Tired of the same bland business "buzzwords" you've heard more times than you care to remember? Despite your hopes, some of these "buzzwords" will never go away, nor will the execs and coworkers who overuse them at every opportunity.

However, once you view them with a shadowed twist of tongue-in-cheek humor...maybe you'll wish to hear these words and phrases more often! Ms Onyx redefines these bland, boring terms, giving you instant amusement the next time you hear your boss, employees or coworkers utter such overstated terminology as "action item," "market analysis," "pushing the envelope," "tip of the iceberg"...or any other host of "buzzwords" and catch-phrases mentioned below:

Accountability – Literal “figurehead”; of or pertaining to being “good with numbers”; able to add, subtract, multiply, calculate complex fractions and formulas; usually a quack that has a bill and looks like a duck.

Across the board – How a cat plays games. This usually involves a cat stretching out and laying “across the board.” Note: It is impossible to play a cat and win if there are pawns on that board. The cat cheats every time!

Action item – When two actors from action-adventure films “hook up,” they become an “action item.”

Anecdotal evidence – A hickey on the neck that is easily seen, as it wasn’t hidden well.

Apples to oranges – Cheap magic “trick” that most magicians have abandoned in favor of a trick involving shackles, chains and a chamber of water. After all…apples, oranges…a fruit is a fruit!

At the end of the day – 11:59pm. Also known as quitting time for the salaried worker.

Audit trail – An abacus used as a compass in the woods.

Bandwidth – Measure of how “phat” music group is.

Bear market – Place where disappearing plush, shaggy, stuffed animals congregate; also known as a meat market for carebears, polar bears, black bears and other shaggy mammals.

Bells and whistles – Southern women in hoopskirts and dresses walking past a construction site.

Benchmarking – Term for a dog peeing on a bench/seat, thereby noting or “marking” it as his “turf.”

Big picture – Larger than life-sized portrait in which every scar, zit, mole and imperfection is magnified ten-fold. Picture lighting is also usually fluorescent, creating an unflattering glow and casting ominous, dark shadows.

Blamestorming – Atmospheric conditions occurring after boss’s golf outing is cancelled, overdue projects arise, meetings run late and someone takes the last blueberry muffin the boss was about to grab.

Bottom line – Butt crack, often visible near the sink. Also, sometimes seen near office cabinets where the most often-used items are on the lowest shelves, requiring one to bend over to search the cabinet.

Brainstorming – Condition occurring right before work 4 out of 5 days of the workweek, wherein one attempts to formulate plausible reasoning to take an unscheduled day off.

Budgetary constraints – Codename for the handcuffs, chains & shackles you found in “Terry” the finance guy’s office.

Bull market – Shops selling “crap” merchandise at pricing that is so outrageous, it is complete and utter crap…as in bull(crap). 

Business plan – Tool that a CEO or company president professes to be working on in order to “look busy,” even though no work is actually being done.

Buy-in – Bi-sexual nearby or in the neighborhood. Proceed with caution and keep your eyes open for opportunity.

Career-minded – Can’t stop thinking about that California girl’s posterior.

Cash cow – Bovine version of a piggy bank.

Caveat emptor – Can we get a refill on the caviar? Ours is all gone.

Circle the wagons – Game played much like “musical chairs,” only it’s the last person in the middle or “slowest of the herd” that the boss chooses to gang up on and/or berate for the next two hours.

Core competency – IQ measurement of the center or core of an apple or fruit; also known as a test determining whether or not a fruity, sweet or tart individual is capable to stand trial.

Cross-training – Comes in handy when a task gone wrong equates to you hypothetically crucifying yourself.

Crunch time – The period in which the milk hasn’t yet made your cereal soggy.

Dead in the water – Your first goldfish, 10 minutes after you put it in the tank. And it was dead in the water again when your parents gave it a watery grave (in the toilet).

Deadline – Chalk outline around the dead guy you inherited your corner office from.

Deliverables – Babies. Pizza. Newspapers. Babies wrapped in newspapers trying to make a pizza.

Downsizing – Shrinkage!

Drilling down – Dental work that usually involves some amount of pain.

Dynamics – The awesome fireworks display you see every Independence Day.

Empowering/Empowerment – Term used to “fool you” into thinking you’ve just been handed an increased level of responsibility due to confidence in your abilities. However, this usually equates to you being assigned some pathetic task your boss couldn’t be bothered to do himself/herself.

Facilitate – Extensive and extreme surgical manipulation and contortion of one’s head/face to such lengths that even one’s own mother would have no recognition of the person or plastic-doll-like entity.

Flexible hours – Work 18 hours per day…get paid for 4 hours per day.

Formal training – Education on how to properly wear and conduct oneself when in a tuxedo or evening gown.

Get my arms around it – To squeeze; hug; choke the life from something.

Get onboard – Action a surfer takes upon seeing strong waves nearby.

Go the extra mile – The boss is “getting busy” in his/her office. Take your time on the project, circle the building a few times and don’t go in without knocking on the door first.

Goal-oriented – Relocation of a soccer or hockey team to Asia.

Going forward – Motion typically involving some amount of tripping over curbs and stumbling through roadblocks.

Grassroots – Boss’s hair color in the late 1960’s.

Heavy workload – Mass or weight burdening one’s vehicle upon returning from a lunch outing involving a large meal with coworkers and/or clients. One often thinks a sign should be placed on the vehicle stating, “oversized load.”

Hit the ground running – Action taken after one is booted from someone’s 2^nd story window, with the police on one’s tail.

Hot Seat, The – Condition in which one’s buttocks are figuratively burning, due to someone thinking of him/her while sitting on a toilet, attempting to produce a BM.

Hurdle – The annoying boss and/or coworkers you need to “jump over” that are standing between you and the donuts, exit door, lunchtime or promotion.

In the pipeline – Slang for being backed up or plugged up, such a condition negatively affecting one’s performance and demeanor. Often considered a valid excuse for a day off. An enema if often the suggested solution.

Information Superhighway – Front desk operator/administrative professional.

Leverage – Blackmail specifics or details gained upon inadvertently witnessing the CEO in a compromised position or with compromised sensibilities that would prove highly embarrassing or detrimental to his/her position if discovered by others.

Looking forward – When it’s the only direction you can go in because you cannot look backwards for fear of all the errors and miscalculations you’ll see.

Market analysis – Male slang for “she has a nice ass and I wanna mark it like it’s my territory.”

Mentoring – “Ring” or circle of toothpaste that develops on one’s sink if not rinsed properly.

Merging – The act of two consenting adults becoming one in a physical or spiritual level, deciding it is mutually beneficial for them to join the whole of their parts.

Methodology – Scientific study of dolls addicted to a certain type of drug.

Mission critical – Codename “Impossible.” The unreasonable expectations management has.

Mission statement – What the CEO claims so no one thinks he/she is kinky or perverse.

Multi-tasking – Being nagged repetitively about the assignments one is given; being asked again and again for progress reports on those duties.

Nature of the beast – Excuse for out of control behavior, claiming it is natural or normal for one to behave in such a way…and that it is unseemly to insist on changing the animal-like habits or manners.

Nomenclature – Garden gnomes in clay soil or pottery.

On the same page – Dyslexic or unable to read. Staring blankly without seeing.

Open door policy – Forgot to zip up after a trip to the restroom.

Organizational chart – Used by high-level executives as a makeshift abacus designed to make them look busy while they shift you around various departments like a hot potato.

Out of pocket – Slang phrase for a male exposing himself, especially if an accidental incident involving a male going “commando,” wearing shorts with a rather large hole in the pocket or fabric.

Out of the loop – Released from a mental institution, fully “cured” or mentally healthy; no longer “loopy.”

Outsourcing – Activity performed by one who has left the “closet” and is obviously searching, seeking or shopping for a partner.

Paradigms – Twenty cents. Another five cents, and you’ll have a quarter.

Performance measurement – Lengths achieved and level of satisfaction analyzed upon “merging.”

Platform – Surface at Olympic heights, from which, one sometimes wishes the boss would jump.

Proactive – Term for a current professional sportsperson that performs in his/her sport with regularity.

Problem-solving skills – Knowledge and ability generally requiring a mask and a nylon-lycra leotard sporting some meaningless initials, as well as a matching cape and tights.

Process management – Professional waste/cesspool monitoring and handling.

Professional environment – Golfing green; “members only” clubs; upscale bars/clubs with fruity, colorful drinks that cost over $10 each and are garnished with floating mini-umbrellas.

Pushing the envelope – Cheap office game invented before there were computers.

Putting out fires – Slang referring to what a woman must do the day after a bad case of PMS had her blow smoke at everyone she came in contact with while PMS-ing.

Ramp it up – Laymen’s slang for a type of treatment required to fix erectile dysfunction upon loss of a male’s “mojo.”

Raw data – Sushi shaped like a Star Trek droid.

Regroup – Activity performed at an orgy or swingers’ party. Switching. Swapping. Changing partners.

Regulatory trouble – Inability to produce & maintain routine BM’s.

Reinvent the wheel – Returning to caveman days, scrawling on cave walls and talking in codes of ooga, booga, hrrumphhhh, oooooooaf and gaaaahh, while one’s competition advances centuries ahead of them!

Responsible head – One who takes the credit when all is well, and seeks a scapegoat when all is not.

Results-driven – Waking up, not knowing where one is or how one got there…desperately trying to piece together – in reverse – the fragments of one’s memory after that last sip of wine at the company victory celebration.

Retooling – Type of surgery once performed on John Wayne Bobbitt.

Risk management – Deciding whether to leave the supply room door open or closed during that lunchtime rendezvous with the boss, supply clerk or sub delivery guy.

Roll call – To phone in the order for donuts for that next meeting you’re planning.

Run it up the flagpole – Slang phrase expressing a command for an upward stroking or caressing motion on one’s awoken member.

Seeing eye to eye – Caught peering/peeping into someone’s office, while that “someone” stares back into the guilty depths of one’s irises.

Skill set – Rarely used invisible tool kit that sits in a drawer next to the overpriced pen set given to one by one’s employees or boss. This invisible kit is usually oddly missing when one finds an urgent need for it.

Soup to nuts – The stereotypical alpha-male speaks…everything always comes back to his nuts!

Spinning our wheels – Proper use of testosterone when in a sports car, especially one that is new or is a rental. Also, excellent method of showing off for the hottie that just pulled up next to you as the light turns green.

Stand-alone – One who forgot to shower, use deodorant or cologne/perfume is often said to be “stand-alone”/solo. Conversely, one who’s used too much cologne or perfume is also generally “stand-alone”/solo.

Staying the course – Instructing the waiter not to take your plate away yet.

Strategic planning – Plotting and mapping maneuvers to successfully get through a particularly rough work day without ever running into any of one’s superiors, thus avoiding ugly confrontations for inferior or unsatisfactory work or project progress.

Stream-lining – Bathroom coordination and agility exercises.

Synergies – Sinning in the exercise room at work.

Take it offline – Go “commando” style; showing no visible panty lines.

Team player – Frolics well with others; excels in groups, most notably group therapy.

Teamwork – Misspelled word that spell check didn’t catch. Should’ve been “meatwork”…as in, what the butcher did to that slab of roast beef you put into a sandwich.

Think outside the box – Term referring to thought processes of a non-sexual orientation. Rarely occurs in a man unless he has just been kicked in the balls or is speaking to his own mother.

Tip of the iceberg – Term for a bra-less 38DD in chilly weather.

Touch base – Foreplay. Physical contact that may – if performed in the right sequence – eventually result in “scoring.”

Transitioning – Transsexual changing. (Example: “Dan” is changing clothes to become “Danielle” for the evening.)

Turn-key – Often served for Thanksgiving dinner, usually referred to as turkey. However, some entrepreneurs prefer this variation on the term as it contains less calories, more undiscovered opportunity and no tryptophan.

Underlying issues – Magazine volumes you tried to use as “cover” when you were caught laying on your desk having sex in your office at work.

Value-added – Increased funding; obtained more unsuspecting investors.

Variety of experience – Knowing a little about a lot of things; doing a lot with little knowledge. Master of nothing, but grunt of all things. Versatile. Flexible. Good “hire” when budget is tight; can pay this one person, to do the job of 3 or 4 persons.

Verbiage – Roughage. Eating one’s own words, particularly action words known as “verbs.” The act of swallowing letters and words that one regretted uttering the moment they were said.

Vision – Sudden epiphany had after inhaling too many cleaning fumes.

Whole other type of animal – Different species; one that is usually higher up on the food chain and could eat you alive if not careful.

Win-win situation – Boss has a lap and dollar bills (your "paycheck" in hand). You know how to dance. Dance, monkey, dance!

Within scope – “Close-talker.” Talking so close that one can tell whether or not someone has used breath freshener or mouthwash…or needs to!

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