I have to admit that I am often guilty of including business jargon in my sentences – that’s what happens when you hang out with too many bloggers and Marketers!

A recent survey carried out by YouGov, identified the Top Most Hated Business Speak Phrases in the UK, aka ‘Buffling’ – a contraction of business and waffling.


Rank Term
1 Thinking outside of the box
2 Touch base
3 At the end of the day
4 Going forward
5 All of it
6 Blue sky thinking
7 Out of the box
8 Credit crunch
9 Heads up
10 Singing from the same hymn sheet
11 Pro-active
12 Downsizing
13 Ducks in a row
14 Brainstorming
15 Thought shower
16 360º thinking
17 Flag it up
18 Pushing the envelope
19 At this moment in time
20 In the loop

The list is simply awesome and my favourite ones have to be ‘360º thinking’, ‘flag it up’, ‘brainstorming’ (I luurve that word!), ‘touching base’ and ‘going forward’

The survey also found that nearly half (46%) of those surveyed believed that buffling is believed to be on the rise even outside the work place.

Small business hotel chain Ramada Encore, created a couple of videos that poke fun as when buffling gets out of control. And since it’s Christmas, here’s the Christmas Buffling video – I feel sorry for these kids ;)

[youtube = http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=dRcM2aa2RAg]

If I were to book a business hotel and stumbled across the Ramada Encore website, I would definitely book with them rather than one of their faceless, corporate competitors. The videos they created add a nice fun touch to their identity but I think they could do a lot more with their overall social media strategy…

What are your favourite business speak phrases? ;)