The last refuge of insecure reporters

Jargon.

Newspapers are full of this stuff — and the situation isn't improving.

Stories that use a lot of jargon often involve sports or business. I've devoted a good part of my career as an editor trying to eliminate jargon from sports stories, so this tome will deal with business stories.

Pompous euphemisms (a favorite term of the author and scholar William Zinsser) or elegant variations (that's what the late Theodore Bernstein of The New York Times called them) abound in business writing. And sometimes reporters and editors aren't even aware that they're using them.

When you suggest to some journalists that this jargon hurts the credibility of their stories, you often get an answer like this: "That's just subtle shorthand between us and our readers. They know what we mean."

Forgive me if I refer to that defense mechanism as the last refuge of insecure reporters, one that is often encouraged by equally insecure editors.

One of the more common bits of jargon is the phrase blue chip stock, which defies definition the way it usually appears in business copy. Reporters and editors use the term without knowing what it means. Equally important, those who might think they know what it means don't agree.

What is a blue chip stock, anyway? Ask 10 people, and you'll likely get 10 answers (Dow Jones, Fortune 500, Standard & Poor's, old money, expensive stocks, etc.).

I know this because, at many of my workshops, I pass out blank index cards and ask journalists to define blue chip stock for me. Dutifully, the participants write a few words on the cards and pass them back. I get a variety of answers, and often the participants are sure that their definition is correct and are surprised that the people sitting in the next chairs would have different definitions.

The term blue chip stock is vague. It means different things to different people. Without instant recognition by most readers, a catch phrase such as that is useless.

By the way, the term blue chip began with poker. In friendly games, the white chips are worth $1, the reds $5 and the blues $10. Hence blue chip refers to the most expensive chips. If you don't know that, why would you use the term in a story?

And that leads to the most insidious forms of elegant variation:

Simple synonymania and its trite cousin T*A*N synonymania. These represent a distracting penchant for seeking synonyms when it's not necessary. Let's start with simple synonymania. Here are examples:

First she said that the documents would be finished today; later she mentioned that she had run into minor problems and wouldn't finish the work until Monday; finally she stated that she would work overnight and have them ready first thing Tuesday morning.

The dollar reached a 12-year high against the deutschmark and a 13-year peak against the guilder.

The litigants were Joseph Kowaski of Roxbury, who purchased 41 acres, and Peter Kunzler of Holmdel, who bought 174.

Wal-Mart fell $1.40 to $55.25; Coca-Cola declined 78 cents to $56.86, and General Motors stumbled 56 cents to $65.68.

Where's the virtue in seeking synonyms in those examples? In each case, a constant has been turned into a variable. The readers become uncomfortable with that. They start concentrating on the differences instead of the similarities.

The word said is perfectly valid and can be used repeatedly without distracting a reader. Unless your meaning is something other than said (maybe shout or whisper), you should stick with said. Doing that tells the reader exactly what you mean, and, sometimes, the repetition is good for emphasis:

First she said that the documents would be finished today; later she said that she had run into minor problems and wouldn't finish the work until Monday; finally she said that she would work overnight and have them ready first thing Tuesday morning.

As for the three other examples, if the repetition bothers you, don't use the lazy technique of simple synonymania. Rework the sentences:

The dollar reached its highest point in 12 years against the deutschmark and 13 years against the guilder.

The litigants were Joseph Kowaski of Roxbury, who bought 41 acres, and Peter Kunzler of Holmdel, 174.

Three major stocks declined: Wal-Mart $1.40 to $55.25, Coca-Cola 78 cents to $56.86, and General Motors 56 cents to $65.68.

Which brings us to T*A*N synonymania.

As with simple synonymania, this technique isn't limited to business copy, but it's certainly prominent there. Once a noun is used, it isn't used again. Instead it is replaced by a multi-word synonym: the word the, an adjective and a noun. So you see writing like this:

Gold closed at $320 Monday on the London market. The yellow metal has rebounded sharply against world currencies over the past three weeks.

Intel said Wednesday that it expected a fourth-quarter loss. The world's leading chip-maker blamed a soft economy and stiff competition from Advanced Micro Devices.

Tropicana revealed Friday that citrus canker might cause major shortages for its processing plants. The orange juice giant only recently recovered from the effects of Hurricane Andrew, which had wiped out hundreds of acres of South Florida groves.

Microsoft announced Tuesday that it would offer incentives to customers who bought early versions of some of its applications packages. The Redmond, Wash.-based software behemoth had come under scrutiny from the federal government for what several lawyers called predatory pricing practices.

The yellow metal? The world's leading chip-maker? The orange juice giant? The Redmond, Wash.-based software behemoth? Does anybody talk that way? Did anyone ever hear anyone say any of those phrases? They are jargon — journalists writing and editing for other journalists. (Besides, I thought the world's leading chip-maker was Mrs. Fields.)

If the facts contained in the T*A*N synonyms are important, find a more natural, more conversational way to work them into the stories. Otherwise, replace them with pronouns.

Another example of jargon, again not exclusive to business copy but common enough, is the penchant for making nouns into verbs. Two examples are access and impact — as in these examples:

He was unable to access the company's balance sheets over the weekend, so he couldn't produce a report until Monday.

She knew that releasing the financial statement would impact the market.

Some dictionaries are beginning to accept these unnatural verb creations as secondary definitions, but the standards of print journalism are higher than those of dictionaries — which are, after all, common denominators.

More business jargon:

bellwether:

Cisco, a network equipment-maker and technology industry bellwether, stopped short of predicting a recovery, after climbing $3.19, or 24.4 percent. ...

If you don't know the definition of bellwether, why would you use it in a story? What's wrong with the simple word leader? One newspaper has used bellwether as an incorrect elegant variation of leader 787 times over the past 20 years, most of them in the business section.

an estimated:

An estimated 2,000 businessmen were late getting to their offices Tuesday morning because of subway delays.

sharply lower:

Stocks were sharply lower in heavy trading Wednesday.

subsequent to:

Subsequent to the merger, Elliott was able to sell 25,000 shares of the stock.

challenge:

AOL Time Warner will have to deal with a long list of challenges before resuming its position as one of the market's better investments.

grow the business:

Chico's is looking for ways to grow the business, which has become a Wall Street favorite as its stock hit a 52-week high of $37.25.

finalize:

The executives wanted to finalize work on the merger because they all had important afternoon appointments.

creative financing moves:

Some of the keys to the turnaround have been Clark's creative financing moves, which have generated almost $300 million in capital.

anticipate:

Wall Street's weakest sector was again technology, widely anticipated to be the last to enjoy a long-awaited turnaround.

seasonally adjusted:

The labor department reported Thursday that new claims for jobless benefits dropped by a seasonably adjusted 10,000 to 418,000, the lowest since March 31.

Wall Street's growing conviction:

Technology stocks slid again Thursday, on Wall Street's growing conviction that battered high-tech companies will be the last to recover from recession.

lion's share:

Toyota and Honda again captured the lion's share of the U.S. automobile market last year.

Other jargon that seems to appear a lot in business stories. Some of these have value if used occasionally in situations that make immediate sense to most readers. But, generally, they're over-used to the point of becoming hackneyed: