In an unprecedented move, a consortium of Business Analysts recently joined together and agreed on the exact meaning of a newly invented word.

"It was just a matter of time," Business Analyst Merton Brown enthused. "Until recently we've all been bursting at the seams with new ideas, new concepts - basically new versions of reality, that the English language has been simply incapable of expressing. All this time, doctors and scientists have had Latin, and philosophers have had Greek - whereas Business Analysts have been really hard done by."

Often derided for talking utter crap and simply making things up as they go along, and for somehow earning megabucks in the process, having convinced their employers that they are essential to the success of any project (even the ones that are obviously going to fail), Business Analysts do of course like to hit back on occassion, demonstrating that they actually have a pretty high opinion of themselves.

"You must have seen it time and again," Merton continued, "in hastilly erected company websites, corporate mission statements, analysis reports etc., we have struggled to express what is really on our mind. We have simply had to make do with such contrivances as saying 'Methodology' instead of 'Method', or using existing words in their wrong context. Let me give you an example: 'Our new system leverages content magma to reduce autonomy overburn-centricity.' Now, quite simply there is no way in the English language to explain that sentence's real meaning. Of course most people won't understand it, but then they're obviously not Business Analysts. In fact, even bona fide Business Analysts may have a hard crack understanding that, as it's all too easy to misinterpret borrowed words."

When challenged as to whether the job of a Business Analyst was surely to communicate their analyses clearly and succinctly to the rest of us "lay people", he smiled kindly and responded: "That's exactly where lexical overburn taxes our understanding, hence the need for furtherment of requirements tracing."

Sensing that this did not quite lay the matter to rest, he added: "No one else in the Human Race thinks like a Business Analyst, and finally we are gaining recognition for our ground-breaking evolution into a higher life form that is simply beyond what mere mortals can possibly comprehend. Oh and by the way, that new word is: lexigarf. It's an amazing word. It means, quite simply, everything and its dog. And it has variations, of course: lexigarical, lexigarfed, and its closely related sibling lexibarf. Lexibarf means 'similar to lexigarf but slightly juxtaposed'."

Thank goodness for Business Analysts!

Industry Feedback:

Lana Newbury, Business Analyst, LargeCo Inc, NJ:
"What I want to know is, why wasn't I involved? If all these BA's clubbed together to agree on the meaning of this new word, I for one would have quite liked to have been consulted. In fact I'm sure I've used the word lexigarf before. It means 'small white pigeon', the sort that hovers menacingly above you in the street. And I should know, I used to be one in a previous life."

Shaggy, Unemployed Business Role-Playing Actor, Reading, UK:
"Well, my biggest ambition in life is to open up my own sandwich shop. I'll certainly be selling lexigarfs, if someone will show me how to pluck them."

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