Oh, English, the beautiful bastard of European language, the tongue of kings, merchants, scientists and poets. Ever-flexible and always-developing, English is constantly being expanded: usually by its most-common users. Shakespeare invented almost 2,000 words, from “arouse” to “zany.”
噢，英文，欧洲语言中美丽的混蛋，国王、商人、科学家、诗人的语言。灵活多变、不断发展。英语一直在扩充：通常是最经常使用这门语言的人干的好事儿。莎士比亚创造了大约2000个单词，从“引起”到“滑稽的”。
Before that, Chaucer added some of English’s most common expressions – “absent,” “accident,” “box,” and so on. (Equally important, he also gave us “veal,” “vulgar,” and “laxative.”) And, now, in our century, Gerald (that guy who sits across from you in the office and manages Accounts Payable) gives us treasure after treasure, from “incentivize” to “granularity” to “disintermediate.”
在他之前，乔叟创造了英文中最普遍的表达——“事故”，“盒子”等等。（同样值得一提的是，“小牛肉”、“粗俗的”和“通便药”也是他发明的。）在我们现在这个时代，杰拉德（在办公室坐你对面处理应付账款的那位老兄）给了我们一堆又一堆单词，从“刺激”到“高数据粒度”再到“作非居间化投资”。
“Special Purpose” English has always had a place in society: doctors and nurses need a set of words to describe medicine, illnesses, and surgical tools; pilots need an entirely unique vocabulary to talk about the atmosphere, airplane engineering, and safety issues, and… other professionals need language for stuff that, let’s be honest, we don’t really care that much about. But Business English has always tied with Political English for the most pretentious cliches and most meaningless double-talk.
“特殊目的”英语在社会中总占有一席之地。医生和护士需要大量词汇来描述药物、疾病、手术工具；飞行员需要独一无二的词汇来谈论大气，飞机制造和安全问题，以及其他职业需要的语言。但坦白的说，我们并不关心那些词汇。但是商务英语总是和政治英语联系起来产生最自命不凡的陈词滥调和最无意义的空话。
It’s gotten so bad, in fact, that many business journals are even starting to complain about it. Forbes Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, even the BBC have all recently published their own indexes of most-hated business jargon. Naturally, Voxy’s here to help with some of our own… and remember, no matter what your manager “thinks” is okay, DON’T let these come out of your mouth!
这种情况愈加恶化，以至于已经有杂志开始抱怨了》《福布斯》、《华尔街日报》甚至BBC最近都发布了他们各自的最反感商务术语指数。所以，Voxy网站也挑选了一些令人反感的商务术语，记住，无论你的老板是否认为这些词没问题，不要从嘴巴里冒出这些词！
1) “Action item” – because the words “job,” “task,” or “duty” are just way too long and complex, right?
1）“指定任务”——难道是因为“工作”、“任务”、“职责”这几个词又长又复杂才创造了这个词？
2) “Advise” – Not a bad word, just way overused. Here’s a hint: if you’re not giving an opinion about someone else’s decision, you’re not “advising.” Are you “saying,” “telling,” “informing,” “helping,” “notifying,” “specifying,” and so on? Maybe, sure. But what you’re not doing is “advising.”
2）“建议”——不是个糟糕的词，只是太频繁使用了。给个提示：如果你不是在针对他人的决定发表自己的看法，你就不是在“建议”。你是不是只是在“说”、“告诉”、“通知”、“帮助”、“通报”、“详述”等等呢？
3) “Bandwidth” – Again, fine in one context, godawful in all others. Are we talking about data transfer speeds? Great! Are we talking about ability, capacity, capability, time, money, or people? …not so good.
3）“带宽”——同样也是在一定情境下没问题，但其他情况就糟透了。我们是在说数据传送的速度吗？那么用这个词很好。如果是在说能力、才能、时间、钱、或人呢？……这个词可不怎么样。
4) “Bottleneck” – One more of this breed, with a far simpler rule: if it’s not traffic, don’t say bottleneck. If it’s not a noun, don’t say bottleneck. If it’s a verb that means to “slow,” “hinder,” “impede,” or “obstruct,” then DON’T. SAY. BOTTLENECK.
4）“瓶颈”——又是这一类的词，用法更简单：如果不是谈论交通，不要用这个词。如果不是名词，不要用这个词。如果是动词，且表示“减缓”、“阻碍”、“阻塞”，那么直接使用这些词就好了，不要用“瓶颈”。
5) “Empower” – Nelson Mandela empowers. Your iPhone does not. “Enhance” or “enable”? Sure.
5）“使……掌握自主权”——尼尔森·曼德拉让人们拥有自主权，你的苹果手机可不能。你想说的是“提高”或者“使能够”吧！
6) “Impact” – Fortunately, this one at least has an actual reason for its recent popularity. Unfortunately, that reason is “too many executives can’t be bothered to learn the difference between ‘affect’ and ‘effect,’ and neither could their second-grade English teachers.”
6）“冲击”——幸运的是这个词如此流行是有正当原因的。不幸的是这个原因就是太多管理人员不愿意学习一下“affect”和“effect”的区别，他们的2年级英语老师也一样。
7) “Leverage” – Again, let’s all be thankful someone found a shorter, more convenient way to say the word “use.”
7）“充分利用”——再次，我们谢谢某人发现了一个更短、更方便的词——“使用”。
8) “Preplan” – What’s the opposite? “Postplan”? “Duringplan”? By its nature, planning is “pre” – if it’s not happening before, it’s not a plan: it’s a reaction.
8）“预计划”——反义词是什么呢？“后计划”？“中计划”？计划本身就有提前的意思——如果计划不是预先发生的话，就不叫计划了，叫反应。
9) “Robust” – Yet another normal, innocent word turned into a monster by corporate “repurposing.” This used to just mean “hearty,” “rugged,” or “vigorous” – not exactly words you’d think to apply to, say, a database software suite, right? And yet these days, 99% of the time this word is used to talk about programs that magically don’t crash every time you open them. There are even rumors that it’s spawned the terms “robustify,” “robusticity,” and even “robustification.” Pray they’re not true.
9)”稳健的”——又是一个正常、无辜的词因为改变用途变成了陈词滥调。这个词只表示“热情友好”或“粗犷”或“强有力的”——而不是像你所想的那样用来形容数据库套装软件。然而现金，99%的情况下，这个单词被用来形容软件不会每次打开时都崩溃。甚至还有谣言说这个词衍生出了动词“使……强健”和名词“稳健”及“稳健化”。
10) “Solution” – Perhaps the biggest victim of them all, this word used to mean… SOMETHING. Now? It doesn’t.
10）“解决方案”——这个词可能是最大的受害者了，这个词过去曾用来表示“某事”，现在早就不用了。
