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Episode: Business Jargon: Jargon about success

Author: BBC News
Duration: 00:06:18

Episode Shownotes

Pippa and Phil talk about common phrases for goals, measuring them and how we succeed. Find a full transcript for this episode and more programmes to help you with your English at: ``https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish`/english/features/business-jargon/241202FIND` BBC LEARNING ENGLISH HERE: Visit our website ✔️ https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish Follow us ✔️ https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/followusSUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER: ✔️

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Full Transcript

00:00:00 Speaker_01
This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. Hello and welcome to Learning English for Work, the podcast where we help you improve your business English. I'm Phil.

00:00:13 Speaker_05
And I'm Pippa. Today we're talking more about business jargon and specifically jargon for when things are going well at work.

00:00:21 Speaker_01
Yes, today's episode is all about jargon for success at work. Remember, you can find all the vocabulary from this episode and a full transcript to read along on our website, bbclearningenglish.com.

00:00:37 Speaker_01
So, Pippa, there's a lot of jargon around being successful and getting results at work, right?

00:00:44 Speaker_05
Yes, we've talked before on the podcast about how managers like to use a lot of jargon. So business leaders are more likely to say they like jargon, whereas other people find it annoying.

00:00:55 Speaker_05
And it's the managers that tend to be responsible for making sure that everyone's meeting certain goals and is being successful.

00:01:03 Speaker_05
And so they seem to have developed quite a few common metaphors to talk about these goals, how we measure them and how we succeed in them.

00:01:11 Speaker_01
So, let's have a look at a few jargon phrases.

00:01:14 Speaker_05
OK, so the first phrase we have is low-hanging fruit and this is to talk about the most easily achievable tasks or goals. So, imagine that you are picking some apples, Phil.

00:01:29 Speaker_05
It's much easier to get the apples at the bottom, the low-hanging fruit, and so someone at work might advise you to do that, to go for the low-hanging fruit.

00:01:39 Speaker_01
Yes. And there's another one we've got here, move the needle. And I think that's about making a noticeable change. So think about an old set of scales where you're weighing something and it has a needle which moves based on the weight.

00:01:54 Speaker_01
So if you move the needle, you've made a change to the weight. And there's a similar phrase, move the dial. And we often use this to talk about a change in public opinion about something, how people have changed how they think.

00:02:08 Speaker_05
Yeah, so if your boss said, we really need to move the needle on this, it means we need to change something, we need to show that we've changed something.

00:02:16 Speaker_05
And if they said that we need to move the dial, it means we need to change public opinion, change what people are thinking about this thing. The next phrase we have is, make hay while the sun shines. Do you know what that means, Phil?

00:02:30 Speaker_01
I'm not sure, could you explain it?

00:02:31 Speaker_05
Yes, so it's about making the most of a good opportunity or a good set of circumstances whilst it lasts. So hay is grass that is cut and then dried and it's usually fed to animals, so you see it on farms a lot.

00:02:47 Speaker_05
And you need dry weather to make hay, you need sunshine. So if you say, let's make hay whilst the sun shines, it means let's kind of do things whilst there's a good opportunity or whilst conditions are good.

00:03:00 Speaker_05
We use it metaphorically a lot and people often shorten it just to make hay so you might hear people saying oh we need to make hay of that opportunity and it's used a lot in politics as well.

00:03:12 Speaker_01
OK, so I guess an example of that could be if you, I don't know, if you have a company that sells Santa Claus outfits, as I'm sure lots of people do, round Christmas you're going to be able to sell a lot more Santa Claus outfits.

00:03:27 Speaker_01
So you might say, oh, December's coming. I can really make hay here and get loads of those Santa suits sold.

00:03:34 Speaker_05
Yeah, excellent example. Very festive.

00:03:43 Speaker_01
We've been asking for the jargon you hear at work. Our colleagues at Business Daily, that's a BBC World Service business programme, asked their listeners on Facebook about the jargon that confuses or annoys them.

00:03:56 Speaker_05
Yes, and lots of people mention language around targets and achievements at work. So the first one we have is leveraging, also pronounced as leveraging by some people.

00:04:09 Speaker_05
And leverage as a verb means to use something you already have to get something new or better. So people at your work might talk about leveraging a customer base or a list of emails, maybe to sell more products.

00:04:22 Speaker_05
And lots of people on Facebook said they found this annoying or that it was overused in their workplace.

00:04:29 Speaker_01
Another one was KPI, which is three letters that stand for Key Performance Indicator. And this is what companies use to set goals and to measure them. And maybe it's people don't like being measured perhaps is why we don't like that one.

00:04:47 Speaker_05
And another phrase that was mentioned was push the envelope. Now, Phil, I didn't know what this meant. So I had to go and look it up. And to push the envelope means to do something new that goes beyond normal limits to get results.

00:05:00 Speaker_05
So according to the Oxford English Dictionary, this phrase actually comes from engineering and was popularised by a book about the space programme.

00:05:08 Speaker_05
And people often use push the envelope when they're talking about doing something radical or risky at work. Maybe they want to do something different to try and attract new customers or to improve the business.

00:05:22 Speaker_01
So, Pippa, do you think you need to think outside the box if you want to push the envelope?

00:05:27 Speaker_05
Maybe, or maybe you need to do some blue sky thinking if you want to push the envelope.

00:05:32 Speaker_01
And if you're not sure what we're talking about there, we actually covered think outside the box and blue sky thinking on an earlier episode, which you can find on our website. That's it for this episode of Learning English for Work.

00:05:47 Speaker_01
Find more programmes to help you with your English on our website bbclearningenglish.com.

00:05:54 Speaker_05
Next time we'll talk about the technological jargon that we use at work.

00:05:59 Speaker_01
Bye for now.

00:06:00 Speaker_05
Bye.

00:06:07 Speaker_00
Thanks for listening to this podcast from BBC Learning English. Continue your learning on our website with courses, quizzes and programmes to improve your English. Visit bbclearningenglish.com.

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