Tue
Oct
25
2005

Attack of the zombies

“You’ve seen them around the web, these zombie sentences. They’re not hard to recognize: syntax slack and drooling, clauses empty of everything but a terrible hunger for human brains:

“Leveraging world class infrastructure strengths, mature quality processes and industry benchmarked people management practices…“”

Thus starts a great article on A List Apart about the bloated, meaningless gobbledy-gook that passes for writing.

A top read…

Posted by Neil, 25 October 05
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Comment

  1. I used to work for a company that thrived on those sentences. Even wrote a few myself. Got to be quite good at it actually.

    But as I began to see through the shallow values of that place (and that world), I rediscovered the beauty of plain English.

    (Having the opportunity to preach a few sermons at Macquarie Anglican has also helped! The responsibility to deal carefully with God’s word makes you analyse everything very carefully—which is one of the reasons I’m enjoying the Bruce Smith sermons on my mp3 player…)

    — Richard Neale · Oct 25, 04:51 AM · #

  2. Check this out… from my former employer (which is selling its corporate HQ site to another company—just in case that isn’t obvious from the press release extract):

    “This is another proof point that we continue to execute on our strategy of cost leverage through business simplification. A key part of this strategy has been to ensure that our real estate requirements are sized to the needs of current business realities in order to maximize our return on assets, bring our teams together, and minimize operating expense.”

    I think it means they are selling the building because it’s too big and it will be cheaper for them if they move out.

    [The quote is from a press release made today.]

    — Richard Neale · Oct 25, 06:16 AM · #

  3. Brilliant example Richard!
    But knowing Roger B., I suspect that some Parish Council minutes/reports might have evidence of zombie speak! ;-)

    — Neil · Oct 25, 03:17 PM · #

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