Nobody decides to start talking like a press release. It creeps in. One day you are writing "let's circle back to align on the synergies" and you do not even hear it anymore. Here is how the habit forms, what it costs, and how to undo it without overcorrecting into stiff, robotic English.
Why we reach for jargon
It is rarely about sounding smart. It is usually one of three things:
- Cover. Vague words are harder to be wrong about. "We will move the needle on engagement" commits you to nothing. "Signups will rise 10 percent" can be checked.
- Belonging. The words are a uniform. Saying leverage and north star signals you are fluent in the tribe, even when "use" and "goal" would do.
- Habit. You absorb the phrases from every meeting and every thread until they feel like your own voice. They are not. They are the room's voice.
What it actually costs
Jargon feels efficient and reads as the opposite. It makes the reader do the decoding, it hides whether you actually have a point, and it quietly erodes trust, because everyone can feel when a sentence is dodging. "Per my last email" does not read as professional. It reads as annoyed, with a timestamp. The clearer you write, the more capable you sound, which is the reverse of what most people assume.
The three-step method
You do not need to purge every phrase. You need a quick filter you can run on anything before you hit send.
1. Catch it
Learn to hear the buzzword as you type it. The tells: a word that could be swapped for a shorter one ("utilize," "leverage"), a metaphor doing no work ("boil the ocean," "ducks in a row"), or a phrase that softens bad news ("rightsizing," "reduction in force"). If you cannot picture the literal thing, it is probably jargon.
2. Name what you mean
Ask the honest question: what am I actually trying to say? "Let's take this offline" usually means "let's discuss this in a smaller group." Say that. The plain version is almost always shorter and almost always kinder.
3. Swap it
Replace the phrase with the plain one. If the sentence still carries the meaning (it will), you are done. Read it once more out loud. If it sounds like something you would say to a friend who happens to work with you, ship it.
A swap cheat sheet
The most common offenders and what to say instead:
| Instead of | Say |
|---|---|
| Circle back | follow up |
| Leverage | use |
| Move the needle | make a difference |
| Synergy | working together |
| Boil the ocean | do too much at once |
| Reach out | contact, ask |
| Going forward | from now on |
| Learnings | lessons |
| Per my last email | as I mentioned |
| Do the needful | handle it, please |
Want the full list? The Buzzkill library has all 635, each with its plain-English swap.
When jargon is actually fine
Real terms of art are not jargon. "EBITDA" in a finance review or "p95 latency" in an engineering channel are precise, and the plain version would be longer and worse. The test is the audience: if every reader knows the exact term and it saves words, keep it. Jargon is the version that costs clarity, not the version that buys precision.
Make it automatic
The hard part is catching yourself in the moment, when you are mid-sentence and the buzzword feels natural. That is exactly what Buzzkill does: it highlights jargon as you type in Gmail and LinkedIn, shows the plain-English swap on hover, and gives you a gentle Corporate Rank so you can see how the email reads before anyone else does. It runs entirely in your browser, so nothing you write is ever sent anywhere. You can try the on-page version first with no install.