Page 152 - The New Articulate Executive_ Look, Act and Sound Like a Leader

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THE SIX MOST COMMON

LANGUAGE MISTAKES

As far as profits, if we would have kept the factory where it’s at,

there’s three things we should have done in terms of productivity
for the managers that have to run it.

part from being hopelessly unwieldy, this sentence embraces
A six of the most woefully abused language mistakes we hear not
only in business but in life itself. Four of the six betray the speaker
as someone with an incomplete education. The fi fth—a numbing
reliance on the phrase in terms of—just indicates lazy talk (and lazy
writing).
Now look at this:

As far as profi ts are concerned, if we had kept the factory where
it was, we now see three things we should have done to boost
productivity (for the managers who have to run the factory).

You can see that remedying the biggest goofs comes down to a quick
fi x. (For the managers who have to run the factory is unnecessary. I’ve

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