2019's Top Jargon Nonsense Word is “Reimagine”
This year, everyone is reimagining something… except bullshit.
If you Google the word reimagine, you will enter a world of pure imagination. Not the kind of imagination you want, a sort of crappy version. Academic research, cities, culture, design, education, football, funerals, HR, passwords, public policy, services, venture capital and zoo — to name but a few — every noun and verb from A to Z has been reimagined. Even the alphabet has been reimagined.
To that end, I have reimagined the listicle here, to provide readers with a handy list of obvious reasons why reimagine is a word that should make even the most unrepentant jargonist wince with awkwardness.
- Reimagined things are basically the same thing as before
The Oxford English Dictionary says reimagine means:
reinterpret (an event , work of art , etc.) imaginatively .
Okay then. So when people say “We’ve reimagined the workplace” what they mean is they have reinterpreted the workplace imaginatively.
Hmm, reinterpret the workplace eh? Really. As what? The answer is the same, but different. Like when you wear clothes, but different ones. It is almost like by saying reimagine, you have reimagined the phrase same shit, different day.
