Biz speak

PREFACE<br > America s business is business??? and business runs on words as<br > well as numbers. In Biz Speak we have assembled and defined<br > more than 2???ooo of these words. We have emphasized the new<br > and the humorous. Many words and expressions here have come<br > from listening attentively to everything anyone within earshot<br > said about work or money. We believe Biz Speak is the first to<br >define them in print. We are not sure how often you will need<br >to say \"Kaufmanized\" or \"steak and roqued???\" but we are sure<br >that knowing these humorous terms??? which are part of financing<br >and recruiting lingo??? will make whatever business you are en-<br >gaged in---even if it is the business of learning about contem-<br >porary language--more fun.<br > Competition and deregulation have created a business envi-<br >ronment in which a whole vocabulary of new products??? ser-<br >vices??? and techniques is both necessary and possible. Now me-<br >dia experts measure viewers every move with \"people meters???\"<br >retail analysts talk of a country that is \"overstored???\" human<br >resources administrators propose \"gainsharing???\" and invest-<br >ment bankers create \"CATS\" and \"CARS.\" These are all signs<br >of and responses to competition.<br > New words have also come from new technology. Some???<br >like \"interface\" and \"downtime???\" have passed into the general<br >vocabulary so completely that we tend to forget their technical<br >origins. Others??? like \"WYSWYG\" and \"ROM???\" are just be-<br >ginning to pick up new??? non-computer usages.<br > In addition to the new and the humorous??? Biz Speak also<br >contains the slang of fifteen different fields. By slang we mean<br >the words and acronyms that have developed as a form of short-<br >hand either to save time or to keep out newcomers. Advertising<br >and marketing people speak of \"CPM???\" \"PWP???\" \"Vals???\" and<br >\"backend.\" Media s colorful vocabulary includes \"dailies\" and<br >\"rough cuts???\" and the \"stripping\" that means one thing in Hol-<br >lywood and something quite different on Wall Street. Speaking<br >of Wall Street??? the world of finance??? a universe where speed<br >