01:10.000Z
Duration: 6 min 8 s

It's Monday morning and you open your email to find your boss just looping you in on a new thread.

今天是週一早上，你打開電子郵件，發現老闆正在給你發一條新消息。

Maybe a client wants to pivot their strategy for next quarter.

也許客戶想要調整下一季度的戰略。

So, we're gonna need you to go ahead and drill down on the data from the last campaign and maybe share some key takeaways in tomorrow's stand-up.

所以我們需要你繼續深入研究上次活動的數據，並在明天的座談會上分享一些主要的收穫。

No matter how much you roll your eyes reading that email, you can't help but reply that you'll do a deep dive and circle back.

無論你看了這封郵件後如何翻白眼，你都會忍不住回覆說，你會深入研究並回到這話題上。

All that corporate lingo occupies a weird space in language where nobody likes it, but everybody does it.

所有這些企業行話在語言中佔據了一個奇怪的空間，沒有人喜歡它，但每個人都會說。

So, why can't we resist the pull of talking like sad, beige robots as soon as we step into an office building?

那麼，為什麼我們不能抵制一踏進辦公樓就像悲哀的米色機器人一樣說話的拉力呢？

And where did all this synergy speak come from in the first place?

那麼，這些協同作用的說法又從何而來呢？

I'm Dr. Erica Brozovsky, and this is "Otherwords".

我是Erika Brzozowski博士，這裡是 Otherwords。

To linguists, all that awkward office speak can be categorized as a jargon, or the technical vocabulary that is specific to members of a career field or activity.

對於語言學家來說，所有這些笨拙的辦公室用語都可以歸類為行話，或者說是某一職業領域或活動成員所特有的技術詞彙。

Jargon is meant to make communication more precise and efficient for members of the in-group that uses it, even if it makes no sense to outsiders.

行話的目的是讓使用行話的本群體成員的交流更準確、更高效，即使它對外人毫無意義。

And like all language, corporate jargon has gone through waves of evolution.

與所有語言一樣，企業術語也經歷了一波又一波的演變。

The office jargon we know and love to hate today started to emerge at the end of World War II,

二戰結束後，企業利用戰後經濟繁榮的契機，

as businesses took advantage of post-war economic prosperity, switching up their production effort from tanks and planes to cars and refrigerators.

將生產重心從坦克和飛機轉向汽車和冰箱，我們今天所熟知並又愛又恨的辦公室行話開始出現。

When veterans returned home and got jobs at these growing corporate conglomerates, they brought a lot of military jargon with them.

當退伍軍人回到家鄉，在這些日益壯大的企業集團找到工作時，他們帶來了很多軍事術語。

The wartime origins are apparent in phrases like "boots on the ground" or "mission critical",

戰時用語的淵源在「地面上的戰靴」或「關鍵任務」等短語中顯而易見，但部署軟體、參加全員會議，

but "deploying" software, attending an "all hands" meeting, even talking about a business "strategy" or sales "tactic" uses language borrowed from the battlefield.

甚至談論業務戰略或銷售策略，都使用了從戰場上借來的語言。

Some more examples you could encounter as you "rise through the ranks" of corporate culture include: on my radar, in the trenches, rally the troops, or fight an uphill battle.

當你在企業文化中嶄露頭角時，你可能會遇到更多的例子，包括在我的雷達上、在戰壕裡、集結部隊或打一場硬仗。

Around the same time, sports terminology entered the corporate world and stuck around.

大約在同一時間，體育術語進入了企業界，並一直存在。

A great idea can be a "slam dunk" or a "home run", where a bad one might come "out of left field".

一個好的創意可以是灌籃或全壘打，而一個壞的創意可能會從左外野冒出來。

I might say a task that I'm competent or skilled at is "in my wheelhouse",

我可能會說，我勝任或擅長的某項任務就在我的 "發球區"，但在 1959 年，"發球區 "是指棒球運動員最有可能把球打出公園的區域。

but in 1959, a wheelhouse was the zone where a baseball player was most likely to, well, knock it out of the park.

And "across the board" doesn't just mean widespread; it comes from a type of bet that spectators could place on horse races.

而 "全面 "並不只是指範圍廣泛，它來自於觀眾在賽馬比賽中的一種投注方式。

Perhaps all the sporty slang that worked its way into office culture around the mid-century says something about how workers viewed business as a competition,

也許，在本世紀中葉，所有運動型俚語都融入了辦公室文化，這說明了工人們如何將商業視為一種競爭，

or about the interests of the people most likely to hold office jobs in that era.

或者說說明了那個時代最有可能從事辦公室工作的人的興趣所在。

Military and sports terminology aren't the only job-specific jargon that came into more general use.

軍事和體育術語並不是唯一通用的特定工作術語。

We often adopt language from whatever industry is the most glamorous at the time.

我們經常採用當時最風光的行業的語言。

Take advertising in the 60s, which gave us "run it up the flagpole" as a term for testing how consumers would react to marketing messages.

就拿 60 年代的廣告來說吧，它讓我們把廣告推上了旗杆。測試消費者對營銷資訊的反應。 

In the 80s, the finance industry gave us "leverage", "return on investment",

19 80 年代，金融業為我們提供了槓桿率、投資回報率，甚至是低垂的果實（low-hanging fruit），這些都是相對容易的、能快速見效的變革的簡稱。

and even "low-hanging fruit" as shorthand for relatively easy changes that can produce quick results.

In the 2000s, tech startups that shook up the status quo gave us language like "hack" and "disrupt".

2000 年代，科技初創企業顛覆了現狀，為我們帶來了黑客和顛覆等語言。

And the computing technology they used spilled over into describing human communication.

他們所使用的計算技術也被用於描述人類的交流。

Think "Do you have the bandwidth for this?" or "Let's double click on that."

想一想，你有足夠的帶寬嗎？或者讓我們雙擊它。 

And, sidebar, you may notice that while some corporate jargon is technical and specific, other common office lingo is pretty vague.

順便提一句，你可能會注意到，雖然有些企業術語是技術性的、具體的，但其他常見的辦公室行話卻非常模糊。

You could "table" something or take it "offline" instead of straight up saying, "No".

你可以把一些事情放在桌面上，或者將其下線，而不是直接說不。

Or, "We're not firing everyone, we're just doing some restructuring and need to downsize."

或者說，我們不是要解僱所有人，我們只是在進行重組，需要縮減規模。

When delivering information directly could cause conflict or low morale, corporate jargon can make a user's language less clear on purpose.

當直接傳遞信息可能導致衝突或士氣低落時，企業術語會故意讓用戶的語言變得不那麼清晰。

We like to cloak difficult information in jargon for the same reasons that we're so quick to incorporate whatever the hot, new, exciting field is saying and bring it back to our own jobs.

我們喜歡用專業術語來掩蓋難以理解的資訊，原因就在於我們總是迅速地將熱門、新穎、令人興奮的領域的觀點融入到自己的工作中。

Because jargon isn't just about communicating information; it's also about communicating power and status.

因為行話不僅是為了傳遞信息，也是為了傳遞權力和地位。

Sociolinguists argue that word choice plays a role in expressing power dynamics between speakers.

社會語言學家認為，選詞在表達說話者之間的權力動態方面發揮著作用。

We may use technical jargon in front of someone who isn't familiar with it in an attempt to show off our membership in a powerful in-group.

我們可能會在不熟悉專業術語的人面前使用專業術語，試圖炫耀自己是某個強大內部群體的成員。

Employees who know what ROIs or KPIs or even what OOO means can demonstrate that they belong.

瞭解投資回報率或關鍵績效指標甚至 OOO 含義的員工可以證明他們的歸屬感。

Workers who don't speak the language may not fit in.

不懂語言的工人可能無法融入社會。

Status signaling is a major part of what keeps corporate jargon going, even when many employees agree that it's pretty annoying.

狀態信號是企業行話得以延續的主要原因，即使許多員工都認為這些行話很煩人。

As we covered in our episode on cult language, researchers found that workers who have lower status in a workplace, like people who are newer in their careers,

正如我們在 "邪教語言 "一集中所提到的，研究人員發現，在工作場所地位較低的員工，如剛進入職場的新人，

use jargon more often than people who are higher up the corporate ladder, as they try to compensate for their lack of experience.

比職位較高的員工更經常使用行話，因為他們試圖用行話來彌補自己經驗的不足。

So, instead of corporate language falling out of favor over time, each new generation that enters the workforce reinforces the existing jargon by using it a lot.

所以，企業語言並沒有隨著時間的推移而失寵，相反，每一代新員工的加入都會大量使用現有的行話，從而強化了這些行話。

There's a chance that Gen Zers could change this pattern, though.

不過，Z 世代有可能改變這種模式。

A 2023 survey conducted by LinkedIn showed that while millennials report using corporate jargon the most, 60% of Gen Zers hope to eliminate it altogether.

LinkedIn 在 2023 年進行的一項調查顯示，千禧一代使用公司術語最多，而 60% 的 Z 世代則希望完全杜絕使用公司術語。

Maybe graduating into a workplace culture of Zoom meetings and hybrid schedules

也許畢業後融入縮放會議和混合日程安排的職場文化，可以減輕一些社會壓力，使自己更容易遵守其他長期存在的辦公室規範，比如公司術語。

could reduce some of the social pressure to conform to other long-standing office norms, like corporate jargon.

不過，我們還得再回過頭來看看。