Five Holiday Gifts --DeWese

Russell reacted to my column about the tiresome abuse of business jargon by sending a great board game that I have renamed "Bull Dung Bingo." You can imagine its original name, which I can't use because this is a family column.

You will need an 81⁄2x11˝ piece of paper. Draw a square and then divide it into five rows and five columns. You now have 25 squares. Within each square write either a word or phrase that you consider jargon, a platitude or hackneyed. Russell's 25 squares contained: Synergy, Strategic Fit, Core Competencies, Best Practice, Bottom Line, Revisit, Take that Off Line, 24/7, Out of the Loop, Benchmark, Value-added, Pro-Active, Win-Win, Think Outside the Box, Fast Track, Results Driven, Empower, Knowledge Base, At the End of the Day, Touch Base, Mindset, Client Focused, Paradigm, Game Plan and Leverage.