Reviews
Twelve jargon metaphors compared with the original fields they came from
Twelve corporate jargon metaphors traced to their original fields, with the claim each one smuggles in and the shorter sentence that replaces it honestly.
Archive
September 2026
Industry
The corporate jargon trends that will still matter next year
Terms like rightsizing, quiet hiring and career pivot are already turning on the euphemism treadmill. Here are the words to watch and what to say instead.
Rules
How to measure corporate jargon with five document counts and three reader checks
Corporate jargon can be measured: five document counts, three reader checks, what readability formulas actually see, and why none of it should become a target.
Reviews
A communication skills case study checklist: six hidden defects, one sentence
A communication skills walkthrough of one invented sentence carrying six named defects, from scope ambiguity to a deadline that is not one, each with its repair.
Industry
Notes on communication skills questions from the field as of 2027
Eight communication skills questions that cannot be answered usefully, why the easy answer costs nothing, and the specific request that replaces each one.
Guides
Four axes of workplace communication: synchronous, durable, addressed, push or pull
Four axes sort workplace messages: synchronous or asynchronous, durable or ephemeral, addressed or broadcast, push or pull, and a test for tool-born terms.
Costs
Communication skills glossary: plain against simple, brief against summary, approval against sign-off
Communication skills vocabulary defined: plain against simple, brief against summary, approval against sign-off, deadline against due date, voice and feedback words.
Guides
Vocabulary tools split into four kinds: glossary, dictionary, taxonomy, style guide
Business vocabulary references compared by kind: glossary, data dictionary, taxonomy and style guide, and the test separating a definition from a restatement.
Reviews
The business vocabulary questions worth asking before anything else
Business vocabulary questions sorted by who answers them: the ones with a settled answer, the ones a document decides, and the ones a jurisdiction decides.
Rules
Nine business vocabulary mistakes compared, one word carrying two silent meanings
Nine business vocabulary mistakes where one word carries two meanings, from customer and client to partner and guarantee, and who decides which applies.
Features
Can a business vocabulary sentence from one meeting carry two different meanings?
Twelve business vocabulary examples: sentences heard in meetings, the two readings each allows, and the single question that settles which one was meant.
Reviews
Business vocabulary for subscription pricing: MRR, ARR and churn defined
Defines the recurring revenue terms that subscription pricing depends on, pairing MRR, ARR and churn against the income and profit vocabulary founders already use.
Rules
Business acumen vocabulary: principal, agent and net revenue
Business acumen vocabulary in marketplace and subscription businesses: principal and agent, gross value transacted, take, net revenue and deferred revenue.
Features
Business acumen in a monthly review: four true claims and the question that makes each checkable
A business acumen walkthrough of four true claims in one monthly review, what each leaves out, and the converting question that makes it checkable.
Maintenance
Business acumen questions: what people ask and what is true
Business acumen questions and the counter-question each needs, from whether it is profitable to how many customers there are and what owning something means.
Reviews
Document classes that make up a business acumen toolkit
A business acumen toolkit is mostly documents. Each class is defined by the one question it is the authority on and the nearest document it gets confused with.
Guides
Business acumen metrics worth tracking, and the ones to ignore
Business acumen metrics start with four rungs: measure, metric, indicator and target. What each adds, why the denominator carries the argument, and what to ask.
Industry
4 points worth checking on decision skills examples
Twelve decision skills examples of badly stated choices, from a topic on an agenda to a false binary, with the reframe that makes each one decidable.
Rules
Decision skills guide: five roles, and why reversibility sets the process
A decision skills guide to roles and sizing: decider, recommender, consulted, informed and veto, and why reversibility rather than cost sets the process.
Costs
Decision skills mistakes, and the fixes that hold
Nine decision skills mistakes, from choosing criteria after seeing the options to judging a decision by its outcome, each with the tell that gives it away.
Features
Communication skills metrics: five states, proxies, and one direct check
Communication skills metrics: five states from delivered to acted on, what evidence each needs, where proxies mislead, and one direct check for understanding.
Maintenance
Communication skills examples separate a request from an instruction, cleanly
Communication skills examples from the vocabulary of asking: request, instruction, reminder and escalation, with twelve real messages and the missing part named.
Reviews
Communication skills mistakes seen from the repair side
Nine communication skills mistakes, from a buried ask to a date agreed under pressure, each with the repair and what the writer was protecting themselves from.
Costs
Business acumen examples: counting what you have actually won
Business acumen examples for counting what has been won: backlog against pipeline, order against framework, and where each price reduction lands.
Features
Business acumen mistakes worth avoiding early
Nine business acumen mistakes where two concepts share one word, from cost against value to capacity against utilization, and the habit that prevents them.
Features
Corporate jargon compared: a term of art against a phrase doing social work
Corporate jargon sorted into four piles, from term of art to phrase doing social work, with the three questions that place any new phrase in the right one.
Maintenance
Business acumen guide compares three statements against what each one answers
A business acumen guide to the three financial statements: which question each answers, the terms specific to each, and the order worth reading them in.
Rules
Business vocabulary case study: a hypothetical contract
A business vocabulary case study uses a hypothetical supply agreement to show how contract terms can leave parties with different expectations.
Industry
Business vocabulary metrics that predict anything
Business vocabulary for metrics: measure, ratio, rate and percentage point kept apart, plus stock against flow and what a denominator actually claims.
Maintenance
How business vocabulary changes, with an adoption test, a retirement test and a way to date a term
A field guide to how new business words arrive and how old ones retire, with an adoption test, a retirement test and a method for dating a term.
Guides
Cut distinctions and hardened euphemisms fill a corporate jargon mistakes checklist
Nine corporate jargon mistakes, from cutting a term that carried a real distinction to letting a euphemism harden into the organization's official name for it.
Costs
Seven corporate jargon questions to put to a sentence
Seven questions to test corporate jargon in a sentence, from finding the subject and verb to asking who is worse off if the claim is really true.
Maintenance
Decision skills fields compared: statement, constraints, criteria and reversibility
Decision skills as eight fields of a record: the statement, objective, constraints, alternatives, criteria, evidence, uncertainty and reversibility, defined.
Costs
Communication skills defined: purpose against audience, hearing against listening
Communication skills defined term by term: purpose against audience, hearing against listening, clear against short, and how the channel changes the message.
Reviews
How to work through business acumen as six ordered questions about one purchase
Business acumen as six questions asked in order about one decision, from what is being bought to which risks can be priced and which can only be watched.
Features
Corporate jargon sorts by grammar, not by taste, using a recoverability test
Corporate jargon sorted by grammar rather than by taste: the three constructions that delete the actor, and the recoverability test for any euphemism.
Guides
Revenue against income, profit against cash: business vocabulary split into pairs
Business vocabulary defined in pairs: revenue against income, profit against cash, margin against markup, with the one difference that separates each.