What are you talking about? Bacon wrap? Humblebrag? Derp? Top 10 new business phrases

Leading London hotel company Amba Hotels today unveils the results of six months’ research involving 2,000 business travellers to unearth more up-to-date, everyday business phrases. 

‘Blue sky thinking’ and ‘catching up offline’ feature nowhere in the new top ten, which has been compiled by Amba Hotels and language expert Adam Jacot de Boinod. In fact, ‘catching up offline’ was voted the most hated phrase in business, with nearly a third (30%) of the overall vote.

The new top ten has been identified as follows:

1. Bacon wrap; when you take something good and elevate it to excellence by changing it or adding value to it.
2. Buffling; speaking at length and off the point in a business context.
3. Derp; a simple, undefined reply when an ignorant comment or action is made.
4. Dumbwalking; walking slowly, without paying attention to the world around you because you are on a smartphone.
5. Humblebrag; the practice of saying something apparently modest which is really intended to boast – “Just stepped in gum. Who spits gum on a red carpet”.
6. Nomophobia; fear of being without your mobile phone.
7. Power paunch; a large stomach worn proudly as a badge of status.
8. Qwerty nosedive; falling asleep at the keyboard.
9. Sunlighting; doing a very different job on one day of the working week.
10. Underbrag; a boast which consists of openly admitting to failings to prove you are confident enough not to care what others think of you.

In an effort to fully explain it, Amba Hotels and Jacot de Boinod have published the Amba Hotels’ Bacon Wrap, a book designed to help people navigate their way through everyday business jargon. The book includes the hottest new phrases now appearing in corporate speak, as well as the more traditional – and their real meaning.

Adam Jacot de Boinod comments: “Corporate jargon is tribal. It gives people a sense of inclusion and belonging. For others, it’s about a desire to gain adequacy, prowess even, by appearing up-to-date. The new terms that we have included in the Amba Hotels’ Bacon Wrap demonstrate that corporate jargon isn’t going anywhere. It’s ‘sink or swim’ in the world of business language and this handy little guide should help the public navigate their way more easily.”

Colin Roy, chief marketing officer, glh Hotels says: “Our Amba Hotels’ Bacon Wrap campaign is a perfect example of how we stay ahead of the game as a forward-thinking hotel with a particular appeal to business-travelling guests. We are on a mission to shake up the standard business language that so many of us come across in our everyday lives and the Bacon Wrap does just that.”