Office English / Clear communication

What words and phrases confuse you at work?

The language that I find unclear at work tends to be the language that you would use in your everyday life to maybe appear polite. However, I am the type of person who does use these types of words and this language in my everyday.

I guess every industry has lots of jargon, and certain things mean different things to different parts of the same industry, and it's not always clear what is actually being talked about.

Today we're talking about how to ask questions and clarify things at work.

Hello and welcome to Office English from BBC Learning English. We're back to talk about the language you need in the workplace. I'm Pippa.

And I'm Phil. Read along with this podcast using the transcript at bbclearningenglish.com.

So Phil, we heard from our BBC Learning English colleagues at the start of the programme about the kind of language they find unclear. Neil finds jargon unclear, and Becca says polite language can be unclear, although she still uses it a lot at work.

So, Pippa, what words and phrases or ways of speaking do you find unclear at work?

Well, I think similar to Becca, some polite phrases can be confusing. For example, saying things like perhaps and maybe. I think these can be useful when you're discussing things, but then I think you need somebody to make a decision and be clear with their language at the end of the discussion. Otherwise you never know which 'perhaps' which 'maybe' we should be doing.

Yes, definitely. I think Neil said something interesting about jargon as well, because if you're suddenly working with people you don't normally work with, and maybe they have different jargon and different acronyms, and everyone else understands what's going on and you don't, it can that can be, that can be very difficult because it can be hard to say 'sorry, can you explain that?'