The Destruction of the English Language

NGO's (that's non-governmental organization for those of you not in the biz) do good work, mostly. There are a few bad apples out there, who do more eventual damage than good by ruining the fabric of the community in which they work, but overall, they've come a long way since the scandal-ridden days of big, useless development projects in the 80s and 90s.

But there is one way in which I fear they are doing irreparable harm: inventing horrible, long, redundant jargon.

My organization is in the midst of a strategic planning process, which has been going on for months. Some of the words that frequently make me cringe are:

• Impact, used as a verb. (Is it so hard to say "make an impact"? Although this has now apparently made it into English dictionaries, to me it is still wrong).
• Complementarities
• Modalities
• Methodologies (what's wrong with methods?)
• And the very worst, the one that makes my skin crawl every time I hear it: Orientate

I know it was surely a mistake, but I recently saw on the cover of a goverment document: "Preventation of malnutrition."

Yesterday I used the word "operationalize." Someone please pray for me.