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Welcome to Issue 94 of Clearly YOU. Every second Wednesday, I serve up ideas that help you share the clearest, realest, most unforgettable version of yourself with the world. Not a subscriber? Fix that here: https://kimscaravelli.com/newsletter/​

Word salad is one of my biggest pet peeves.

FYI: Word salad is not just "jargon" because jargon makes sense to insiders. Word salad doesn't make sense to anyone. It's word pollution.

Want examples? Because over the past few days, I feel like I've been attacked by foolishness from all sides. Without revealing names, here's a real sentence from a LinkedIn profile I reviewed this week:

🤨 What in the name of gobbledygook does this person do for a living? Seriously.

And here's a real home page headline and promotional text from a company:

🤯 Wow. Even the Google Gods couldn't find a keyword in there to connect this company to some kind of product or service.

Before I sprain an eye muscle from rolling them too hard, let’s shift gears from griping to doing something useful. Word salad is a huge NO-NO and in this issue I’m going to show you how to avoid it.

Cool Quote

“Pretentiousness is not a substitute for intelligence.”

Fran Lebowitz, writer, public speaker, and cultural critic

Word Salad: The Cause and the Cure

The cause of word salad is pretentious motivation. Allow me to explain.

When you're genuinely trying to communicate, you naturally veer towards simple words and clear descriptions. Your motivation is to help the other person understand.

But when you're trying to impress someone, your word choices change. You reach for big words and dramatic phrases. You add some fluff and filler, and voila... You serve up a giant bowl of word salad.

The irony is that this seldom impresses and never explains. Worst of all, you fail to stick in the mind of the person you want to connect with. And that's the BIGGEST problem with this silliness.

Word salad simply isn't memorable.

Because it lacks meaning - and therefore lacks relevance - the human brain discards it. And since being memorable is vital, you need to avoid creating word salad at all costs.

Good news. The solution isn't complicated. It starts by getting your motivation on the right track. Before your fingers hit the keyboard, ask yourself two simple questions:

• Who am I talking to?
• What am I trying to explain to them?

This reminds your brain that your goal is to communicate, not impress. It's a small, subtle adjustment to your mindset that makes a huge difference in your word choices.

And after you've got your message in place, read it aloud, preferably while looking at your face. Because YOU, my friend, will recognize when you're ‘blowing smoke up your arse' as my sweet grandma would say.

Extra tip:

When writing, focus on strong verbs and meaningful nouns. These are the meaty goodness of every functional sentence. Use adjectives sparingly and unless your audience is a group of insiders, axe anything that smells like jargon.

Let's look at my examples again. This time, I've highlighted the adjectives, extra words, and jargon in red.

• A strategic, visionary leader with more than two decades of experience driving operational excellence and fostering high-performance cultures.

If this person tossed all the nonsense, they'd be left with "A leader with more than two decades of experience _______". Better already! Now all they need to do is fill in the ending with a clear, simple explanation of what they do.

• Push forward with our leading-edge tools combined with razor-sharp strategy. We have the knowledge and the industry skills to get you where you want to be.

This one cannot be salvaged. I mean... can you push backwards? 😂 Just saying.

Stuff Worth Sharing

Want a good laugh? Check out this comedy video titled "Corporate Speak". It's worth 2 minutes, I promise.

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For the Word Nerds

Today's word is bafflegab.

Bafflegab is the official term for language that sounds impressive but communicates absolutely nothing. It was coined in the 1950s to describe the puffed-up, bureaucratic nonsense that clogs government memos and corporate meetings.

Think of it as the linguistic equivalent of waving your hands around to distract from the fact that you have no idea what you’re talking about.

Example:
​“We’re leveraging cross-functional synergies to optimize our innovation ecosystem.”​
Translation: Nobody knows. Not even the person who said it.

Bafflegab is what happens when clarity packs its bags and moves out.

Bonus phrase: Sesquipedalian loquaciousness

This delightfully overstuffed phrase is the most pretentious way to say “using way too many big words.” And my goal this week is to figure out how to slip it into a Zoom call - just to be impressive. 😂

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Enjoying Clearly YOU? Share it with a friend! ​ Want to learn more about Making Words Work? Good news. I wrote the book on that. Check it out. ​ 🩷 And thanks for reading. I genuinely appreciate your attention.