The Evasive Politics of PowerPoint

Ms. Picky likes to think of herself as a champion of “precise communication,” and that is precisely why one of her greatest bugaboos is that great enabler of imprecise communication and corporatespeak, PowerPoint. 

If you have ever worked for any large organization or corporation, you know that PowerPoint offers its users a magnificent opportunity: The ability to present oneself to a group of people with divergent concerns and leave each of them thinking his own concern has been addressed. 

How is this possible? Through the lack of  verbs,* as in the illustration of a mock PowerPoint presentation above, for “X Corporation.”

PowerPoint presentations name topics that “resonate” with audiences—but, because the presenter leaves it to the audience to fill in the blanks (the verbs), each person’s  “takeaways,” regarding his or her most important concerns, allow the ideas to resonate differently with each individual in the audience. Such presentations often leave everyone in the audience with a vague, warm glow and a feeling of group enthusiasm—because everyone comes away thinking the presenter has addressed his own personal concerns—when, in fact, the presenter hasn’t acknowledged where he stands on any of the issues he has addressed. How could he have, without using any verbs? 

A sentence, ipso facto, must have a verb and a subject. (Remember? “A noun is the name of a person, place, or thing.”. . . “A verb denotes action or being.”. . .)

Ordinary dialogue in PowerPoint would be impossible, because a dialogue, by its strictest definition, is a conversation between two people: One person speaks; the other responds. If one person were to speak to another without using verbs, the other would respond, “But, hey, what about your concerns about safety, the environment, and the bottom line? What’s your position on each of these items?” 

A PowerPoint presenter’s audience, on the other hand, is a captive and (except for intermittent bursts of applause) silent audience. Even if someone were to recognize the presentation as a smoke-and-mirrors show, he would never dare to violate corporate etiquette by interrupting or challenging the speaker. 

The result? PowerPoint slides, with their wonderful pictures, arrows, whorls, and bulletpoints, give the presenter an opportunity to practice evasive politics.  (. . . Hmmm . . . we’ll see how they react to what they think I said, and, then, if they like what they think I said, then I’ll say that that’s what I really said. . . . But, if they say they don’t like what they think I said, then I can still say, hey, you didn't understand: that’s not what I was saying.)

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*Often, ad-libbing between slides, a “presenter” (to use the corporatespeak word) will be forced to use a verb, but the “handouts” (the stapled hard copies of the PowerPoint presentation that are stacked up on the table at the back of the room like wedding favors) leave no written trace.

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Bulletin Board

For L.Z. (More on Back Formations): Ms. Picky regrets that you needed to visit the emergency room last week, but is grateful for your bringing to her attention yet another, even more unfortunate back formation than those mentioned in last week’s post: The adjective “emergent,” used not for a Third World economy, but for patients awaiting medical treatment in the emergency room, as in:

“All emergent cases awaiting treatment will face delays of up to two hours.”

The word “emergent,” of course, has no meaning related to  “emergency.” Emergent is another way of saying “emerging,” and means “nascent,” “new,” or “embryonic,” while “emergency” means a sudden crisis that must be treated or attended to. This particular back formation is a worse offense than those that simply create a new word, because its meaning is completely unrelated to the word from which it is being formed.

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