FROM THE EDITOR, RAILWAY AGE MARCH 2026 ISSUE: I’ve been wanting to write this column for a very long time. Recently I came across a Wall Street Journal article by News Editor Demetria Gallegos: “The Corporate Jargon We Hate the Most.” “We pinged our readers for the terms that really annoy them,” she wrote. “The list is long.”
In my nearly 34 years at Railway Age, I’ve rolled my eyes and popped Pepcid pills while deciphering press releases polluted with conniption-causing corporate-speak. Here’s a sampling of euphemistic words and phrases—some of which I’m guilty of using:
- • “_____ is our number one priority” (fill in the blank)
- • “360-degree-view” (makes my head spin)
- • “10,000-/50,000-foot view” (nosebleed)
- • “Asset allocation” (this goes where?)
- • “Bandwidth” (AM? FM? VHF? UHF?)
- • “Circle back” (boomerang)
- • “Core competency” (incompetency?)
- • “Cost control” (Wall Street favorite)
- • “Customer-centric” (just circling around?)
- • “Deep dive” (until you drown?)
- • “Deliverable” (to the wrong address?)
- • “Drill down” (how deep?)
- • “Dumpster fire” (filled with press releases?)
- • “Five-alarm response“ (to a dumpster fire?)
- • “Hard stop” (derailment?)
- • “Judicious use of capital” (cheap)
- • “Cutting edge” (until it’s dull)
- • “Lean in” (without falling over)
- • “Leverage” (fancy word for “use”)
- • “Low-hanging fruit” (maybe putrid?)
- • “Move the needle” (off the scale?)
- • “New normal” (until it’s old)
- • “Pivot to growth” (yeah, ok …)
- • Raise the bar” (how high?)
- • “Rationalize” (sometimes irrational)
- • “Right-size/downsize” (fire people)
- • “Shareholder value” (ugh!)
- • “Solution” (to a challenge?)
- • “Solve challenges/issues” (grammar!)
- • “Stakeholder” (to kill Dracula?)
- • “Synergy” (cooperation)
- • “Targeted” (for right-sizing?)
- • “Touch base” (you’re out!)
- • “Thought leader” (someone with ESP?)
Had enough? No? Try to decipher this “press release boilerplate BS text” I wrote in this column a while back:
“We’re executing best-in-class service, and we’re extremely confident that substantial opportunities exist to leverage our service product offering, capture growth and deliver superior financial returns. Our 360-degree view, which incorporates, where appropriate, rationalized right-sizing and/or downsizing initiatives, is focused on strategically deploying disciplined capital investments. We’re working aggressively to implement a remarkable rate of positive organizational change, developing and implementing customer-centric operating strategies by engaging and communicating proactively through frequent interactions with both our internal and external stakeholders about our processes for tighter procedural coordination. In a challenging environment filled with persistent headwinds, we are fully committed to deploying the streamlined resources necessary to address our capacity constraints, while raising the bar on our customer service metrics. Safety is our top priority, followed closely by our commitment to enhancing shareholder value.”
After reading this column in the Digital Edition, Capitol Hill Contributing Editor Frank N. Wilner sent me a congratulatory note of similar gobbledygook*:
“Hands down, and taking a 360-degree look while drilling down into the customer-centric judicious use of typically low-hanging fruit, your March hard-stop column demonstrates from a 10,000-50,000 foot view the cutting edge core competency of your raising the bar for knowledge-based, cutting edge right-sizing, creating both reader value synergy and circle-back thought leadership for a targeted new normal stakeholder audience similarly invested in a rationalized moving the needle leveraged joint objective.”
Yogi Berra was right: You can observe a lot by just watching! Now, about that fork in the road …
*Gobbledygook (or gobbledygook) refers to wordy, convoluted or jargon-filled language that is nonsensical or difficult to understand. The term was created by Texas politician Maury Maverick in 1944. He reportedly used the term to describe the “activation” and “implementation” of pompous, technical government-speak memos, saying it sounded like a turkey “gobbling.” Synonyms are ”gibberish,” “doubletalk,” “mumbo jumbo and “nonsense.”
