Aug
Ping me, flip me, any way you want me
Andrew Berthoff
I don’t know about other the language of other professions, but public relations seems to have its own dialect. Perhaps they’re heard in most areas of marketing, but here are a few words and phrases that make me grimace:
“On our radar” - it seems like this phrase is blurted out at least a few times at every meeting I attend these days. “We’ll make that’s on our radar.” Do you mean, “We’ll watch for that.”?
“Liaise” or “liaising,” as in “We’ll liaise with that journalist.” - what the hell does that mean? I guess it’s a fancy word for “meet” or “talk with.” Sounds liazy to me. (But, then again, who didn’t like Uma Thurman in Dangerous Liaisons?)
“Low-hanging fruit” - this early 1990s euphemism is over-ripe, rotten and stinky. Pick something else.
“Ping” - everyone seems to ping everyone else these days. “I’ll ping Suzy, and Suzy will ping me back, and then she’ll ping Uma and Uma will liaise with her low hanging fruit . . .” What’s wrong with “call” or “e-mail”? I have a feeling this is somehow connected with the radar love above.
“Flip” as in “I’ll flip that message to you after you flip it to me.” - this isn’t so bad, but, like “ping,” it’s way overused and a bit twee-sounding. Why not simply say “send”? Flippin’ tedious, that.
“Outreach” - PR people use this when talking about contacting people, e.g., “We’ll do some media outreach, and get back to you.” Fancy way of saying “contact.”
I will probably think of more, but these are a few words and phrases that are overused and irritating. By all means comment with your own PR language pet-peeves.
“Close the loop.”
“Thinking outside-the-box”
Ahhhhh!! Wherever this box is………please recycle it and stop using this phrase.
“impact” used as a verb instead of a noun e.g. “That will negatively impact the campaign.”
I hear what you’re saying. How about “pitch” as in “pitch the media” or “pitch a story to the reporter.”
“Leverage”
It’s funny that we coach our spokespeople not to use overused, meaningless expressions such as these, but we do it ourselves! We should “practice what we preach”
P.s. “look-see” is a personal pet peeve of mine
“Invite,” used as a noun.
I can’t stop! “Reference,” used as a verb. As in, “May we reference your customer?”
I plead guilty to using this (as well as leverage, impact, pitch, and closing the loop), but will discipline myself to write “refer to” or “make reference to” instead.