George Orwell wrote that "political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging, and sheer cloudy vagueness."
For the "1984" author, euphemism was a method by which powerful people cloaked violent acts. The more vaguely you described something violent, the less awful the violence sounds.
That trend has carried over to corporate America and Silicon Valley, where CEOs and HR departments invent all sorts of creative language to cloak the fact that people are getting fired.
One example: When the CEO of Fab announced it would fire 100 people in its Berlin office last year, he called the layoffs an "opportunity to start your new job search immediately" in an internal memo.
As the New York Times has reported, there are at least 48 examples of euphemisms for getting fired.
Here's the list:
- Asked to Resign
- Axed
- Canned
- Career Assessment and Re-employment
- Career Transition
- Chemistry Change
- Coerced Transition
- Decruited
- Degrowing
- Dehiring
- Deployment
- Deselected
- Destaffing
- Discharged
- Dismissal
- Displacement
- Downsizing
- Excessed
- Executive Culling
- Force Reduction
- Fumigation
- Indefinite Idling
- Involuntary Separation
- Job Separation
- Let Go
- Negotiated Departure
- Outplacement
- Personnel Surplus Reduction
- Position Elimination
- Premature Retirement
- Redeployment
- Redirected
- Redundancy elimination
- Release
- Reorganization
- Replaced
- Requested Departure
- RIF - Reduction in Force: "I was Riffed"
- Right-sizing
- Sacked
- Selected Out
- Selectively Separated
- Skill Mix Adjustment
- Termination
- Transitioned
- Vocational Relocation
- Workforce Adjustment
- Workforce Imbalance Correction
Got any more? Tell us in the comments.