Why do we feel the need to swallow our own tongues before we enter a glass-walled conference room? It is a strange phenomenon, this collective decision to abandon the English language in favor of a dialect that sounds like a computer program trying to write a self-help book. I was sitting in a meeting earlier this morning, staring at the clock-it was exactly 10:07 AM-and listening to a project lead explain that we needed to “holistically synergize our vertical assets to leverage a paradigm shift in the consumer ecosystem.” Everyone in the room nodded. Ahmed W., an assembly line optimizer who usually spends his days making sure the pneumatic valves on line 7 don’t blow a gasket, looked like he wanted to crawl into the air conditioning vent. He didn’t nod. He just stared at his notepad where he had written the number 87 in large, aggressive circles. He knew, and I knew, and presumably the guy speaking knew, that the sentence meant absolutely nothing. It was linguistic vapor.

The Protective Shell of Obscurity

This morning, before I came to work, I took a large, confident bite of a piece of rye bread. It was only after I began to chew that I noticed the dusting of greenish-gray mold along the crust. That specific, bitter, earthy realization-the sense that something which looks nourishing is actually toxic-is exactly how I feel when I hear the phrase “circle back.” We don’t just talk this way because we are bored. We talk this way because clear language is dangerous. If you say, “I will finish the report by Tuesday,” and you don’t, you have failed. But if you say, “We are currently actionizing the data points to ensure alignment with the overarching strategic roadmap,” no one can actually prove you haven’t done it. You have hidden your lack of progress inside a thicket of syllables. It is a protective shell, a way to move through the corporate world without ever actually touching the ground.

Ahmed W. once told me that he hates the word “optimization” when it’s used by people who don’t work on the floor. To him, optimization means changing the angle of a sensor by 7 degrees so that 107 more units pass through without jamming. It is a physical, measurable reality. But in the boardroom, optimization is just a word you throw at a problem when you don’t have a solution. It’s a way to sound busy while you wait for the next fiscal quarter to arrive. I watched Ahmed during that meeting as he tried to bring the conversation back to the actual mechanics of the assembly line. He asked, “How does this shift affect the 47 employees on the night shift?” The manager didn’t answer. He couldn’t. He didn’t have a word for “people” anymore; he only had “human capital” and “bandwidth allocations.”

The Autocorrect of Personality

We have created an autocorrect for our own personalities. Somewhere between the parking lot and the elevator, we filter out our genuine reactions and replace them with a standardized set of responses. It is a tragedy of the commons, where the common resource is the ability to understand one another. When language becomes abstract, the work becomes abstract. If we can’t name the problem-if we can’t say “the machine is broken” or “the software is confusing”-then we can’t fix it. Instead, we “address the friction points in the user journey.” It sounds more sophisticated, but it accomplishes 0.007 percent of the actual work. I find myself slipping into it too. I’ll catch myself saying “I’ll ping you” instead of “I’ll call you,” as if I’m a submarine sonar system instead of a person with a voice.

I often think about how this affects our homes and our lives outside the office. Do we start looking at our families as stakeholders? Do we start viewing our hobbies as “personal growth initiatives”? In our search for precision, we have found only obscurity. We spend 37 minutes debating the wording of a single email that could have been three words long: “Yes, we can.“

The Dignity of Simplicity

There is a better way to exist, and it starts with a refusal to play the game. It starts with the kind of clarity you find in a well-designed tool or a piece of equipment that does exactly what it says on the box. When you look at the offerings at Bomba.md, there is a refreshingly honest relationship between the object and its purpose. A washing machine doesn’t try to “revolutionize the fabric-care paradigm.” It washes clothes. A refrigerator doesn’t “architect a cooling ecosystem.” It keeps your milk cold. There is a profound dignity in that simplicity. It is the same dignity Ahmed W. brings to his assembly line. He doesn’t want to “operationalize” anything; he wants the machines to run. He wants the truth to be visible in the output, not hidden in a spreadsheet.

I remember a time, about 17 years ago, when I worked for a man who refused to use any word longer than three syllables. He was a terrifyingly efficient CEO. If you used the word “synergy” in his office, he would make you sit in silence for 7 minutes to think about what you had done. He understood that language is the nervous system of an organization. If the nerves are frayed and the signals are scrambled, the body doesn’t move correctly. We have reached a point where the signals are so scrambled that we are all just twitching in place, calling it “agile transformation.”

This linguistic decay is also a form of cowardice. To speak clearly is to be vulnerable. To say “I don’t know” is a radical act in a corporate environment. Instead, we say, “I’ll have to deep-dive into the metrics and get back to you on that.” It’s the same thing, but one makes you sound like a human being and the other makes you sound like a hollowed-out shell of a consultant. I am tired of the hollowed-out shells. I am tired of the moldy bread of corporate speak. I want the crusty, honest loaf of actual conversation. I want to talk to Ahmed about the valves on line 7 without someone asking how it fits into our “global brand narrative.”

I once saw a memo that used the word “utilize” 27 times in a single page. I printed it out and crossed out every instance, replacing it with the word “use.” The document shrank by nearly a third. It was leaner, faster, and more honest. But when I showed it to the author, he looked offended. He felt I had stripped away the professional sheen of his work. He didn’t realize that the sheen was actually a layer of grease that made it impossible for anyone to get a grip on what he was saying. This is the battle we are fighting every day. It’s a battle against the instinct to hide.

We need to return to a place where words have weight again. Where a commitment is a solid thing, not a fluid concept that can be “recontextualized” if the market shifts. Ahmed W. knows the weight of a 77-pound motor. He knows that if he doesn’t secure it properly, it will fall. There is no jargon that can stop a falling motor. There is only the physical reality of gravity and the honesty of a job well done. We should strive for that same gravity in our speech. We should aim for the kind of clarity that doesn’t require a glossary to understand.

Perhaps the next time someone asks you to “take a 30,000-foot view,” you should tell them that you prefer to stay on the ground where the work is actually happening. Tell them that you don’t want to “leverage” anything, but you’d be happy to use the tools available to solve the problem. It will be uncomfortable. People might look at you as if you’ve just admitted to eating moldy bread on purpose. But eventually, the fog will start to lift. You’ll see the assembly line for what it is, and you’ll see your colleagues as the 107 unique individuals they actually are, rather than just “headcount units.”