# "Communications" in the business world

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/communications-in-the-business-world/696236>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [August 22, 2014, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/communications-in-the-business-world/696236 "2014-08-22T20:55:52Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\
**Post date:** [August 22, 2014, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/communications-in-the-business-world/696236/1 "2014-08-22T20:55:52Z")

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If you encountered a B2B company named, say, **Whozamawhatsit Communications** , would you think they dealt with telephone systems and the like, or ‘communications’ in a business sense?

Assuming the business is actually the latter, what cues would either make you understand they didn’t install phone systems or reinforce your impression of them as a marketing, image, PR, promotion etc. type of firm?

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**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\
**Post date:** [August 22, 2014, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/communications-in-the-business-world/696236/2 "2014-08-22T21:37:48Z")

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Wouldn’t the word you are looking for be “Public Relations”?

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**Author:** ![Itself](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/d07c76/32.png) [@Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Itself)\
**Post date:** [August 22, 2014, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/communications-in-the-business-world/696236/3 "2014-08-22T21:46:22Z")

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I voted for ‘ambiguous’, but to clarify my response: I would expect such a company to be a consulting firm that offers PR and marketing services. I also would expect its name to have a couple of randomlyInternallyCapitalized words or numbers in it, and that it would offer a prospectus promising to dynamically synergize best-practice analytics with an alignment toward Generation X’s expectation for transformative and impactful social media campaigns. Perhaps that’s closer to the last option.

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**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\
**Post date:** [August 22, 2014, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/communications-in-the-business-world/696236/4 "2014-08-22T22:12:16Z")

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I voted for the second, partly because my background is in PR and I happened to have worked for companies that had “Communications” in their names for a combined total of over 20 years.

And partly because companies that do the first thing tend to use the term “Telecommunications.”

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**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\
**Post date:** [August 23, 2014, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/communications-in-the-business-world/696236/5 "2014-08-23T00:20:19Z")

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Thanks. (Client nomenclature issue at stake here.)

After working on a name much like that in the OP, it suddenly jumped out at me that a lot of cell phone sellers and telephony companies use the same term - not “Telecom” or “Telecommunications.” I found a way to shape the name away from the electronic end of things.

It’s a lot more than PR, too - “communications” in the business sense is the only word that successfully encapsulates it.

Itself: thEre’z a CaReer Way/Ting 4 U. 🙂