BE 423: Did You Quit or Resign? English Euphamisms in the Workplace
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This is the Business English Podcast, episode 423. Did you quit or resign? English euphemisms in the workplace. ♪

Welcome to the Business English podcast from All Ears English. Get the English skills you need to achieve your dreams in global business. For a presentation, a meeting, or your office party, this is Real Business English with your favorite American hosts, Lindsay and Michelle, coming to you from New York City and Colorado, USA. Welcome to the Business English podcast from All Ears English.

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Open your search bar now and find All Ears English. Hit follow and start speaking the kind of English that opens doors. Listen to the All Ears English podcast five days a week with me, Aubrey, Lindsay, and Michelle. Hey, Lindsay, how are you? Hey, Michelle, I'm doing great. What's going on in your world today? Everything is good here. Everything is great.

Lindsay, though, I know the answer to this question, but I'm gonna ask this anyway, sorry. Have you ever been let go from a job? - Actually, yes. I think I've told this story on the show before, but I was let go from a school I was teaching at in Midtown Manhattan back in right around the recession, like almost that same month the recession hit, September of 2008 is when I was let go. - Yeah.

- That's hard, but again, we know that that was the event that basically got you on the path to business ownership. - That's right, that's right. So usually we can find a good thing out of a bad thing, right? Maybe it takes a few years, but we often do.

So Michelle, today, what are we talking about? This is going to be an interesting one today. This is going to be fun. So we've done a similar episode on All Ears English, but today we're going to be talking about business ones. So this is, we're going to talk about euphemisms in the business world. Yeah.

So, Lindsay, what is a euphemism? Let's get started with that. Yeah, this is really interesting. It's a softer way of saying something. For example, we might say pass away. He passed away instead of he died. Right? That die is just a very blunt, harsh word. And so most of the time we do say passed away instead as a euphemism.

So we can avoid the harshness of the word. Yeah. I think that, you know, when the furthest, the further you get away from someone, you might use the word die more, right? You wouldn't say like,

you're like, sorry, your grandpa died, you know, like that might sound a little bit, I mean, you could, but again, this is just softer. But like, if you're talking about maybe a celebrity death, you could say, I can't believe, you know, Michael Jackson died. Right. You want to, I don't know that you would be saying, oh, he passed away. You know, I think it's more about like how close you are or if you're, that's my opinion, but you can use either. But Lindsay, why do you think we use euphemisms in business?

That's a really good question. So we go one. Yeah, it's a great question, Michelle. We go a little bit.

It becomes, you know, in a business context, we're building relationships. That's what we talk about on this show. And we've just said that using a euphemism instead of the direct word is important when it comes to your relationships, not about a famous person that you don't know. It doesn't matter to your life. It's more about the people in your life or the lives of your coworkers. So that's why Michelle, to build relationships, to soften the impact, to

Yes. Off of the blow. Yeah. Yep. Yep. Exactly. So we're going to go through a bunch of these today. But before we do, we want to remind you to hit follow wherever you are listening to the Business English podcast because we don't want you to miss anything from our show. Yes. I love it. Hit that follow button.

button right now, guys. So now we're going to give you a number of business euphemisms. I am excited for this, Michelle. Yes. And we're going to talk about if the meaning is completely the same or maybe there's a slight difference, but we're really going to get into it today. So this is going to be fun. So the first one is, Lindsay, I didn't

say to you, did you ever get fired from a job? What did I say? You said, have you ever been let go from a job? And if you had said, have you ever been fired? I mean, you could say that. So don't get us wrong, guys. It's not like this word is not functional. You could use it. It's just, it's the more harsh, direct way of asking. Okay. Yes, exactly. So let go is kind of

the nicer way of saying it because fired sounds very harsh. I remember when you were a kid and you, I think there was a Rugrats episode where like somebody was fired and they thought that it was like they're on fire or I don't know. But I, and I, so I think I thought that, I don't know, unless I thought that, but I saw, I don't know. That's funny. I love that. Yeah. It sounds like

like a like a very scary to a kid if they hear, oh, I've been fired. Right. Oh, yeah. I could imagine a kid would be really confused by that.

I also think let go is a little more ambiguous because let go could technically, let me see if you agree with this. It could technically mean you did something wrong and therefore you are leaving the job. And it could also mean you've been laid off. Yep. Meaning there's no more budget to pay your paycheck, right? Like it's a bit more of a vague term. Right. I would say like fired is kind of this umbrella term.

scary term and then there are different extensions like let go so that could be it could mean a lot of different things but there's also laid off um you know so there's there's a lot that it could mean um but yeah it's a little bit more ambiguous yeah and then the next one instead of saying the word lie these are scary words fire lie right

Scary, scary words. What could we say instead of that? This person lied. Yeah. You could say spin the truth, right? Yeah. So you could say,

saying we should lie we should just spin the truth a little yeah and this can be a slippery slope for sure I mean if you start to hear your co-workers saying this kind of thing make sure you're not working at the next I don't know Enron or something yeah right because I spin the truth I mean

That's like saying, oh, it's not an outright lie. It's just not exactly true. But really, a lie is a lie, you know, no matter what kind of, I mean, even like the little white lies. I mean, they're all lies. But somebody might use this as an excuse. I could see almost like in an evil, we're not going to lie.

we're just spinning the truth exactly exactly so that is a euphemism for lie um and then the next one i feel like i heard this a lot when i was a kid growing up in my town there was an insurance company that a lot of my

my friend's parents worked at. And there were moments in time throughout the time I was growing up where people ended up losing their jobs. And the word I often heard was restructuring. The company is restructuring. And I never knew what that meant. I mean, are they making, I thought, are they making a new foundation of the building? It's very

That's why this is a euphemism. It is kind of vague. So this is a euphemism for not necessarily one word, but some sort of change in a business. And that could involve layoffs. Right.

So instead of saying, "Oh, we're running, we're going to be doing layoffs," you might say, "Oh, well, we're just restructuring." Yeah. It's like it masks the blow, but in the end, people are probably going to lose their job if a company is doing restructuring because it means they're taking the organizational structure, the hierarchy, and moving people around. And some people might become redundant.

Yes, yes, yes, exactly. So we are going to be restructuring the sales department. We need to save some money so that you and we all know what that means. Right. It's kind of funny. It's funny talking about these euphemisms and or the direct words and how we felt about them when we were kids, when we didn't quite know what they meant. Yeah.

Yeah, it is funny. It is funny. Wait, I just realized I don't think we did the example for fired or let go. Oh, let's go back and do the example. So let's go back to spin the truth. Here it is. Oh, no, we did for spin the truth, but not for let go. Okay, here's let go. I'm so sorry. But based on your performance, we're going to have to let you go.

Yeah. Going to have to, and that's also a chunk going to have to let you go. Yeah. Right. We hope to not hear that. Yeah. All right. Good stuff. So.

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All right, Michelle, the next one is resign. And when I when I hear again, another euphemism, when I hear this word, it feels strange to me because I think of resign as like if you're in a position of power, like you're in like you are a politician. Oh, right. You're the president is resigning. Right, right, right. I always find this weird as a as a euphemism for quitting. But it is right. Yeah, it is. So but when you hear quit, it sounds more like I'm just like,

quit and I'm going to grab my stuff and march right out of here. Right. But it was resigned. Is that softer feel? Right. I mean, a lot of times if you if you do resign, you have to submit a resignation letter. Right. To make it more formal. Resign to me sounds more like, oh, I resigned because I found a new job. I mean, you know, quit doesn't have to be I'm marching out of the doors, but it sounds more that way to me. What do you think?

I don't know that it signals anything about having something else lined up or not having, I see it as essentially the same thing as quit. So I think it's just simply a euphemism for the more direct word, which is quit, right? So I submitted my letter of resignation last week, those kinds of, here's a sample sentence, Michelle. So if you're going to resign, we will just need a written letter signed. Good.

- Good, yeah. And companies need that in their documentation. If you do resign, you do need to resign in writing. You might do it verbally first or then later follow up in writing. Yeah, good to know. - Right. And like, for example, we don't call it a quitting letter, right? It's a resignation. That would just sound so, whoa, okay. - Too direct. Yeah, it's so interesting how, because we're social beings, right? We wanna soften things a little bit.

Michelle, which of these is your favorite? - Well, we have one more actually. - Oh, we missed one. - Yeah, we missed one. This one was on All Ears English as well, I think. So this one is between jobs.

Yeah. And what is that a euphemism for? I mean, frankly, it means I'm unemployed, right? I'm between jobs, I'm unemployed, but it is a euphemism because it's very drastic to say I'm unemployed. It conveys a sense of emergency, maybe you're financially struggling. And we don't always want to convey that even if it's true, we don't want to say it. We don't want to seem desperate or like people have to help us or something.

Right. Yeah, exactly. I mean, you could technically be in between jobs if you finished one job and you have a little break before your others before a new job starts, if you already have something lined up. But it could also just so just watch out for that. It doesn't necessarily mean someone is unemployed, but a lot of times it does. Right. Exactly. That's a really good point. They actually literally could just be between jobs in like a week or two that they decided to take off. Right. Yeah. So it

important to know. Here's an example. I'm between jobs right now. I'm kind of enjoying some time to focus on really what I really want for my future.

Nice. So it really depends on what they say next. Get the context. When someone says I'm between jobs, what do they say next? Right. Yeah. Right. Exactly. Spending all day applying for jobs, then that might be a bit more of an emergency. Or are they traveling? Are they doing some deep reflection? OK. Yeah. My favorite one, I think, is.

I think that is just a very clear euphemism, very just fancy way of putting quit. What do you think your favorite one? I think spin the truth is kind of fun. I mean, I don't condone it. Don't get me wrong, but it's kind of funny the way we work with our words. We do like gymnastics with our words sometimes. True. That's true. Yeah.

Yeah, that's what it is. Yeah. And again, you know, we talked about why these are helpful for business. These are going to help you connect with people, soften the blow. But, you know, sometimes you might be using a euphemism to hide from something, right? If you say you're spinning the truth instead of lying. So make sure that you're using it in a way. I think it's better to use it in a way to soften the blow rather than to, you know, be hiding.

Oh, I totally agree. It's all about making sure we stay in connection. This is a huge connection skill today, Michelle. Let's do a role play and show our listeners how to do it. So here we are coworkers and we're talking about changes at our company that we're not happy about. All right, here we go. Okay.

I don't know, Lindsay. I just have a feeling that this restructuring isn't going to be good for anyone. Oh, I totally agree. I mean, I just hope neither of us gets let go. Same.

Kate said that wouldn't happen, but she might be spinning the truth. Shelly said she actually just may resign because she doesn't think anything good is going to come from all this. I wish I could, but Billy is between jobs right now. So we definitely need the health insurance. Oh, of course. Yeah. Typical conversation, right? Uh,

a very common conversation for coworkers, especially in an uncertain economy, right? If the economy starts to get a little teetery, right? A little uncertain, you might hear more and more of these conversations. Okay. Exactly. Exactly. So let's go through it. I said, I don't know, but I just have a feeling that this restructuring isn't going to be good for anyone. So you imagine I'm, I'm, you imagine I'm kind of using their words, right? Maybe they're, they've said,

Oh, I'm restructuring the company. And so I'm kind of using their word and you can tell that there's some doubt.

Right. You did something with your tone of voice there to show me that you're using their words. In our role play here, we have it in quotes. The way you said that was, I just have a feeling that this restructuring, and you could even do the quotes visually, isn't going to be good for anyone. So essentially, you're kind of mocking or mimicking what they said. You're giving it a little extra animation there. Yeah. Sure. If that's what they want to call

want to call it restructuring. That's fine, but we all know. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, for sure. And that's, that is a classic hallmark of euphemisms. People will kind of change their voice to say they know they're using a euphemism and maybe they're repeating what someone else used to avoid the truth. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. This is very high level here. Um, it is Michelle. It is. Um,

Okay, so then I said, I totally agree. I mean, I just hope that neither of us gets let go. So to get let go. Instead of fired. Yep. Instead of fired. Yep. Yeah. And then I said, Kate, who I guess is our boss, said that that wouldn't happen, but she might be spinning the truth. So I'm saying she might be lying. Yeah, we're skeptical here. We are skeptical.

And then you said Shelly said she actually just may resign because she doesn't think anything good is going to come from this. So that is the euphemism for quit.

it right yep and then i said i wish i could resign but billy who you imagine is probably my husband um is between jobs right now so we need the health insurance so you imagine that he he's unemployed right now so he's looking for a job probably um so i can't leave yeah the blunt word the direct word is unemployed right he does not currently have a job but you don't necessarily want to say it that way it would have been yeah

It would have been too much. Yeah, totally. We kind of, even if we're in a tough situation, maybe it's human nature that we want to hide that at times or something, right? Right. Yeah. Interesting here. Wow. Very high level. Michelle, what's another high level episode our listeners should check out?

All right. Well, we did episode 421 just a couple days ago was let's talk shop about business English. So if you didn't check that one out yet, go ahead, head over there after this episode. Excellent. And where should we leave our listeners today with euphemisms?

Well, euphemisms are funny because sometimes you can be called out for using a euphemism, right? Like in my where I said, oh, restructuring, you know, like you can be kind of called out and people know what you're actually saying. So definitely be careful with them. But at the same time, they can be very helpful to soften the blow and connect.

Yeah. And what's funny though, if you look back at this role play, you were calling out your boss for saying restructuring, but then in the next line, I used another euphemism, right? So this is everywhere. It's very human to want to use this. We are all about human connection at work on this podcast and at All Ears English. And euphemisms are a key way to do that, to maintain the connection, but just know what you're doing, right? Know what you're doing and be aware of it, right?

Right? I love it. All right. Well, that's fun. Lindsay, I'm glad that we did this episode. And guys, have a great day. All right. Hit the follow button, guys, as you finish up the episode so you get the next episode of Business English. All right, Michelle, take care. Bye. You too. Bye. Bye.

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