The good old Today program had two “unrelated” articles this morning.

One was about employees appealing for less management speak - less “thinking outside the box”, “helicopter views” etc.

The second was about rhyming slang & the pearly king interviewed reckoned it was used so outsiders couldn’t understand what was being said. Did I say “unrelated”?!

We all like to belong to exclusive clubs - it’s a measure of our worth & acceptance. Some people do it via funny handshakes, some people by paying over the odds (keeps the riff raff out) and some people (in fact everybody) by using “in” jokes & language. When someone talks about rub a dubs down the frog and toad they are staking a claim to their membership & only if you understand it are you “in”. They are also having a bit of a laugh (slang is always amusing somewhere) and showing off. It’s the same with management speak &, dare I say it?, IT speak.

RAM’s and ROM’s & OOP’s & FLOPS all show we are clever, witty(*) & part of the in(*) crowd as well as just being quicker & easier to say.

(*witty - for IT people)

(*in crowd - of IT people, not your actual fashionable in crowd obviously)