# When did nonsensical corporate jargon become a thing? How is it still a thing? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 21, 2025, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-nonsensical-corporate-jargon-become-a-thing-how-is-it-still-a-thing/1019958 "2025-06-21T23:09:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2025, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-nonsensical-corporate-jargon-become-a-thing-how-is-it-still-a-thing/1019958/41 "2025-06-22T23:07:15Z")
Right. 1) and 4) have been around forever. Sailors, e.g., had an exceptionally large range of jargon that was useful, sometimes critical, in communication, and many of their words and expressions passed into the common language. The silly stuff developed after WWII when corporate consulting became a big business of its own. I can’t find the earliest use of a mission statement, but there are essentially no hits on Google Books before 1960 except in the military sense. The 1960 hit is from [National Bureau of Standards](https://books.google.com/books?id=odw8yQoQoxwC&pg=PA150&dq=%22mission+statement%22&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi4zPXrkIaOAxVRF1kFHXM5Bdo4ChDoAXoECAsQAw#v=onepage&q=mission%20statement&f=false). > _mission statement_ should provide purpose , focus , and urgency to the Bureau’s operations . It should highlight those characteristics which make the Bureau a unique institution . It should encourage imaginative and exploratory work at … Ngrams show a near vertical rise in hits for “mission statement” starting around 1980. After 2010, though, a huge drop. With luck they’ve become too mockable to continue. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2025, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-nonsensical-corporate-jargon-become-a-thing-how-is-it-still-a-thing/1019958/42 "2025-06-23T00:27:46Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > The silly stuff developed after WWII when corporate consulting became a big business of its own. I can’t find the earliest use of a mission statement, but there are essentially no hits on Google Books before 1960 except in the military sense. I think a mission statement is actually pretty useful. Just so long as it’s not filled with gobblygook that nobody can understand. If someone were to ask me what my company did, if I spouted our mission statement they’d at least know what we were about. ---
**Author:** ![Vlad\_Igor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/7feea3/32.png) [@Vlad\_Igor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Vlad_Igor)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2025, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-nonsensical-corporate-jargon-become-a-thing-how-is-it-still-a-thing/1019958/43 "2025-06-23T00:35:15Z")
Thankfully, that phrase died a quiet death at my corporation a few years ago. It sounded silly then, and it sounds even sillier now. It seems corp-jargo-speak is mostly used in the middle to upper middle management levels, and to me it is lazy language or is hiding that they have nothing to contribute at all. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2025, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-nonsensical-corporate-jargon-become-a-thing-how-is-it-still-a-thing/1019958/44 "2025-06-23T01:36:14Z")
> [@Odesio](#): > > I think a mission statement is actually pretty useful. I’m working on a project now that has a mission statement. It’s three bullet points, setting out three clearly defined goals. People will be able to judge the success of the project by measuring it against those three bullet points. I think the larger the entity or project, the less value a mission statement has, because it necessarily becomes diffuse and meaningless. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2025, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-nonsensical-corporate-jargon-become-a-thing-how-is-it-still-a-thing/1019958/45 "2025-06-23T01:37:45Z")
I’ve spent the better part of my career working for management consulting firms. Even we recognize that the corporate jargon can get out of hand. If I can play devil’s advocate, much of the corporate buzzword nonsense probably does have roots in legitimate business and management theory. Often the intent is to create a consistent language and approach so you can teach and repeat them. But what happens over time is these things get overused or misused and lose any sort of real meaning. There’s nothing inherently nonsensical about a “mission statement”, “vision statement”. “value proposition”, or “executive summary”. I mean it’s basically just a fancy way of answering “what the fuck are we doing here and why?” I have seen some vision statements that were pretty nonsensical. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2025, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-nonsensical-corporate-jargon-become-a-thing-how-is-it-still-a-thing/1019958/46 "2025-06-23T01:45:00Z")
And I value executive summaries, both when I write the 30 page single spaced legal memo, and when I receive it. A good executive summary makes the memo so much more accessible. One court I appeared in had a requirement for an executive summary, no more than one page, on a 20 page brief. That requirement forced me to state my argument extremely concisely. (The Court bought my argument, over that of a very well-respected appellate counsel. 😉 ) ---
**Author:** ![Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/q.q.switcheroo/32/5713_2.png) [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2025, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-nonsensical-corporate-jargon-become-a-thing-how-is-it-still-a-thing/1019958/47 "2025-06-23T01:45:03Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > I can’t find the earliest use of a mission statement, but there are essentially no hits on Google Books before 1960 except in the military sense. A fair amount corporate lingo migrated over from the military…Every office has its share of grunts earning their stripes in the trenches, hoping to rise through the ranks and one day call the shots as members of the top brass. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2025, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-nonsensical-corporate-jargon-become-a-thing-how-is-it-still-a-thing/1019958/48 "2025-06-23T01:47:36Z")
: golf clap : 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2025, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-nonsensical-corporate-jargon-become-a-thing-how-is-it-still-a-thing/1019958/49 "2025-06-23T02:58:46Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > But what happens over time is these things get overused or misused and lose any sort of real meaning. > > There’s nothing inherently nonsensical about a “mission statement”, “vision statement”. “value proposition”, or “executive summary”. I mean it’s basically just a fancy way of answering “what the fuck are we doing here and why?” > > I have seen some vision statements that were pretty nonsensical. That’s my point. Over time mission statements turned from bullet points to rambling blog posts. Lengthy but with null semantic value. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2025, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-nonsensical-corporate-jargon-become-a-thing-how-is-it-still-a-thing/1019958/50 "2025-06-23T03:10:13Z")
> [@HeyHomie](#): > > Surely Milton Hershey never prattled on to his investors and/or partners about leveraging core equities, did he? I don’t believe Milton Hershey _had_ any investors – the company was solely owned by him, and even today is still controlled by the foundation he started as a school for white boys. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2025, 5:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-nonsensical-corporate-jargon-become-a-thing-how-is-it-still-a-thing/1019958/51 "2025-06-23T05:00:30Z")
I remember when the Deming philosophy was a big thing in the late 1980s. It was one of those really good ideas that usually doesn’t work. ---
**Author:** ![Mk\_VII](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Mk\_VII](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mk_VII)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2025, 7:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-nonsensical-corporate-jargon-become-a-thing-how-is-it-still-a-thing/1019958/52 "2025-06-23T07:10:42Z")
At my last place there was suddenly a thing called 'black box working '. Nobody seemed able to define what it was, and no one seems to miss it now. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2025, 8:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-nonsensical-corporate-jargon-become-a-thing-how-is-it-still-a-thing/1019958/53 "2025-06-23T08:00:07Z")
Yeah, it also provides an incentive for new jargon to be coined - you want to stand out in a meeting as being the person whose insight is deeper than everyone else; if you authoritatively, but casually use terminology that other people either aren’t using or don’t know, it can create that impression. ---
**Author:** ![ratatoskK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ratatoskk/32/2987_2.png) [@ratatoskK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ratatoskK)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2025, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-nonsensical-corporate-jargon-become-a-thing-how-is-it-still-a-thing/1019958/54 "2025-06-23T15:02:54Z")
Con men have always used jargon to confuse and overwhelm their targets. Business jargon is no exception. As pointed out above, some of it is legitimate tech talk. But most of it is BS designed to control the marks and the underlings. ---
**Author:** ![Llama\_Llogophile](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@Llama\_Llogophile](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Llama_Llogophile)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2025, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-nonsensical-corporate-jargon-become-a-thing-how-is-it-still-a-thing/1019958/55 "2025-06-23T15:15:46Z")
> [@ratatoskK](#): > > Con men have always used jargon to confuse and overwhelm their targets. Business jargon is no exception. As pointed out above, some of it is legitimate tech talk. But most of it is BS designed to control the marks and the underlings. Michael Lewis made exactly this point in Moneyball. The people and companies trading CDOs and other exotic financial products tried their best to keep people from learning too much about them and shrouded a lot of knowledge through deliberately obscure jargon. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2025, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-nonsensical-corporate-jargon-become-a-thing-how-is-it-still-a-thing/1019958/56 "2025-06-23T16:30:13Z")
Maybe _that’s_ “black box working”! ---
**Author:** ![Lucas\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucas_jackson/32/303_2.png) [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2025, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-nonsensical-corporate-jargon-become-a-thing-how-is-it-still-a-thing/1019958/57 "2025-06-23T16:55:35Z")
There used to be a site that would generate corporate speak gobbledygook. It sounded quite convincing but really meant nothing. In fact I think I heard of it here. Didn’t the Straight Dope used to have a link to a random/funny/weird site of the day? Or am I confusing that with another board? ---
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2025, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-nonsensical-corporate-jargon-become-a-thing-how-is-it-still-a-thing/1019958/58 "2025-06-23T16:58:50Z")
> [@Yosh99](#): > > The best thing that came out of my old corporate TQM era was that everyone got a pencil that had no eraser and the phrase, “Quality is no Mistake” printed on it. Back in the hand-drafting era, various people would point out that draftsmen and engineers used pencils with no erasers - and say that it was because they were trained not to make mistakes. WRONG. The erasers on the end of pencils were too small to deal with the amount of erasing that was needed. Draftsmen^ and engineers usually had a bunch of different, large erasers to go with those pencils. Also eraser guards. And brushes for sweeping the eraser crumbs off the drawing. - back then it was definitely draftsmen ---
**Author:** ![Lucas\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucas_jackson/32/303_2.png) [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2025, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-nonsensical-corporate-jargon-become-a-thing-how-is-it-still-a-thing/1019958/59 "2025-06-23T17:07:42Z")
Yep, I was one. And don’t forget electric erasers! ---
**Author:** ![Marvin\_the\_Martian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/marvin_the_martian/32/2898_2.png) [@Marvin\_the\_Martian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marvin_the_Martian)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2025, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-nonsensical-corporate-jargon-become-a-thing-how-is-it-still-a-thing/1019958/60 "2025-06-23T17:15:10Z")
The good old stick eraser: [![](https://www.draftingsuppliesdew.com/resize/images/staedtler/528-50.jpg?bw=800&bh=800) ](https://www.draftingsuppliesdew.com/resize/images/staedtler/528-50.jpg?bw=800&bh=800) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-nonsensical-corporate-jargon-become-a-thing-how-is-it-still-a-thing/1019958.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-nonsensical-corporate-jargon-become-a-thing-how-is-it-still-a-thing/1019958.md?page=4)