What do you think?
Rate this book
Talk Normal: Stop the Business Speak, Jargon and Waffle
Most large companies have entire departments devoted to communications, but company mission statements and press releases are becoming harder to understand. With the humorous and sometimes poignant style of foolishness that plagues the world of "The Office" and the comic strip "Dilbert," Talk Normal addresses the ineffectiveness of corporate jargon and business communication. Tim Phillips covers everything from the advent of the nine-syllable word "operationalizational" to indecipherable press releases, to the fluff people put in their resumes.
Despite being based on the author's experience in a British environment, readers from any culture can easily draw parallels to their own workplace. Phillips discusses universal problems such as the inability to make a point, evasiveness and talking a lot of hot air.
In the same entertaining, satirical manner as his increasingly popular blog of the same name, Phillips takes a candid look at how ineffective business language has become. Full of excruciating examples of how not to write or speak, Talk Normal helps readers improve their communication at work while navigating the nightmare of management-speak.
View Tim Phillip's blog!
Despite being based on the author's experience in a British environment, readers from any culture can easily draw parallels to their own workplace. Phillips discusses universal problems such as the inability to make a point, evasiveness and talking a lot of hot air.
In the same entertaining, satirical manner as his increasingly popular blog of the same name, Phillips takes a candid look at how ineffective business language has become. Full of excruciating examples of how not to write or speak, Talk Normal helps readers improve their communication at work while navigating the nightmare of management-speak.
View Tim Phillip's blog!
- GenresNonfiction
192 pages, Paperback
First published October 28, 2011
2 people are currently reading
25 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
January 25, 2023
Tim Phillips, a journalist with a love for George Orwell and a low tolerance for B.S. (those two things go together), has read a lot of corporate press releases and endured a lot of meetings. In this book he fights back, with a mix of humor and good advice.
He gives many examples of "business speak," the peculiar communication style satirized in Dilbert (which he does not cite) and Office Space (which he does). If you're the kind of person who gets perverse pleasure from clicking on The Corporate B.S. Generator to yield stunning gems of clarity such as:
then you'll probably like this book. And if you're the kind of person who puts stuff like that in a PowerPoint slide with a straight face, then for the sake of all that's holy read this book. If nothing else, you'll understand why your audience members keep shouting "Bingo!"
Speaking of buzzwords, they are a main focus of the book. Phillips cites a pair of manifestoes: The Gobbledygook Manifesto by David Meerman Scott, and A manifesto for the simple scribe – my 25 commandments for journalists by Tim Radford. Reading those will give you an idea of where Phillips goes with this book.
As a more substantive source he cites Essential English for Journalists, Editors and Writers. Presumably most people who might read a book like Talk Normal will also have read traditional books on grammar, usage, and style. If so, then you're golden. If not, then you might not find enough in this book to correct whatever writing flaws you may have, and that you may not even be aware of, in a Rumsfeldian way (and for everyone it's different)...unless your flaw is a fondness for buzzwords.
Somewhat oddly, Phillips almost seems to disparage the study of grammar. He points out that good grammar isn't sufficient for clarity, which is true, but it's arguably close to being necessary. What native English speaker with poor grammar writes clearly? I can't recall seeing one. While mastering grammar won't make you the next Orwell, it's not a step any aspiring Orwell skips.
Phillips himself enjoyed a practical grammar apprenticeship from a shouty sub-editor named Harold. So whether or not Phillips can explain dangling modifiers without looking them up on Wikipedia, I'm guessing he recognizes a problem when he sees one. And I didn't notice that he used any in the book.
Not everyone who writes gets critiqued by their own version of Harold, and that's a big part of why Phillips clenches his teeth while reading all those press releases. Corporations (and academia) churn out reams of writing mostly without the filter of skilled human editors. Perhaps someday Artificial Intelligence will produce artificial Harolds and edit us all into Orwells, but for now most of us are on our own.
Phillips takes a shot at Richard Dawkins' tongue-in-cheek advice to have a trained actor read your writing out loud so you can hear how it sounds to your readers. Phillips points out that few of us are privileged enough to have a trained actor for a spouse. But he was privileged to have his Harold (although Harold doesn't sound nearly as pleasant to be around as Lalla Ward). Many if not most people who struggle to put words on paper or screen have neither a Harold nor a Lalla. We have to get our help from books.
Phillips' writing philosophy is very much in line with the principles of plain language. Strangely, however, he doesn't reference the plain language movement as such. I wouldn't quite say Phillips is re-inventing the wheel, but I'm surprised he either hadn't heard of the movement or thought it worth mentioning. For that I recommend:
* Clear Technical Writing
* Oxford Guide to Plain English
* Writing in Plain English
* Plain English at Work: A Guide to Business Writing and Speaking
He gives many examples of "business speak," the peculiar communication style satirized in Dilbert (which he does not cite) and Office Space (which he does). If you're the kind of person who gets perverse pleasure from clicking on The Corporate B.S. Generator to yield stunning gems of clarity such as:
seamlessly negotiate high-payoff relationships
distinctively aggregate cloud-centric leadership skills
holistically evisculate team building strategic theme areas
collaboratively benchmark business human capital
then you'll probably like this book. And if you're the kind of person who puts stuff like that in a PowerPoint slide with a straight face, then for the sake of all that's holy read this book. If nothing else, you'll understand why your audience members keep shouting "Bingo!"
Speaking of buzzwords, they are a main focus of the book. Phillips cites a pair of manifestoes: The Gobbledygook Manifesto by David Meerman Scott, and A manifesto for the simple scribe – my 25 commandments for journalists by Tim Radford. Reading those will give you an idea of where Phillips goes with this book.
As a more substantive source he cites Essential English for Journalists, Editors and Writers. Presumably most people who might read a book like Talk Normal will also have read traditional books on grammar, usage, and style. If so, then you're golden. If not, then you might not find enough in this book to correct whatever writing flaws you may have, and that you may not even be aware of, in a Rumsfeldian way (and for everyone it's different)...unless your flaw is a fondness for buzzwords.
Somewhat oddly, Phillips almost seems to disparage the study of grammar. He points out that good grammar isn't sufficient for clarity, which is true, but it's arguably close to being necessary. What native English speaker with poor grammar writes clearly? I can't recall seeing one. While mastering grammar won't make you the next Orwell, it's not a step any aspiring Orwell skips.
Phillips himself enjoyed a practical grammar apprenticeship from a shouty sub-editor named Harold. So whether or not Phillips can explain dangling modifiers without looking them up on Wikipedia, I'm guessing he recognizes a problem when he sees one. And I didn't notice that he used any in the book.
Not everyone who writes gets critiqued by their own version of Harold, and that's a big part of why Phillips clenches his teeth while reading all those press releases. Corporations (and academia) churn out reams of writing mostly without the filter of skilled human editors. Perhaps someday Artificial Intelligence will produce artificial Harolds and edit us all into Orwells, but for now most of us are on our own.
Phillips takes a shot at Richard Dawkins' tongue-in-cheek advice to have a trained actor read your writing out loud so you can hear how it sounds to your readers. Phillips points out that few of us are privileged enough to have a trained actor for a spouse. But he was privileged to have his Harold (although Harold doesn't sound nearly as pleasant to be around as Lalla Ward). Many if not most people who struggle to put words on paper or screen have neither a Harold nor a Lalla. We have to get our help from books.
Phillips' writing philosophy is very much in line with the principles of plain language. Strangely, however, he doesn't reference the plain language movement as such. I wouldn't quite say Phillips is re-inventing the wheel, but I'm surprised he either hadn't heard of the movement or thought it worth mentioning. For that I recommend:
* Clear Technical Writing
* Oxford Guide to Plain English
* Writing in Plain English
* Plain English at Work: A Guide to Business Writing and Speaking
January 20, 2016
It's fun to read all about bad business writing and how it drives the author crazy, but more constructive advice would have been, well...more constructive.
April 9, 2025
I think we all need this! Such a fun read that will help you become a better writer.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews