The language you use at work can inspire, inform, persuade and instill trust – or make you sound utterly clueless.

Which side of the communication fence do you stand on?

The truth is, all of us are occasionally undisciplined in our word choices. But if you’re habitually using any of the following words or phrases, you could be making yourself sound less intelligent than you are, and even undermining your career success:

Profanity.

You know that colleague who just received a promotion for incessant cursing? No, you don’t – because that person doesn’t exist. Vulgar language does more than dumb you down; it also offends others. Just don’t do it.

Um…Whatever!

Words like “whatever,” “like,” and “totally” were cool for about five minutes in the 1980s. Like the mullet, they have not come back in style – nor do they make you sound intelligent.

Overuse of Jargon

Appropriately using industry terminology is one thing; littering your vocabulary with meaningless business jargon is another. Eliminate these cringeworthy phrases from your lexis – and instantly boost your perceived IQ:

• Deep dive
• Maximizing ROI
• Drill down
• Value added
• Close the loop
• Secret sauce

“Can’t” and “Don’t”

While you can’t eliminate these words from your vocabulary (see what we did there?), you should minimize their use, especially when describing your commitments to others. Besides being negative, these words subtly imply inability or unwillingness to do something.

For example, instead of telling someone, “I can’t get that report to you until next Tuesday,” say, “I will have that report to you by next Tuesday.” The messages are subtly different, and the latter makes you sound more responsible, confident and capable.

Texting Acronyms

OMG save them for your smartphone.

Verbal Redundancies

When you piggyback two words with overlapping meanings, it indicates that you don’t really understand their meaning. Here are a few examples you should drop from your vocabulary:

• Close proximity
• Estimated at about
• Past experience
• Very unique
• Whether or not

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