The Plain English Campaign recently announced the winners of the Golden Bull awards, given for the worst examples of gobbledygook. My favourite is by TriMedia for a press statement by CEO Chris Schwartz about a partnership to promote Captain Scarlet.
The combination of Gerry Anderson’s creativity and state-of-the-art high-definition animated production and production facilities, Sony’s global strength in providing a one-stop global solution to develop Captain Scarlet product iterations across all media platforms, ability to define and launch a business management strategy leveraging Sony’s market strength in each category and our ability at TriMedia to converge the film and music worlds independently with vertical and street marketing expertise will prove to be of great benefit for all involved. I believe that a cross-pollination of creative properties in multiple media formats with a vertical market approach allows companies to maximize the return for their investment in creative properties and talents and will prove to be the economic engine for our industry in the future.
It’s just a doll, fer crissakes!*
The Plain English people have a gobbledygook generator that could come in handy for all you young thrusting executives out there. My favourite contribution to our meetings is to nod thoughtfully at someone’s suggestion and say, “but isn’t this just the tip of the iceberg?”
One last gem from the Plain English site, from a document for a bricklaying NVQ (National Vocational Qualification), describing the act of laying a brick in a wall:
… to install a component into the structural fabric.
Brilliant!
…
*[sniff] It’s only because I was never allowed to watch ITV (commercial channel), only Blue Peter on the BBC.
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