Spiga Yale
ed

Mad Hatter Aug. 23/74
DOUGLAS COLLEGE LIBRARY
sidecases ARCHIVES

BAFFLEGAB THESAURUS

As any self-respecting bureaucrat knows it is bad form indeed to use a single
word wien six or seven obfuscating ones will do. But where is the phrasemaker
to turn {f he is hung up for what Horace called "words a fact and a half long"?
Simple. Just glance at tne Systematic Buzz Phrase Projector, or S.B.P.P.

Tne $.3.P.P. has aptly obscure origins but appears to come from a Royal Canadian
Airforce listing of fuzzy phrases. It was popularized in Washington by Philip
groughton, a U.S. Public Health Service official, who circulated it among civil
servants and businessinen. A sort of mini-thesaurus of baffle-gab, it consists
of three column list of thirty overused but appropriately portentous words.
Whenever a G.S. 14 or deputy assistant (or facelty or staff member, pernaps?)
eeas an opaque phrase he/she need only think of a three-digit number - any

one will do as well as the next - and select the corresponding “buzz-words"

from tne three columms. For example 257 produces “systematized logistical
projection" which has the ring of absolute authority and means absolutely

nothing.

vroughton's baffle-gab guide:

(0) A B c

(0) Integrated Management Options

(1) Total Organizational Flexibility

(2) Systematized Monitored Capability

(3) Parallel Reciprocal Mobility

(4) Functional Digital Programming

(5) Responsive Logistical Concept “
(6) Optional Transitional Time-phase

(7) Synchronized Incremental Projection Cone
(3) Compatible Third-Generation Hardware

(9) Balanced Policy Contingency

iiere's to ten months of 934 everybody:

Lilian Zimmerman
Liberal Arts Department

LZimmerman:glr

(With thanks to Bettv and Huoh Blunt. Akiskinook. laka Windermere. B.C.)