'Thinking outside the box' voted Britain's 'Most Despised Business Jargon'

London, Nov 28 : "Thinking outside the box" is Britain's most despised business jargon, reveals a new poll.

According to a survey by YouGov, nearly half of the Britons (49 per cent) believe that the use of such terms is on the increase as employees seek to impress their bosses.

Twenty per cent of people still believe that "buffling" - as the pollsters call it - has had or would have a positive impact on their career, the study found.

According to the survey, 46 per cent of working respondents admitted that they buffle in their own home and among their friends.

"It's bad enough when people at work talk about 'blue-sky thinking' and 'singing from the same hymn sheet', but now we're starting to use these cliched phrases at home," the Telegraph quoted Zory Radnay-Florian, a spokesman for Ramada Encore hotels, which commissioned the survey of 2,035 adults, as saying.

"Buffling outside of the office could be due in part to the explosion in business reality TV shows, such as Dragons Den, The Apprentice and more recently, Natural Born Sellers, where buffling is commonplace and often positively encouraged among those fighting it out for fame and the best job," the rep added.

The top 20 "buffling" business terms:

1 Thinking outside of the box

2 Touch base

3 At the end of the day

4 Going forward

5 All of it

6 Blue sky thinking

7 Out of the box

8 Credit crunch

9 Heads up

10 Singing from the same hymn sheet

11 Pro-active

12 Downsizing

13 Ducks in a row

14 Brainstorming

15 Thought shower

16 360º thinking

17 Flag it up

18 Pushing the envelope

19 At this moment in time

20 In the loop

ANI