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Dianacee Posted 21 years ago
Vocabulary

business slang

I'm working on a list of slang terms one hears in AmE and/or BrE business situations whose meanings aren't apparent by looking up individual words in the dictionary. What follows is what I've got so far. Can anyone add to this list?

stay on your toes

go for the gold

sit on your butt / sit on your bum

just warming a seat

golden handshake

golden parachute

use your head

use some elbow grease

reach for the stars

use your noggin

show him/her the door

on the tip of the tongue

off the top of the head

fly by the seat of the pants

wing it

fake it

get lost / tell him or her to get lost

(something or someone) didn't go over

(something or someone) went over

(something or someone) bombed

fall on the face

egg on the face

hit the target

fell short

get one's knickers in a twist

the squeaky wheel gets the grease
  

Top answer

Bad Business Slang Let’s give him a plastic cup and see what he fills it with. I’d like to chain that question to the radiator for a few months. We need to stop worrying about the low hanging fruit and start going after the injured pack animals.

— Mister Micawber

  • Bad Business Slang Let’s give him a plastic cup and see what he fills it with.
  • I’d like to chain that question to the radiator for a few months.
  • We need to stop worrying about the low hanging fruit and start going after the injured pack animals.
  • We’ll look up that skirt when we come to it.
  • This organization is all chiefs and no plagues.
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10 Answers
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Bad Business Slang

Let’s give him a plastic cup and see what he fills it with.

I’d like to chain that question to the radiator for a few months.

We need to stop worrying about the low hanging fruit and start going after the injured pack animals.

We’ll look up that skirt when we come to it.

This organization is all chiefs and no plagues.

I’d like
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Not all the expressions in your list are restricted to a business context, of course.

get the pink slip

at the end of the day

a power play

build an empire

go paperless

feed the dragon

kick someone upstairs

be on special assignment

glass ceiling

customer focus

customer centric
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CalifJimNot all the expressions in your list are restricted to a business context, of course.
You're absolutely right! We hear / use those expressions in many different situations but since most of my students are studying 'Business English' I thought it would be useful to cobble together a list of the ones we do use also in business contexts.

It's a
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lose the gist ... because their minds became preoccupied with such an unfamiliar ... string of words

I know the feeling very well. It has happened to me whenever I have tried to learn another language. It's very easy for me to put myself in their shoes.
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on the page
on the mark
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get into a p*ssing contest (rude)
And the tables, which I've mentioned here before: what do they bring to the table, we're offering you a seat at the table, etc.

This is a great idea! It would make a cute little book. Maybe "cute" is the wrong word.
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Neighbor used one this afternoon & I saved it for you: "get off the dime," to make a decision.

http://www.answers.com/topic/get-off-the-dime
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Oh my goodness. I'm going to try to interject a few of Mr. M's at work and see what happens. It was like "MadLibs for business jargon"

I think you may want to differentiate between absurd business jargon that makes us all roll our eyes (like "we're engaged in our visioning process to see how we can leverage our human capital for a synergistic solution") and idioms that are used in the bu
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0 giving lip service02br
00too many chiefs, not enough indians02br
00having the right people on the bus, and in the right seats02br
00paralysis by analysis 0-
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on the fly

ramp up

shore up

it's a go

go live
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