When entering the corporate world there are all sorts of important things to learn.  One of the most critical is verbal communication.  Many people might assume that talking at work is the same as everywhere else in life, but that is logical and therefore not true.  In the corporate world, there is an unwritten rule that prohibits anyone from saying anything original (there are also restrictions against thinking anything original, but that exceeds the scope of this essay).  The challenge then becomes knowing how to speak at all.

     Thankfully, a whole bunch of clever some-bodies have developed a language unique to the corporate world called Analogy Phraseology, Corporate Speak, Buzzwordonics, B-Bonics, or Corporate GaGa.  This simple, straight-forward language can be learned only by contact with fluent speakers, and is normally disseminated in long, boring meetings conducted at work over the course of several years.  The best way to identify an Analogy Phraseologist is to detect whether or not this corporate language has carried over into their private conversations outside of work.  If so, they are very boring.  This automatically makes them qualified to teach you.

     When reviewing the following list, it may be the most useful to you if you write down five to ten of your favorites.  Then, when questioned at work about something, you can randomly choose one of the phrases from your list and offer it in response.  Statistics have shown that this method is ninety percent effective at least half the time!

     To help acquaint you with this new language, I am here providing the first list of the most popular Analogy Phraseologies.  This is by no means complete, but each and every phrase has been authentically obtained in meetings in the corporate world.  I hope these will help you in your career (but doubt it).  Should you happen across any further samples, you are welcome to share them with the rest of us in the comment section of this post.

• Driving home the point
• Being held out to dry
• Get our ducks in a row
• “Sit Down” and discuss it
• Run that flag up a pole
• Think outside the box
• Tail wagging the dog
• Fox in the henhouse
• Stepping on our @#$#$^$%^#@ s
• Put our foot in our mouth
• Barking up the wrong tree
• Climbing the wrong ladder
• Egg on our faces
• Got our knickers in a knot
• Make sure everyone’s in bed together
• Fold up our tent
• Pull up stakes
• Mending fences
• Eating crow
• Being taken to the cleaners
• Fishing for answers
• Rolling in dough
• Bleeding us dry
• Nickel and diming us to death
• Getting hen-pecked
• Throwing good money after bad
• Sinking like a stone
• Leaking like a sieve
• Slower than molasses in January
• We’re off in the weeds somewhere
• Can’t see the forest for the trees
• Keeping us in the dark
• Trying to drain the swamp
• Swallowing an elephant
• The whole ball of wax
• Up to our axles in alligators
• Getting cut off at the knees
• Head them off at the pass
• Swallowing this thing whole
• Turning up the heat
• Playing with fire
• Fight fire with fire
• Don’t mince our words
• Have our cake and eat it too
• Put the cart before the horse
• Dot our “I”s and cross our “T”s
• Mind our “P”s and “Q”s
• The train is leaving the station
• Cross that bridge when we get to it
• Come Hell or high water
• We’re all in the same boat
• Has the cat got your tongue?
• *^*$(%#$ or get off the pot
• Fish or cut bait
• Carry our weight
• Light off a powder keg
• ($#($#$@ hits the fan
• Dog and pony show
• Cat and mouse game
• Playing with an empty deck
• Skating on thin ice
• Gather our forces
• Up the creek without a paddle
• Up @#$@#$#@ creek
• Robbing Peter to pay Paul
• The right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing
• Blind leading the blind
• When it rains it pours
• Just another pretty face
• Can’t teach an old dog new tricks
• Like trying to nail curd jelly to the wall
• Make sure everyone’s on the same page
• Make sure everyone’s singing from the same song book
• Circle the wagons
• Charging Hell with a squirt gun
• Gone to Hell in a hand basket
• That went over like a fart in church
• Like a Chinese jigsaw puzzle
• Rubbing salt in the wound
• Make up for lost ground
• Dancing on the ceiling
• Whistling

  Dixie

• Hogging the ball
• Stealing the show
• Taking the floor
• Holding our own
• Get our heads together
• Bought the farm
• Deep sixing it
• We’ll be pushing up daisies
• Re-invent the wheel
• Plowing new ground
• Digging our own graves
• Like a bull in a

  China

  shop

• A real barn burner
• Taking candy from a baby
• Get our marching orders
• Tackle the issues
• Take a bird’s eye view
• Hold your horses
• Keep your pants on
• Don’t get your shorts in a bundle
• Bite the hand that feeds you
• Don’t get caught with our pants down
• Left out in the cold
• Like selling ice cubes to an Eskimo
• He needs a lot of hand holding
• It pushed him over the edge
• Out for blood
• Going for the jugular
• Burying the hatchet
• Making waves
• Throwing stones
• Slinging mud
• Giving it a lick and a promise
• Don’t want to tip our hand
• That’s just the tip of the iceberg
• Cut off our noses to spite our face
• Stacking the deck in our favor
• Firing a shot across their bow
• Tipping the scales
• We’ll eat their lunch
• Getting rid of the bad apples
• Mixing apples with oranges
• Not until the fat lady sings
• At the end of the day
• Finding a needle in a hay stack
• Coming in from the cold
• We’ll sleep like babies
• Keep us afloat
• Whatever trips your trigger
• Whatever floats your boat
• Whatever sinks your sub
• Does a bear @#$@#$ in the woods?
• Feel like an all day sucker
• A shot in the dark
• We’re taking some shots
• It’s like a house on fire
• Close the barn door on that one
• Close the book on it
• Plug the dam
• Dam breaks loose
• We’ll lose the whole kit and caboodle
• Farting in the wind
• #@@#$ up hill
• Lose the shirt off our back
• We all put our pants on one leg at a time
• Grasping at straws
• Head over tea pot
• Ship of a different color
• Playing second fiddle
• Left holding the bag
• Swatting flies with a sledgehammer
• A crock of @#$@%^%$
• The pot calling the kettle black
• Putting ten pounds in a five pound sack
• Too many strings attached
• Cut through all the red tape
• Pick or poison
• Pull our punches
• Hammer out the details
• Give it a Nerf toss
• Sleeping with the enemy
• Throwing the baby out with the bath water
• Burning bridges
• Where there’s smoke there’s fire
• A snake in the grass
• Watered down
• The straight skinny

• Reading

  the riot act

• Honest to gospel
• The full monty
• The whole enchilada
• A tough nut to crack
• Woke up on the wrong side of the bed
• Swinging for the bleachers
• Time to punt
• Learning the ropes
• Taking it on the chin
• Walking a tight rope
• Dancing around the main issue
• Shake the tree and see what falls out
• Brown nosing
• Stabbing in the back
• Passing the buck
• Banging our heads against the wall
• Falling off the deep end
• Feeling our oats
• Ruffle their tail feathers
• Make our mark
• Pushing the envelope
• If not it’s “Katie bar the door”