What really bugs me in management-speak is putting sets of possibly-rhyming-or-if-that-fails-alliterating words together in a sequence which is supposed to define some process or other as if they mean somthing different from the original meaning.

I was introduced to this via a sequence about group working which included forming, storming, conforming, reforming and another one, probably not in that order, and spent my time not doing any of those things but wondering why it was essential to include the break up of a successful team in the sequence. I wanted to inform the manager that I would deform him if he tried it on. And I cannot remember the lesson, because it was stripped of meaning.

I recently, in my tours round churches, found one which was in the throes of forming a united parish with another. There was a leaflet about this, telling the parishioners that the process of change was like that of bereavement, with recognisable stages - ending in acceptance, of course, done in such a managerese sequence, which left no room for a process of telling anyone how you felt about it if it didn't fit the word-string. Ugh.

Penny