A Lingual Paradigm Shift. (Huh?)

(I'm sure if it hasn't already happened, the managers will soon be tossing "TLI" around. "No coffee at the meeting today, folks. You know -- TLI!")

The most obvious use of management-speak happened last week when George Tenet resigned from the CIA to "spend more time with his family." Between that and "leaving to pursue other options," no one gets fired anymore.

"Have you ever heard of someone taking a job to spend less time with their family?" asked Paul J.J. Payack, founder of the Global Language Monitor, a Web site that tracks mostly Hollywood and political buzzwords. "Officially, people pursue other options. Everybody knows what that means. That means you have been fired."

The reason these words infiltrate our world is to keep up public relations, Payack said. A company's executive team or public relations department uses catchphrases because they don't want to create a crisis. "They want it to sound palatable."

And, perhaps more so, they simply want to sound smart, said Alan Perlman, a linguist and speechwriter based in Highland Park, Ill. Executives and other workplace leaders are "obsessed with innovation," he said.

"It's the only way to sustain a competitive advantage," Perlman said. "New words are very important to them."

But innovation implies progress or improvement, said Geoffrey Nunberg, author of "Going Nucular: Language, Politics, and Culture in Controversial Times" and a Stanford University linguist. And he's not so sure words like these are a measure of progress. However, the words do change with new management.

"It's clear that every generation, there is a lot of pressure to come up with new words and coinings. Every generation of management wants to sweep clean. It also comes from the consultants because they can't say, 'We want to sell you what we sold you last year.' "

We all know and complain about management-speak, and yet we all use it, he said. Including Nunberg himself. When he first worked for Xerox Corp. years ago, he received a memo that asked him to "cascade this to your people and see what the pushback is."

"I would use the words myself in that life, then come home and do this job," he said. "A parallel language has developed. These are words we don't use for ordinary life. You don't say to your partner, 'Can we align our vision?' "

Granted, some of the management-speak has seeped into our everyday language. Our friends no longer have problems, nor are they nutty. They "have issues." And no more are our kids hyper and hard to handle. They are "a challenge."

In fact, "challenge" has become a catchall for all things bad. "Something horrible that happens is 'a challenge.' A bad -- no, horrible -- year is a 'challenging' year. . . . It's the one-stop word that avoids all the icky stuff," said Patrick Cleary, senior vice president of human resource policy at the National Association of Manufacturers.

"The interesting thing is that as a communications specialist, I understand the absurdity of that," Payack said. "People think others don't see through it. If we explain it the right way, Wall Street is going to buy it. If we explain it the right way, employees are going to buy it."

And buy it, we all have.

How many times have you, as a manager, talked about a "paradigm shift," or asked your "team members" or "associates" to "think outside the box." Or discussed a "personnel challenge," where, again, you may be impelled to "implement a reduction in force?"

"Everybody is aware of it. Everybody knows it's going on. Management makes fun of itself," Nunberg said. "Yet they use the language. And yet it does its job."

Have complaints, concerns or great things to say about your work? E-mail Amy Joyce at lifeatwork@washpost.com. Join her every Tuesday from 11 a.m. to noon at www.washingtonpost.comto discuss your life at work.