graphic novel

Some buzzwords are euphemisms deployed to add gravitas to their subjects in an attempt to win greater respect and mainstream use. One that has become common in today’s media is ‘graphic novel,’ an overly elaborate way of saying ‘comic book.’

In the comics publishing industry, it is not a new term, dating back to the 1960s and ‘70s, when a number of collected series and longer original works were occasionally published in squarebound formats and marketed as graphic novels. By the late 1980s, such formats had become part of many comics publishers’ regular output (sometimes marketed as ‘trade paperbacks’).

Today, however, as comics have made their way into bookstores, they are often referred to collectively as ‘graphic novels.’ This adoption of a buzzword has coincided with a substantial rise in the North American popularity of translated manga—Japanese comics that have long been published in squarebound volumes anyway, without any branding differentiation needed for the Japanese market.

The term’s use reeks of elitism, as though graphic novels were for those who would not deign to read lowly comics. This is nonsense; longer-form comics are still comics. And the medium remains itself no matter the particular publishing format. Indeed, many comics are published online today.

The buzzword’s use became particularly galling in early 2009 in the marketing campaign for the movie Watchmen, based on a 1980s comics series. In interviews, everyone involved in the production uniformly referred to the source material as a graphic novel—including its artist, Dave Gibbons. Yet, Watchmen was not originally published in a squarebound format; and its writer, Alan Moore, wrote in 1997 that ‘graphic novel’ was simply “a marketing term that I never had any sympathy with. The term 'comic' does just as well for me.”

Moore notably wants nothing to do with Hollywood adaptations of his work; but one might nevertheless hope Hollywood understood what it was adapting.

revolutionize

Some terms become buzzwords through exaggeration. One example is ‘revolutionize,’ which is currently used to describe many situations that simply do not warrant it.

To revolutionize something is to change it fundamentally. Such events have historically included forceful overthrows of governments (e.g. the French Revolution) and the formation of new economies (e.g. the Industrial Revolution). Today, however, the term is tossed about very loosely indeed.

On March 23, 2009, for example, an article in InformationWeek reported as a matter of fact that “Apple revolutionized the cell phone industry when it introduced the iPhone in 2007.” This is nonsense. The iPhone is a popular consumer device that allowed Apple to become a new player in the industry, but no others were forced out as a consequence, nor was the industry changed at any fundamental level.

Three days later, a review in The Globe and Mail of the animated movie Monsters vs. Aliens claimed, “For over half a century now, 3-D has been promising to revolutionize the movie biz,” but failed to suggest how. All the occasional ‘3-D’ movie requires is that audience members don special glasses for the effect to work—but other than that, their moviegoing experience and the business at large are the same as with ‘2-D’ features.

The shame is this misuse waters down the power of the word, such that when it is used appropriately—as on March 25, 2009, when The Daily Princetonian tentatively offered the headline, ‘New nanofluidics technology could revolutionize genetic analysis’—it risks being utterly overlooked by a jaded readership.

premier(e)

Even in a nominally bilingual country like Canada, nothing makes a handier buzzword than an exotic-sounding French import. One example is ‘premier’ (or its feminine form, ‘premiere’), which is often trotted out as though it were a classy way to say, “We’re number one!”

Confusion can easily result, however, from its ambiguity. The preferred meanings of ‘premiere,’ for example, are a noun and a verb, not an adjective. A premiere is the first performance of a stage production or the first public screening of a movie. The intransitive verb ‘to premiere,’ similarly, means ‘to be presented for its first time.’

A premier, meanwhile, is the first minister of a Canadian territory or province. Yet, the adjectival form can mean ‘first’ not only in time (as with ‘premiere’), but alternatively in importance or in order.

One high-profile annual conference in Toronto, ideaCity, is billed as “Canada’s Premiere Meeting of the Minds.” For clarity’s sake, its organizers would be better off using the shorter ‘premier.’ As it is, newcomers may be left to wonder if it is the first time such an event is being held—which, celebrating its 10^th anniversary in 2009, it most certainly is not.

The confusion runs both ways. On Sunday, March 22, 2009, BroadwayWorld ran a story with the headline ‘Modern Muse Theatre Presents Regional Premier of Reclaimed’—yet the accompanying text used the Broadway-standard spelling, ‘premiere.’ The headline was not wrong per se, but given the context, appeared to be a sloppy typo.

coordinates

In business, buzzwords can arise from glib attempts to make the daily grind more exciting. Office workers who travel frequently for sales or consulting purposes are dubbed ‘road warriors.’ Corporate initiatives promise to ‘revolutionize’ the way a company operates. And new contacts are asked, “What are your coordinates?”

Coordinates are, of course, a mathematical concept—a set of magnitudes that indicate the specific position of a given point, line or plane. Yet these new business contacts are asking for nothing of the sort; they seek only e-mail addresses and phone numbers, neither of which are determined by coordinate-based systems.

Military organizations that operate in remote regions use coordinates to indicate positions; office workers in cities certainly do not need to, though perhaps they subconsciously aspire to such an exotic working life.

Nevertheless, the buzzword is ripe for unfortunate ambiguity. Private citizens are acquiring Global Positioning System (GPS) devices for use in their cars, while mobile phones and computing devices are being equipped with the same technology.

Soon, all of the glib office workers truly will have coordinates, indicating their precise location at all times. One can only hope, for their sake, they will not be so quick to share such information with every new acquaintance.

perspective

While some buzzwords are used to connote erroneous meanings, others are used in contexts that fail to provide sufficient meaning of any kind. Such is the case today with ‘perspective,’ a noun that, when referring to a point of view, requires context to suggest what that point of view might entail.

An example provided in the Canadian Oxford Dictionary is “a Marxist perspective”—the point of view of a specific ideology. This is sufficient context, given the definition of Marxism itself suggests the nature of that perspective.

Yet, there are many flippant references these days to ‘perspective’ that leave the question utterly open-ended. On March 13, 2009, for example, The Globe And Mail previewed a TV special lampooning recent U.S. President George W. Bush, starring Will Ferrell and co-written by Adam McKay. The article reported:

“Both men went into the project believing Bush should be held accountable, albeit from a comedy perspective.”

Comedy, however, is not a specific idea like Marxism. It does not suggest a single, identifiable point of view. Thus, the term ‘perspective’ adds nothing here; the writer, Andrew Ryan, could have used the simpler phrase, “albeit through comedy.”

Two days later, The New York Times’ coverage of the South By Southwest Film Festival in Austin, Texas, featured an interview with filmmaker Joe Swanberg. Discussing his latest film’s premiere, the article reported:

“… the so-called day-and-date release with an assist from the festival here suits his needs from a financial and artistic perspective.”

This wording, too, is needlessly complicated, given it simply means to say the release “suits his financial and artistic needs.” Often a ‘perspective’ is suggested where there is none.

blockbuster

Another term that has become a buzzword because of unjustified use is ‘blockbuster,’ when referring to a movie (as opposed to the older, more literal meaning of an enormous bomb that can destroy a block of buildings).

A movie becomes a blockbuster when it is hugely popular and, therefore, profitable. With increasing regularity, however, many media sources refer to movies as ‘blockbusters’ when they haven’t even opened yet!

On March 12, 2009, for example, the website IGN previewed upcoming movies with a piece titled ‘Hot New Blockbuster Trailers,’ while the Press Association reported on actor Mickey Rourke’s involvement in Iron Man 2—which is planned for release in mid-2010—by saying he has been “linked to the blockbuster for some time.”

When movies yet to be released are referred to as blockbusters, the term loses all meaning, as it no longer measures any particular quality or quantity. It is a case of optimistic but utterly empty hype—Hollywood studios understandably want every movie they release to become a blockbuster, but until they find a surefire formula for success, that isn’t going to happen.

controversial

Some words lose their force of meaning through overuse in circumstances that do not necessarily warrant them. Such is the case with ‘controversial,’ which news reporters increasingly deploy without any justification.

To be controversial is not a particularly extreme state; it merely entails the causing of debate or dispute surrounding a subject. Yet, many reporters are quick to label events, decisions and people as controversial without bothering to explain why.

On March 10, 2009, for example, Calgary radio station AM 770 reported the following story:

Sustainable Calgary is hailing the city’s controversial new Plan It Calgary report. It proposes big changes to city residential development to accommodate another 1.3 million people in the next 60 years. Executive Director Noel Keough says the report is a great start to what should be smarter development in Calgary. He says for years, thousands of citizens have been calling for a stricter, higher-density policy to reduce urban sprawl. As a result, he says Council needs to listen to research and feedback that all point towards transit-oriented development, instead of developers who point towards market demand. However, Keough calls the plan “a bare minimum.”

Despite the claim of controversy, there seems to be no debate whatsoever; the city council, the non-profit organization (Sustainable Calgary) and even thousands of citizens all appear to be in agreement. There is a hint that developers may have other priorities, but no suggestion that this has led to any dispute.

Other instances miss the word’s meaning altogether. On the same day, the Vancouver Sun carried a story with the headline, “North Vancouver school at heart of a controversial debate.” One would certainly hope that a debate involved controversy—or it wouldn’t be a debate at all.

end user

When computing became ubiquitous, the term ‘user’ quickly came to define, well, practically all of us. That is to say, we were the users of computers. We encountered graphical user interfaces (GUIs). We set up user accounts. We chose usernames.

Somewhere along the line, however, a redundant appendage was added to this term. We became ‘end users.’

In a rather vague matter of semantics, an end user is the intended recipient of any particular technology. This may be construed as a somewhat abstract concept, as it could theoretically describe someone who doesn’t even exist; but then, so could ‘user’ in the same context.

The beauty of simple terms is the way they fit a broad array of circumstances. Buzzwords are often needlessly, superficially specific, as though the likes of ‘end user’ could inherently connote anything more than the sum of its parts.

It can’t. When average civilians become users of any given technology, they are already at the end of its path of development from idea to market. And there is little sense in defining an ‘end user’ when there is no corresponding role for a ‘beginning user.’

ninja

It’s rare to see a buzzword take on both positive and negative connotations within a short period of use, but such has been the confusing case with ‘ninja’ in recent years.

In its original sense, a ninja was an assassin or spy who used stealth and camouflage in feudal Japan. Centuries later, however, the popularity of fanciful martial arts tales elevated the ninja archetype to international renown. In modern times, some military and rebel forces in violent regions around the world—including Croatia, the Republic of the Congo, Indonesia and Angola—have referred to themselves as ninja.

Far less menacingly, the term has also been adopted in civilian life to represent the aspirations of software programmers (code ninjas) and online video gamers (loot ninjas), among others. In these cases, ‘ninja’ is speciously used to convey stealth as an advantage in the realm of information technology (IT).

Another more pessmistic meaning has arisen from the current economic downturn, the acronym ‘No Income, No Job or Assets’ (NINJA). HCL Finance, for example, offered Ninja loans during the U.S. housing ‘bubble’ that eventually led to that country’s subprime mortgage crisis. More recently, the Philippines’ presidential advisor Joey Salceda has described a new financial stimulus program as the Ninja Plan, with the goal of helping unemployed workers find new jobs.

While catchy, none of the original meaning of ‘ninja’ is retained in these positive and negative connotations. Hopefully, they will soon cancel each other out.

time bomb

While many clichés overtake terms’ original meanings in the public consciousness, it can be reassuring to see those basic definitions show up again, as they help show how misguided buzzwords can be.

On February 24, 2009, the Associated Press (AP) reported that a recent explosion in Cairo, Egypt, had involved a time bomb:

The crude bomb that killed a French teenager and injured 24 others at a famous Cairo bazaar was made of gunpowder and detonated by a washing machine timer, according to a crime lab report.

One day later, however, the same news agency used the term ‘time bomb’ in a more abstract and sensationalistic context when reporting on another recent attack—one involving no actual bomb at all, but rather a chimpanzee that had seriously injured a woman in the U.S. the previous week:

The founder of a primate rescue sanctuary says she warned a Connecticut woman years ago that her chimpanzee was a “ticking time bomb.”

To be fair, in the second instance AP was quoting April Truitt, who runs a primate rescue centre, rather than choosing to use the term itself. Nevertheless, by citing the quote in an article’s headline (Sanctuary had warned that chimp was ‘ticking time bomb’) and never challenging it, the news agency perpetuated the misuse of the term.

A time bomb is designed to detonate at a specific moment. Yet, when the term is used metaphorically to describe situations, animals or people (and it seems everything is fair game, from sick workforces to school violence, from a prisoner release to hiring illegal aliens), it invariably ignores that detail of the definition.

That is to say, while the chimpanzee may have already posed a grave danger, its attack was certainly not pre-set to take place on February 16, 2009.

robust

Some buzzwords catch on because they deliberately vague and therefore can be used without any consequence. It’s the art of saying something and saying nothing at the same time.

One such term that seems increasingly frequent wherever empty promises are being made is “robust.” It is a non-specific word by definition. If a person is robust, for example, he/she is generally strong, healthy and full of vigour, but not in any measurable sense.

On Friday, February 13, 2009, Canwest News Service reported an anecdote in Canada-U.S. relations that showed how easy it is to use the impressive-sounding “robust” to sidestep skepticism. Specifically, the story told how Robert Gibbs, the White House’s press secretary:

… was put in the position of trying to talk up the importance of Obama’s visit to Ottawa after an American reporter suggested that first meetings between the leaders of Canada and the U.S. have “traditionally been little more than a celebration of continental solidarity.”

Gibbs insisted Harper and Obama would have a “robust” agenda.

“I think international security will come up. I think you’ll hear a discussion on energy, as the president talked about when meeting with regional reporters earlier in the week. I think the agenda, which we’ll have more on, will be robust and include any number of topics, ranging from economic security to international security.”

Not only does “robust” not mean “multifaceted,” but it is also used here without having to back it up with any firm commitments.

Whether or not the U.S. president discusses the listed topics with Stephen Harper during their upcoming visit, Gibbs’ earlier response to the reporter will handily avoid scrutiny. Indeed, no matter what transpires between the leaders, White House staff can afterwards claim it was “robust”—because no one else can prove it wasn’t.

gridlock

Some buzzwords are simply cases of exaggeration. ‘Gridlock,’ for example, is being widely used today to describe situation that aren’t really up to snuff.

Strictly speaking, gridlock is a scenario involving a grid-based transportation network—e.g. a system of roads—whereby blocked intersections prevent vehicles from moving. It thus describes a locked grid where movement becomes nearly impossible.

This specific meaning is being watered down, however, by increasingly frequent uses of the term to describe heavy traffic in general.

While covering on a recent transit strike in Ottawa, The Globe And Mail reported:

“Frustrated commuters, who've hitch-hiked, walked through repeated blizzards or been stuck in traffic gridlock, have been hoping for weeks for an end to the dispute.”

A lack of bus service, however, does not cause gridlock, as this article seems to suggest. Rather, bad drivers who enter intersections before they have space to exit them are the cause of gridlock, when it occurs. And generally, true gridlock is mitigated in Canadian cities by the enforcement of laws against such behaviour.

In downtown Toronto, for instance, many intersections are painted with large ‘X’ patterns to dissuade drivers from idling in them. It’s not a perfect remedy for gridlock, but it certainly helps prevent it even when traffic in general becomes heavier.

It’s really a question of context. A recent letter to The Toronto Star referred to a public transportation meeting and suggested:

“Faster, cleaner, more convenient service extending throughout the Greater Toronto Area will reduce the appalling bumper-to-bumper rush hour gridlock and cut air pollution dramatically.”

Not only does the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) generally avoid actual gridlock, but it also would not necessarily see any existing gridlock—or other traffic problems, really—reduced by improved transit service. Indeed, many cities around the world with the strongest provision of rapid transit service also suffer some of the worst road traffic. One does not prevent the other.

intelligent

Two major news providers, Thomson and Reuters, merged in 2008 to create a dual-listed company that offers financial market data, health-care information, legal research, tax and accounting updates, scientific information and general-interest news. Thomson Reuters summarizes all of these services as “intelligent information for businesses and professionals.”

One should certainly hope all information is inherently “intelligent.” After all, intelligence entails the collection of information in a general sense to create intellect, reasoning, wisdom and understanding. It does not discriminate between different types of information.

Yet, “intelligent” is often trotted out as a buzzword these days, as though to suggest greater abilities for whatever it describes.

In the information technology (IT) field, for example, Apple filed a patent application in 2007 for what it calls “intelligent universal rechargeable batteries for battery charging system for mobile and accessory devices.” The batteries don’t contain any information; they can just be swapped more easily than previous models.

In the security field, companies like Genex Technologies sell “intelligent surveillance” products and services—the idea being that the effectiveness of video cameras can be improved by using software to control them and to detect certain types of activity. While this may help human staff decide where to focus attention, however, it is no more intelligent than, say, word processing software.

‘Intelligent’ refers simply to information, but in a so-called information age, it may well become a redundant adjective—or perhaps it is time to become much, much pickier when judging what or who is truly intelligent.

pansification

There are many cases where buzzwords play even more haphazardly with grammar than with meaning. Nouns and adjectives are often twisted into verbs (e.g. “to architect” and “to green”).

One such case that has been receiving plenty of media attention in Canada lately is “pansification,” a noun based on a verb improperly based on another noun. It had become popular with commentators on CBC’s Hockey Night in Canada, a weekly broadcast of National Hockey League (NHL) games.

As The Globe And Mail reported on January 31, 2009, “the network came under fire from the Ottawa-based gay advocacy group Egale Canada. It protested the term, which was used by Hockey Night personalities to describe how the NHL game would be softened by changes designed to prohibit fighting.”

In other words, the derogatory slang definition of “pansy” had led to “pansify” and, finally, “pansification.” Its use on CBC was understandably perceived by some viewers as a slur against homosexuals, just as “pansy” had in general slang in previous decades.

Reportedly invented by Mike Nilbury, one of Hockey Night’s commentators, “pansification” could easily have been substituted with “softening,” as suggested by the Globe’s explanation, which would have prevented offence both socially and grammatically. If CBC’s self-imposed ban is effective, though, the term could be mercifully short-lived, the rare instance of a dressed-up buzzword being quickly and efficiently dressed down.

Generation X

In 1965, the interview-based book Generation X by Jane Deverson and Charles Hamblett profiled U.K. teenagers of its time, who had been born soon after the so-called ‘baby boom’ that followed the Second World War. The book was sufficiently influential that singer Billy Idol named a punk rock band after it in 1976.

In 1991, however, Canadian author Douglas Coupland’s fictional book Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture featured characters who, like Coupland himself, were born in the 1960s, a decade later than Deverson and Hamblett's subjects. This book popularized the term ‘Generation X’—among others, like ‘McJob’—for North American readers.

As though these two books weren’t already incongruous in their definitions of a demographic group, subsequent references to Generation X moved it forward farther still.

The Canadian Oxford Dictionary, for example, cites everyone born “roughly from the early 60s to mid-70s,” even though the latter would not have been adults stuck in dead-end McJobs by the late 1980s, as in Coupland’s novel. CBC’s definition, meanwhile, encompassed “the early 1960s to late 1970s.”

As the term kept being extended, it lost all meaning. It could have been adopted as an intentionally vague reference to the unknown, rather like ‘x-factor,’ but instead it has continued constantly to denote specific age ranges.

On February 4, 2009, for example, an article in The Desert Sun referred to pastors “focusing their efforts on Generation X,” but turned out to be about “junior and senior high school students ages 13 to 18” … that is, born approximately 40 years later than Deverson and Hamblett’s Generation X!

perfect storm

Like ‘brave new world’ before it, the phrase ‘perfect storm’ became popular after it was the title of a book. Specifically, The Perfect Storm was a 1997 non-fiction bestseller by Sebastian Junger about the effects of a severe storm at sea in 1991. The title referred to the collective impact of numerous concurrent weather events—an impact that could be considered greater than the sum of its parts.

Three years later came an expensive and popular movie adaptation, ensuring the titular phrase’s place in pop culture. It soon became a cliché, however, as it was overused to describe any manner of situations where a variety of painful factors might coincide.

These days, for example, a perfect storm can apparently entail anything from a period of transition between Microsoft operating systems (OSs), according to ZDNet; through economic uncertainty for non-profit organizations, according to The Toronto Star; to—more literally, perhaps, but no more threatening—a forecast of colder-than-usual temperatures and two feet of snow in Morris County, N.J., according to the Daily Record.

The 1991 Nor’Easter that Junger wrote about was not unique in its strength, but it was most certainly of a noteworthy magnitude. By contrast, these ‘perfect storms’ that show up every day in newspapers are just that: everyday events, no more rare or noteworthy than any imperfect storm.

enterprise

Another catch-all term that appears frequently in information technology (IT) articles and press releases is ‘enterprise.’ It’s used in the sense that considers a business as a collective organization, but it also conveniently hints at its other meanings, suggesting the readiness to undertake any bold, challenging activity.

That might be fine, harmless optimism as far as it goes, but now this buzzword often appears to be used as though it were inherently a measure of quality. For example, in eWeek, Andrew Garcia writes about “Enterprise-Grade Wireless LAN” technology, which suggests it performs at a certain level.

Meanwhile, a headline in PC World claims ‘Netbooks Aren’t Enterprise-Worthy,’ yet the first paragraph of the corresponding story argues, “they might be okay for small businesses.” The implication, then, is that large businesses are enterprises, but small ones are not. This is nonsense.

In the truest spirit of the word, an enterprise may well only consist of a handful of people working toward a common business goal. And their needs may be paltry compared to the promised benefits—and high prices—of so-called enterprise-grade products and services.

viral

Information technology (IT) has become fertile ground for buzzwords, particularly as new terms are needed to describe various aspects of computing. Perhaps due to the sheer speed of this trend, there are often linguistic inconsistencies within this one sector.

Almost everyone is aware, for example, of the dangers posed by computer viruses, whereby hidden programming code can corrupt systems or erase important data. Yet, just as computer users take preventive measures against viruses, many of them also revel today in so-called viral content.

For as an adjective, ‘viral’ has come to describe not the traits of computer viruses that are unknowingly spread from system to system, but instead any content that catches on within social networks and is quite happily shared among computer users.

The aim of viral marketing, for example, is to increase awareness of a corporate brand by providing content that captures the attention of users who will then choose to let other users know about it.

Viral videos can originate with no predetermined plan at all to perpetuate them, yet quickly become popular as they are shared via the Internet.  Users wanting to be entertained will actively seek out these clips.

Indeed, such content is not treated like computer viruses at all. It may be time for the users to remember than when something is truly ‘viral,’ it’s a threat, not a treat.

requiem

The entertainment industry often establishes and perpetuates buzzwords by using them in titles of movies, TV shows, songs and video games. They may sound catchy, but are rarely used correctly.

For example, a 1999 personal computer (PC) game, Requiem: Avenging Angel, allowed players to join a futuristic holy battle between Heaven and Hell as the angel Malachi. At no point, however, did the game resemble the meaning of ‘requiem,’ i.e. a service, musical piece or book memorializing the dead.

Lately, this misuse seems to have caught on. In December 2007, the violent science-fiction thriller Aliens Vs. Predator: Requiem opened in movie theatres, depicting a variety of nasty creatures killing the residents of a small town in Colorado, but notably never pausing to commemorate their victims.

In February 2009, an episode of the superhero TV series Smallville, titled ‘Requiem,’ will pit several protagonists against a bomber whose explosion kills a corporation’s board members. It’s probably fair to predict this story, too, will spend more time on pursuit and battle than on memorials for one-off bit characters.

While ‘requiem’ is certainly not a buzzword in common parlance, Hollywood seems attracted to its air of gravitas and poignancy, as though it could class up any old caper. It really can’t.

leverage

Not all buzzwords represent misuse of the language. Some instead represent correct but needlessly showy overuse.

One example that seems to bother many writers and editors is the verb ‘to leverage.’ Its use has become common so quickly, it runs the risk of frequently being written and spoken by those who do not know what it means.

While this differs from blatant misuse, it’s not much more legitimate. The catchy nature of ‘leverage’ is moving it—much like ‘hybrid’—from specific to general connotations. While the verb’s meaning entails bringing any object into a position of advantage (analogous to the use of an actual lever), in North America it has tended in the past to serve primarily as a business terma, referring to financial speculation about the profit potential of borrowed capital.

Its use in other contexts can become simply ludicrous. Nelson Lin, president and CEO of Robocoder, a software developer in Richmond, B.C., promises his company’s technology will “allow companies the opportunity to leverage its perfected source code to maintain their mission critical enterprise software applications.” An upcoming American Hotel & Lodging Association (AH&LA) online seminar is titled ‘Leveraging Green to Become Stronger and More Cost-Efficient.’ And Education Week suggests one way to improve children’s education is to “leverage parents.”

While none of these uses is wrong per se, all are examples of a buzzword being used for its fancy sound, rather than its basic meaning.