When language has a financial meltdown

Touch base? Core competency? Scalable? Such financial jargon must be stopped before we all turn into rockstars, writes John Daly. The person who uses such terminology was likely putting on ‘Gangnam Style’ at the office Christmas party.

Are you fully up to speed on what it means to shift a paradigm, leverage a best practice, or join a tiger team? If not, welcome to the club where the majority of us find ourselves increasingly confused by utterances from the financial community.

Money is the common language of the world, yet very few of us grasp its grammar and syntax. John Lanchester, in his latest book How To Speak Money, sets out to lift the veil shrouding the world of everyday economics, and, in particular, the industry jargon that seems to proliferate with every passing year. As the author of Capital and Whoops! Why Everyone Owes Everyone And No One Can Pay, Lanchester knows his topic, and effectively decodes the daily nonsense of economic-speak with clarity and humour.