My clients always have the Last Word. They pay good money for it, so it’s theirs to have. They bought it, they own it. It’s theirs. Any other word prior to that involves some other transaction: There’s the expected “Kind Words” that we exchange at the beginning of a meeting. What follows then are a “Few Words” about the design. There’s never a “Loss of Words” when its time to make changes. Maybe a few "Bad Words" if I fucked up the design. During the strategic half of the meeting, I try to offer a few “Words of Wisdom” which are summarily ignored. Somewhere in this medley of wordplay comes the infamous “Loan Words.” They’re called “loanwords” because they’re taken from you, used against you, and then given back. You then look at the word, not really wanting it anymore, now that you have been violated by it.

Industry words are almost always on loan. My clients love it when they come across a designer term. Once they discover one, they can’t wait to use it. For instance, the word Kerning. “Tighten up the Kerning!” A client once said to me. It’s weird because it didn’t sound natural coming from his mouth. Maybe that was the point, because I swear I detected a hint of inflection. The client placed a slight curve on its enunciation, just to make sure I was paying attention. You can always tell when a person is over-eager to use a word on loan. It somehow makes an overt, yet amateurish, appearance. The person who used it doesn’t know well enough to be embarrassed for himself. Poor guy. Poor me, actually. Because the client said it again. Even slower this time. Kerrrrrning. And once more, with the emphasis on the second syllable: Kerniiiing.

Later that day I listened to some asshole bellyache about the plague of slang and the rape of the English language. He actually used that word – rape – as if the English language was somehow virginal. Idiot! Slang isn’t nearly as abusive as that client who keeeeerned me to near death. If there is a true enemy to the English language it’s the business world. Just as my client abducted the word kerning and had his way with it, the business world “rapes” pretty much any word it can get its hands on, deflowering it of all meaning.

George Orwell identified this threat in his 1974 essay “The Politics of Language.” He made it clear for himself and others that defending the English Language does not mean smacking people with the Grammar-Hammer, since “bad grammar” does not necessarily preclude clarity. Instead, Orwell zeroed in on the language used by politicians, which today includes pretty much any and everybody seeking to sound official.

Anyone who works in an office has seen Business Copy written by a committee of suits, edited by another committee of suits and then proofed by a small committee of secretaries. Unlike this article, the spelling and grammar of Business Copy is spotless. And yet, despite this corroborative editing to produce pristine English, the finished copy manages, somehow, to be incomprehensible. Einstein himself would scratch his head and say, “What the fuck did this just say to me?”

The empty nature of Business Language involves participation of the eyes but not the mind. The eyes passover the words, but at the end of the sentence there’s a blankness of mind. This blankness should be considered a threat to the English language. I’m using the word threat here, since emasculating these defenseless words of meaning and emotion seems to be intentional.

Commitment to Excellence.

Leading Transformative Change.

Success Management.

These Business phrases employ words that were once potent with meaning but are now innocuous. Excellence, Change and Success in the above context are empty words.

While growing up in highschool, Knowledge was Power. Today, there’s Knowledge Management, Knowledge-Based Systems, Knowledge Repositories, Personal Knowledge Management and Chief Knowledge Officers who, apparently, oversee Knowledge. Somehow the word "knowledge" just doesn’t fit. And it shouldn’t. The word that was originally used was "Information". So there was Information Management, which is still vague but, at least, is not as pretentious as Knowledge Management. The word Knowledge became a substitute when desperate companies looked to language as a way to “re-package” their competing yet identical services.

My design studio is as small as they come without working from home. Every now and then someone tells me that I’d have more clients if I’d put on the suit, take off the cap, and, yes, play the game. By playing the game, they mean, among other things, use the asocial business voice in all of my self-promotional materials. One day, out of curiosity, I said to myself “fuck it,” and gave it a whirl. Here it is:

“In today’s competitive marketplace, you need forward-thinking, customer-focused design solutions that transcend the initiatives of your competittors. Odd Man Out Design offers a knowledge-driven creative process that is centered on creating transformative brand distinction, which will position your company at the Market forefront and satisfy your strategic imperatives.”

There. It’s done. Now I need to wash my mouth out with soap.