I think ‘deliverables’ gets a pass. There’s no other word that signifies, things that need to be delivered, which can include anything from digital assets, documentation, software, hardware, a flower, a puppy dog, literally anything that needs to be delivered during the course of a project. Now excuse me, I’m off to upskill some of my learnings.
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Some of those words have actual meanings. Like a deliverable… it’s hardly a bullshit term. Quick win isn’t really either it describes a short easy task that has payback far greater than the effort needed to acheive it.
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Wouldn’t it be better to ask “what must we deliver?” instead of saying “what are our deliverables?”.
Nouning verbs is lazy composition. Well, OK, there are exceptions.
I’d rather hear someone say “we will use easily understood language” than “we will utilize the currently dominant linguistic conceptual/thematic paradigms”.
PS: Totally agree about Dawkins. He’s actually a rather good theologian, which is very rare for an outspoken atheist.
I agree. There may be merit in office jargon either as a way of quickly conveying ideas or quickly conveying you are in a particular setting/group. But conversational English has the same features.
Reminds me of Community when Shirley says, “That’s nice…”.
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I am working with someone who keeps using “binary”, and even though he has a degree in math I don’t think he understands what it means 
Note that ‘deliverables’ is a single word that describes ‘things that need to be produced’. It’s short and quick and covers an easily grokked idea.
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You call it lazy composition. I call it standard English evolution.
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I see the easy noun<->verb transformation as a big asset of English, that gives it an advantage over other languages that lack such mechanism.
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Value-add=much hate and disgust.
I’m with most of the examples, but am a bit confused over “deliverables.” For one, it’s been a term of art in transportation and (IIRC) law for a long time, and was stolen for office use. If we were to ditch it as a general term for “those things which we will turn over to discharge our obligations,” what would we use? Or should we just enumerate them all?
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While working for the County in California, we were trying to ‘once again’ get our program to conform to the Federal guidelines where everyone in the State had to be on the same page and tied to the same software…in essence to avoid duplication. The buzzword at the time was “Statewideness” …Why this rather than just ‘conformity’? Companies love jargon. it’s why the military used to say ‘nukular’ instead of ‘nuclear’ …which infers you’re on the same page as everyone else I guess.
Sounds like you have a pretty savvy kid, there.
I see no conflict between our two statements; to me they represent a pleasingly harmonious set.
Then again, I work in high tech - in my tribe laziness is considered an asset that leads to efficiency.
@lumbercartel: give me an actual example of a useful sentence and I’ll show you how it can be constructed without using “deliverables”.
I respect the ability to communicate clearly, since I don’t have much of that myself. The best speakers and authors I’ve known are using words to convey ideas from their heads into the heads of others, and the use of jargon can easily interfere with that.
So if nouning verbs did happen in other languages, can i say they now have a literary feature called Evolutionables?
i’ll see my way out
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The jargon can be both helpful (when both sides know the words and use them as convenient shorthands for more difficult/ambiguous alternatives in “plain language”) and unhelpful (when the sides don’t share the words).
I like when I talk in my native language with people who can speak English as I can switch back and forth and use constructs from both languages, whichever fits the need better at a given moment. Saves a lot of time and effort, and, as a free bonus, comically irks language purists.
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Yeah, I use medieval language a fair bit with people who know it.
Certes, an’ twere no cleft to my hoove! A neat turn for one yclept as me. 
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How about the term ‘deliverables’ on meeting minutes 
In a sentence you could normally reconstruct the sentence around it, but it, like most jargon, represents an multi-word idea that is easily described in one word.
Excellent point - I rarely see a good use of “deliverables” in a sentence, but it’s a useful heading. For a spreadsheet column, a syllabus subtopic, a contract paragraph… wherever there’s no surrounding context desired or required. “Goals” is shorter and more useful but not as precise.
Hmm… a lot of the examples of “soul-crushing office-speak” may have started life as excel column headings or powerpoint slides, now that I think of it…
“Deliverables” is technically nouning an adjective. But, after all, English. Kind of like my grandmother’s “unmentionables” going in with the “hot-water washables.” It’s been a language feature for time out of living mind.
Not that there aren’t examples that should draw the death sentence, mind.
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I kinda doubt that, since I’ve been using it since the 70s.
My recollection (for what it’s worth) is that it started out as distinguishing between work product that was retained and that which was … delivered. Obviously necessary when you’re dealing with an external customer, and too tempting to not steal when dealing with an internal one. Back when I was doing some of the early software-engineering methodologies it was already well established as a way to tag those things that you were not only supposed to do but also turn over. Like module specifications, which some people do because they’re methodical despite the fact that their employer doesn’t bother with them vs. code which even foolish employers demand. And then you go to another employer where the specs are … deliverable.
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