Chaos Magnet

The Gobbledygook Manifesto

Yesterday, I confirmed my attendance at this years Microsoft Book Publishing Summit in March -- let me know if you're going! -- so I'm reminded of the work I did for them a few years ago.

I'm especially reminded by The Gobbledygook Manifesto -- Cutting Edge! Mission Critical! An analysis of gobbledygook in over 388,000 press releases sent in 2006. The winner?

"Next generation," with 9,895 uses, followed by over 5,000 uses each of "flexible," "robust," "world class," "scalable," and "easy to use."

The thing is, I remember using lots of gobbledygook on those Microsoft papers, because it just seemed right at the time. (Note that the Client accepted those papers.) But I wonder, how else do you say these things without seeming too casual, another whitepaper crime?

Technorati tags: gobbledygook | writing |

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