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And the more unpleasant the idea, the more they pile on the jargon. Once I was at a meeting between a bunch of companies, discussing a move to some common standard, and one guy used five minutes of dense jargon just to say "what's in it for us?"

I'm not convinced though that it's just about sounding polite and positive. Normal english is quite capable of that. Using this odd jargon has a kind of distancing effect, emphasizing that you're just playing your part in the corporation, not acting as an individual human being. I wouldn't be surprised if the most morally questionable actions in corporate America were hashed out with the heaviest jargon, with the perpetrators going home feeling like they personally didn't do anything wrong.



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