They are the plague of offices up and down the country, weaving their sucker-covered tentacles into every floor of every building in Britain. At times, they creep up behind you, taking you by surprise because you think that you’re safe, they won’t get you.

But sooner or later, we all succumb. We fall victim to one of the world’s biggest curses; the pest, the blight, the bane of your existence: Office Lingo.

We’re all guilty, every last one of us. No one is safe. Sooner or later, the dreaded words will escape your lips while on a phone to a client, “We should definitely touch base offline this week if poss, maybe grab some F2F?”

Curses.

You only said it because earlier in the week someone else had, and they sounded cool. A PR office, I’m sure like many other industries, is an environment where each of us is constantly learning, evolving our skills, perfecting our trade. Sayings, tones of voice, contacts; they all get picked up in the wonderful world of 9 to 5 and help contribute to the bustling chaos of a successful business.

Unfortunately, success comes at a price for your personal sanity. You blurt out phrases that outside the office have “alternative” meanings. “Cascading” could be sexual or indeed, related to the swimming pool trade. “Granularity” definitely concerns sugar, rather than detail. And “action” in its verb state should be banned. Even Word tries to turn it into auction for you, in a last dying attempt to stop you sounding like an idiot.

I like to encourage a certain air of relaxedness in the office when communicating, having an Irish accent and pronouncing many words differently has a habit of introducing a varied and flamboyant dialogue at times. “It is or it isn’t” is a favourite and “how does that make you feel” regularly crops up.

You only have to tune into The Apprentice on BBC1 on a Wednesday night to hear out loud what you actually sound like and how you come across…