Wordism
Created | Updated Jan 28, 2002
This is a method of making things seem more important than they actually are. Created by middle-management types in a quest to make their own jobs sound important, it has spread like a virulent disease throughout most of the "civilised" world.
Basic Technique
Take an existing simple name.
Have a brainstorming session with a group of other middle managers in which you try to come up with as many words that can be associated with your target (however tenuously) as possible. Words which are longer/more pompous have priority.
String a number of these words together to provide a more ostentatious title for something that was doing quite nicely with the name it had to start with.
Example
A good example of this can be found on the University of Nottingham's new Jubilee Campus, where the process worked as follows.
Existing name: "Library". Clearly far to simple and obvious a name for a new high tech facility to use.
Words such as "Learning", "Facility", "Technology", "Books", "Resource", "Building", "People", "Knowledge" were brainstormed. 1
The building, which foolish students still refer to as the rather passé "Library" is named the "Learning Resource Centre". It is still a big building with books in it.
So you can see that, through Wordism, the humble library is given a new lease of life. Now it is appreciated much more through the simple altering of it's name, which took a team of six people eight weeks to come up with. That's progress for you.
