年度“金廢話獎”創出新高度

Every January for the past decade I have handed out awards for horrible use of language in business. Usually the task amuses me. This year I have found the sheer weight of euphemism, grammatical infelicity, disingenuity and downright ugliness so lowering I have decided to start the 2016 Golden Flannel Awards with something more uplifting: a prize for clarity.

十年來，每年年初我都會從上一年企業界驚現的胡說八道中評選出箇中翹楚。我常常樂此不疲。今年我發現那些委婉語、擰巴話、不知所謂的表達還有赤裸裸的噁心話在水準上普遍很不給力，所以我決定2016年度“金廢話獎”(Golden Flannel Awards)要從一個比較來勁的獎項——大白話獎——講起。

I am calling this the Wan Long prize, after the Chinese meat magnate who once uttered the clearest sentence ever spoken by a CEO: “What I do is kill pigs and sell meat.” Mr Wan will surely approve of my winner, a BNSF railway executive who told a conference: “We move stuff from one place to another.”

我叫它“萬隆獎”，該獎得名於一位中國肉業大亨，人家身爲CEO卻無比坦誠地宣稱：“我就是個殺豬賣肉的。”萬隆先生一定會同意我把這個獎頒給北伯林頓鐵路公司(BNSF)的一位高管，這位仁兄在一次會議上說：“我們把東西從一個地方運到另一個地方。”

This elegant, informative and borderline beautiful sentence is a reminder that despite the horrific nature of the entries below, clarity remains attainable.

這句簡練、言之有物、幾乎可稱之爲妙語的話提醒我們，即便接下來的獎項都相當雷人，還是有人能夠做到直白的。

I used to think guff was a product of failure and mediocrity — it existed because the truth was too painful, or because executives had not bothered to ascertain what the truth was.

我原以爲胡扯是失敗與庸俗的產物——它的存在是因爲真相往往太傷人，或者高管們懶得弄明原委。

Indeed, last year produced the usual crop of new euphemisms for firing people. Infosys announced an “orderly ramp-down of about 3,000 persons”. Upworthy, a small media company, had the nerve to call sacking 14 people an “investment lay-off”. Otherwise, 2016 proved that the most egregious jargon is a sign not of failure, but of overexcitement.

實際上，去年新出爐的炒魷魚委婉用語(euphemisms for firing people)跟往年的產量差不多。Infosys宣稱“井然有序地實現了一次3000人的人員遞減”。Upworthy，一家規模不大的媒體公司，在解僱了14名員工後竟然大言不慚地稱這是一次“投資性裁員”。反言之，2016年最極品的行話體現出的不是失敗，而是興奮過頭。

People promoting driverless cars, the most hyped industry segment of the moment, became world leaders in verbiage. Elon Musk claimed to be “laser-focused on achieving full self-driving capability on one integrated platform with an order of magnitude greater safety than the average manually driven car” (ie Tesla cars must stop crashing).

無人駕駛汽車是當下炒作得最火的行業，這類汽車的倡導者已成爲冗詞贅語的世界級領軍人物。埃隆?馬斯克(Elon Musk)自稱“要在一個安全係數超出人工駕駛數量級倍數的一體化平臺上專注於全自動駕駛的實現”。（就是說特斯拉肯定能防止車禍的發生）。

Better still was Iain Roberts, global managing director of the design company Ideo, who asked a question to which I hope never to hear the answer: “How to activate insights around latent mobility or multimodal needs?”

更強的是設計公司Ideo的全球董事總經理伊恩?羅伯茨(Iain Roberts)，他問了一個我一點都不感興趣的問題：“怎樣激發人們去洞察潛在機動性或多模式需求？”

But the runaway winner was Ford CEO Mark Fields, who began the year with the depressing news that his company was “transitioning from an auto company to an auto company and a mobility company”. He then went on to declare: “Heritage is history with a future.” He was so chuffed with this, he said it more than once. On hearing it repeated, I’ve concluded it is less gnomic than downright moronic. Mr Fields is thus my new Chief Obfuscation Champion.

而最終取得壓倒性勝利的是福特公司(Ford)的CEO馬克?菲爾茨(Mark Fields)，去年年初他曾令人沮喪地宣佈他的公司正“從一家汽車公司向一家汽車公司兼出行公司轉型”。他緊接着聲稱：“遺產是蘊藏着前景的歷史。”他超愛這句話，說了不止一次。這句話被他翻來覆去地說，讓我覺得它不像格言反倒更像廢話。因此本年度新晉“首席蒙人冠軍”(Chief Obfuscation Champion)非菲爾茨先生莫屬。

The PR industry excelled itself with increasingly fancy descriptions for the basic activities of emailing, talking and meeting. Entrants included: “I want to jump on your radar” (a bad idea, as if you jump on radars they break) and “let’s find a time to connect to mutually update”. My favourite came from a PR man named Michael who wrote: “I hope you don’t mind the outreach.” Alas, I do mind. To reach out has always been hateful, but making it a noun, and reversing the word order, does not help. Michael, you’ve won the Communications cup.

公關行業勝在連基本的發郵件、說話和開會都能玩出無窮的花樣。入圍作品有：“我想跳上你的雷達”（別，你要跳上來雷達就完了）還有“我們找時間聯繫，相互更新一下情況”。我最喜歡的是這個，一位名叫邁克爾的這樣寫道：“希望你別介意這次廣推(outreach)。”哎嗎，我很介意。主動湊上去(reach out)已經夠讓人膩歪的了，就算你把它當名詞使，還顛倒了詞序，也並沒啥用好嗎。邁克爾，“溝通杯”(Communications cup)歸你了。

Take the intriguing reintroduction of “unfeigned regards” — last big in the 18th century and now found on emails from Indian help centres. But the winning sign-off, at the bottom of a message sent one Friday, was: “weekend well”. I nearly awarded it second prize for the best noun pretending to be a verb, though at the last minute this award was snatched by a consultant overheard saying: “Can we cold towel that?”

有趣的是，“真誠的問候”(unfeigned regards)又重回我們的視野——人們現在可以在印度服務中心的郵件上見到這一18世紀末的流行語。而更勝一籌的是這個簽名，一個週五我收到了一則消息，末尾處寫到：“週末好”(weekend well)。我差點將最佳名詞使動用法獎也頒給它，不料最後一刻卻殺出一匹黑馬，一位顧問無意中說了句：“我們能把那件事冷毛巾一下嗎？”(Can we cold towel that?)

While he wins the Nerb prize, the sister prize, for the best verb masquerading as a noun, is won by another consultant who referred to a “global touch-base”.

他贏得了名動詞獎，而其姐妹獎，最佳動詞名詞化獎，則由另一位顧問憑藉這句“全球聯絡”(global touch-base)摘得。

Siemens broke records last year by winning two awards for renaming its healthcare business Healthineers. Not only does it land the Martin Lukes prize for the worst combination of two words, the accompanying video, featuring a singing CEO and writhing spandex-clad employees, wins a gold medal for most embarrassing company song of all time.

西門子(Siemens)去年破紀錄了，通過將醫療部更名爲Healthineers一舉斬獲兩項大獎。該公司不僅因爲將兩個單詞生拼硬造出另一個無比蹩腳的新詞從而榮獲“馬丁?盧克斯獎”(Martin Lukes prize)，同時還憑藉現場視頻中一位傾情演唱的CEO和身着氨綸緊身衣賣力獻舞的員工們，摘得史上最尷尬企業歌曲的金牌。

My favourite award every year is for a spurious renaming of a common noun. A couple of years ago, Speedo rechristened the swimming cap a “hair management system”. Last year, Falke went one better by renaming a line of socks “Life Performance Solutions”.

“常見物亂更名獎”，每年都是我的心頭好。幾年前，Speedo曾將泳帽改稱爲 “頭髮管理系統”(hair management system)。去年，Falke更絕，將一款襪子稱作“生活問題解決方案”(Life Performance Solutions)。

Falke’s fall from grace is sad, but nothing compared with eBay. The company I thought I would love forever for supplying my entire wardrobe and the contents of my house told the New York Times: “We are passionate about harnessing our platform to empower millions of people by levelling the playing field for them.”

Falke的最終失利令人扼腕，但eBay的表現確實無可匹敵。我以爲自己對eBay的愛將矢志不渝，因爲鄙人全部的穿戴和家中物件均來自這家公司，而它卻向《紐約時報》(the New York Times)表示：“我們熱切希望利用我們的平臺，通過營造公平的競爭環境來造福數百萬人。”

Bingo! In fewer than 20 words it combined five previous years’ winners, only to say nothing at all. With a heavy heart, I award eBay my overall Golden Flannel Award for 2016.

幹得漂亮！在不到20個詞的一句話裏，eBay集前五屆冠軍之長，做到了啥也沒說。懷着沉重的心情，我將2016年度金廢話獎總冠軍授予eBay。