【英语生活】年度商业废话“评奖”

Every year at about this time, I make a prediction for the year ahead. Every year the prediction is the same. Every year it turns out to be wrong.It goes like this: all trends ebb and flow, and the trend in business cant and gibberish has been flowing so long it is time for some ebbing. Every year, I decide that things have got as bad as they can get and the pendulum must be about to swing back to clarity and simplicity.

I first predicted the turn in 1997, in an innocent age when delivery was something that involved a van and when architect was a noun. However, this year I give up. Never mind the fact that in 2006 one manager solemnly told me his bank was “moving to solution-based relationships, away from relationship-based solutions”. I am predicting that things will go on getting worse. There will be no turn in 2007, or in 2008. Cant will go on growing and the trick is to enjoy it.

In this spirit I am today handing out my annual jargon awards for 2006. The first thing I considered for an award was a press release that began: “3 Dimensional Wealth International, the association for values based professionals, has been granted CE credits for its C3DWP.”

It went on with a quote: “I have never been as excited about the new professional designation, C3DWP,” said a Monroe M Deifendor Sr.

I was going to give this an award for being a) incomprehensible b) having a silly company title and for c) the fact the Monroe Sr is so excited about something so unexciting.

Yet as I read on through the pile of similar releases, I started to feel jaded. The trouble with ugly and incomprehensible things is that they aren't funny: they are just ugly and incomprehensible and therefore don't deserve awards, not even ironic ones.

In the end, only one exhibit has made me bend this no ugliness rule, and that was because it was so short. The award is for Ugliest Two-Word Title for Research Paper and the winner is the Federal Reserve Board for a paper called “Robustifying Learnability”.

Moving on swiftly to the main award categories, I am pleased to announce that the 2006 Gold Medal for Twaddle goes to the advertising agency BBDO Impact. It has come up with a new concept called Procrealligence, a three-way marriage of pro-activity, creativity and intelligence. It explains: “Procrealligence is the foundation of our positioning, our method for attaining the highest standard of ‘work'.” What especially impresses me here is that the word “work” is deemed so outré that it comes with inverted commas around it.

It isn't the first time that a company has combined sensible words to make nonsense. A-b gl?b?l pioneered this years ago with creovation? and subsequently integethics?. Others have followed, most notably the giant General Electric with ecomagination. Yet BBDO takes this to a new level and clearly deserves its prize.

Award for worst e-mail sign off. For some time now “Best” has been the preferred way to end a business e-mail, and very sloppy it is too. Best what, I always wonder. It's like saying Happy instead of Happy Christmas.

A silver medal goes to an e-mail I was sent this year that ended:

“Hope that was a value-add, Allbest.” Actually no, the e-mail was terribly dull and so not a value-add at all.

Gold goes to this sign-off: “Please revert by c.o.p. Best.” This contains an insidious new bit of jargon (revert instead of reply), a sporting term (close of play) and an acronym. It is close to genius to combine the three with such brevity.

The award for the Most Sustained Mixed Metaphor goes to Mark Fields of the Ford Motor Co who was quoted in the FT using four consecutive clichés in the same brief paragraph. “I've given the Ford team the same challenge. It's time to play offence. It's time to take back our future. The clock is ticking.”

I would also like to give a prize for the Most Misguided CEO Blog. The rule here is clear: CEOs should not blog. Blogs are democratic, controversial, chatty and full of stuff that one wants to read. By definition CEO blogs are none of the above.

So you have to hand it to Tom Glocer of Reuters for trying so hard with his blog. I particularly like the way he tells us on his MySpace entry that his “sexual orientation” is “straight”. He has a picture of his dog Luna on the site and tells us how he likes the music of Wyclef Jean, Springsteen (early) and Debussy.

And now for something a little bit special. This is an award for Company Song So Awful I Was Positive It Was a Spoof. The outstanding winner in this category is Shell. Its song is called “Growing and Winning” and is set to “We Are the World”. “We have moved on, growing day by day/Sharing strengths, we practise what is best/We are all a part of Shell's global family/Doing work aligned with everyone.” It is a haunting mixture of pyschobabble, sentimentality and business jargon. Go to www.ft.com/kellaway and listen yourself. You won't be disappointed.

The song came from a team-building course in Asia, and is causing Shell's more buttoned-up executives in Europe to cringe as it gets e-mailed across the world to mass merriment. This is the curse of global communications: if you allow people in your company to express themselves freely you risk becoming the internet's next big laughing stock.

Which leads to my prediction for 2007. Companies will get windier and more uptight about nothing getting out. Which means that no one will dare send me silly corporate stuff any more. For once this year I am hoping my prediction doesn't come true

每年的大约这个时候，我都会对来年进行预测。每年的预测都相同，但结果都不准。我的预测如下：所有的潮流都有涨有落，既然商业黑话和废话已经泛滥了这么长时间，现在也该是退潮的时候了。每年，我都认为情况已糟糕到了无以复加的地步，商业语言的钟摆必定会朝着简单明了的方向回归。

我最早预测这种转变是在1997年。那是一个纯真年代，送货使用的是箱式货车，建筑师还只是一个名词。但今年我放弃了。2006年，一位经理严肃地对我说，他所在的银行“正向基于解决方案的关系转变，摆脱过去以关系为基础的解决方案。”但这根本不算什么，我预计情况还将继续恶化下去。2007年或2008年都不会有所转变。商业黑话将继续增多，唯一的办法就是乐在其中。

本着这种精神，我今天将颁发2006年年度商业行话奖。我首先考虑为一篇新闻稿颁奖，其开头如下：“3 Dimensional Wealth International（为有价值专业人士而成立的协会）因其C3DWP称号，而获得继续教育殊荣。”

接下来是引用一位名叫门罗•M•戴凡德(Monroe M Deifendor)先生的话：“我对C3DWP这个新专业称号感到前所未有地激动。”

我打算为这句话颁奖的原因是：a)无法理解b)公司名称很傻c)门罗先生对如此无趣的东西感到如此激动。

但当我阅读一堆类似的新闻稿时，我开始感到厌倦。这些东西丑陋不堪、无法理解，最大的问题在于它们毫无趣味可言：它们不该得奖，即使是带有讽刺意味的奖项。

最终，只有一件参赛作品令我放弃了抵制丑恶的原则，因为它太短了。该奖项名为《最丑陋的二字研究报告题目》(Ugliest Two-Word Title for Research Paper)，获奖者是美联储(Federal Reserve Board)发布的一篇名为《强化可学习能力》(Robustifying Learnability)的报告。

现在让我们将话题迅速转回到主要奖项上。我荣幸地宣布，“2006年废话金奖”(2006 Gold Medal for Twaddle)得主是广告代理公司BBDO Impact。该公司提出了一个名为“主动创造力智慧”(Procrealligence)的新概念，将积极主动(pro-activity)、创造力(creativity)和智慧(intelligence)这三个词融为一体。该公司解释道：“主动创造力智慧是我们定位的基础，是我们使‘作品'达到最高标准的方法。”这句话中尤其令我印象深刻的是，‘作品'这个词还加上了引号，以显示其不同寻常。

BBDO Impact并非第一家将有意义的词结合成废话的公司。A-b gl?b?l公司多年前便以creovation?开创了先河，后来又发明了integethics?。紧跟这一潮流的公司还有很多，其中最引人注目的是企业巨头通用电气(General Electric)发明的绿色创想(ecomagination)。但BBDO将这门艺术提升到了一个新高度，因此显然应该获得此奖。

最差电子邮件结束语奖。一段时间以来，“Best”一直是人们结束商务电子邮件的首选方式。我一直想知道，“Best”什么？这就好比用“快乐”(Happy)代替“圣诞快乐”(Happy Christmas)一样。

银奖颁发给我今年收到的一封电子邮件，其结尾如下：“希望这封信对你有所裨益(value-add)，万事如意(Allbest)。”但实际情况根本不是这样，这封电子邮件无聊至极，对我根本无益。

金奖颁给这句结束语：“请在终场(c.o.p.)之前给我回复(revert)。”这句话中包括了一个阴险的新行话（用的是‘revert'而非‘reply'）、一个体育术语（close of play，终场）和一个首字母缩略词。这封邮件的作者能将三者如此简洁地结合起来，真是近乎天才。

“最具持续性混合比喻奖”(Most Sustained Mixed Metaphor)的得主是福特汽车(Ford Motor)的马克•菲尔茨(Mark Fields)。在FT援引的一个简短段落中，他连续使用了4句陈词滥调：“我已经向福特团队传达了同样的挑战。现在是时候进行防守了，是时候找回我们的未来了。现在是紧要关头。”

我还想颁发一项“最具误导性首席执行官博客(blog)奖”。我在这个问题上的原则非常明确：首席执行官不应该写博客。博客具有民主性，可能引发争议，并充满人们想要阅读的东西。从定义上看，首席执行官的博客不符合上述任何一项。

因此，必须把这个奖项颁给路透社(Reuters)的首席执行官汤姆•格罗瑟(Tom Glocer)，原因是他的博客实在很难读懂。他在他的MySpace进入界面上告诉我们，他的“性取向很直接”。他还在博客上放了一张他的小狗卢娜的照片，并告诉我们他多么喜欢威克里夫•简(Wyclef Jean)、Springsteen(斯普林斯汀,早期)和德彪西(Debussy)的音乐。

现在来看一个有些特别的奖项：“丑陋之极的公司之歌奖”。在该奖项的角逐中脱颖而出的是壳牌(Shell)。该公司的公司之歌名为“成长与成功”(Growing and Winning)，此歌根据《天下一家》(We Are the World)改编而成。“我们勇往直前，每天都在成长/分享力量，行为高尚/我们都是壳牌全球大家庭中的一员/所有人肩并肩，共同努力。”(We have moved on, growing day by day/Sharing strengths, we practise what is best/We are all a part of Shell's global family/Doing work aligned with everyone。)它将神经质胡话、多愁善感和商业行话融为一体，令人久久不能忘怀。点击这个链接www.ft.com/kellaway，自己去听吧。你不会失望的。

这首歌出自壳牌亚洲的一堂团队建设课。随着它被人们用电子邮件传遍全世界，变成人们的笑料，壳牌公司中比较沉得住气的高管也开始害怕起来。全球通信是造成这一局面的罪魁祸首：如果你允许公司员工自由发表意见，你就有可能成为互联网上的下一个大笑柄。

接下来是我对2007年的预测。公司的牛将吹得更大，对走漏风声会更加紧张。这意味着没有人再敢给我发可笑的公司见闻。希望我今年的预测不会成真，仅此一次。

译者/朱冠华

《FT商学院》