Don’t feed the ‘alpha pup’

Can’t follow what the younger members of your staff are talking about? Here’s a quick sampling of business buzzwords:

• Alpha pup: A market research definition of the “coolest kid in the neighborhood,” or a junior early-adopter. As in “If the alpha pups buy it, we’ll sell millions.”
  
  
• Chips and salsa: Computers. Chips = hardware, salsa = software.
  
  
• Defenestrate: A 17th-century word, back in vogue, that means to chuck somebody or something out the window. As in “Let’s defenestrate this sales plan.”
  
  
• Future-proof: To create a product that won’t turn obsolete next week.
  
  
• Reverbiagize: To re-word something with the hope of getting it past the people who didn’t like it the first time. As in “It’s the same idea; we just reverbiagized it.” (A naïve but occasionally effective method.)
  
  
• Tszuj: (pronounced zhoozh) To tweak, finesse or improve.
  

Keep track of new office jargon by visiting www.wordspy.com.

— Adapted from “Update Your Buzzwords,” Kate Lorenz, Across the Board.