A recent survey conducted by a recruitment consultancy company of corporate executives around India revealed that two-thirds of the executives use unnecessary jargon and the reason most indulge in it is to confuse opponents and come across as ?superior?. Forty per cent of the sample found jargon irritating and distracting and 10 per cent thought it made most users sound pretentious.

It?s clear that jargonisers in Indian offices are picking up terms from American English, some from the standard language, but mostly from business jargon. The survey suggests they are doing so because more business people have access to the American-dominated Internet. Phrases like rain check (last minute quick check)and touch base (report back), borrowed from baseball, could confuse listeners in India, because we, literally, do not play the game.

Some terms are odd and would stop almost anybody for a moment ? low-hanging fruit for a target that?s easy to reach, helicopter view for an overview, and gap analysis for assessing untapped opportunities. But several ? such as level playing field (where all competitors stand equal), win-win situation (all involved stand to gain), benchmark and blue-sky idea (an age old idea) ? have been used in India for many years. Or is strategic fit or bread and butter really so hard to figure out, in context? It would seem so, from the survey.

Jargon is all right in its place, but what the survey shows is that people are easily confused by the unfamiliar. And that should be a good enough reason for sticking to the plain old English whenever possible. Playing buzzword bingo with bored colleagues, attending meetings every hour, is hardly a substitute.

At present, a few catch phrases doing the rounds of the plush offices in the high-rises are: talk off-line (talk off the records), think outside the box (come out with a novel idea), put the idea to bed (postpone the idea and work on it), whole nine yards (all the way to the finish), gap analysis (analysis of the market to find an opportunity), touch base (report back), tailor-made (specially made for the purpose), sing from the same hymn sheet (repeat what everyone else is saying), look at the big picture (consider all the factors without bias).