If you study language or pay attention on Spaceship Earth at Epcot, you learn the ancient Phoenicians spread written language throughout the Mediterranean area as sailors and traders. English was spread largely through colonization, and back then the only way to get across the seas was ship.

Today, we have tons of languages with a secret origin in sailing. If the Captain died, they flew a blue flag and painted a blue band around the hull. Now if someone’s down, we say they’re feeling blue. Making money “hand over fist?” That’s how you pull rope to raise a sail. Leeway, pipe down, cut and run, under the weather, three sheets to the wind – all sailing terms.

We spoke about the impact of your internal language during Monday’s Celebrations & Spotlights, and it’s time I talked about a disturbing trend in business language. Business vernacular seems to be getting increasingly aggressive, and a lot of the world needs a little time-out from the fiery rhetoric. Here’s what it sounds like:

In the cutthroat business world, it’s like everyone’s gunning for a promotion, ready to take a stab at any task that comes their way. You can’t just drop the ball when you’re under the gun; you have to hit the ground running and nail it. If you don’t, you’ll find yourself with your back against the wall, taking a hit to your reputation. And heaven forbid you should be the one to fire off an email that drops a bombshell or pushes back on a proposal, because you’ll be in the crosshairs, with everyone ready to take a shot at you. It’s a battlefield out there, where you have to hold the fort and sometimes bite the bullet to cut your losses. Hitting the target and getting up to speed could feel like a skirmish. Let’s stop hammering out the details and cut the violent lingo before someone gets seriously hurt – or worse, misses a deadline…

Some of those are so engrained, we no longer see the violence associated. (There are 22 in there.) As with sailing terms, it’s only a matter of time until the origin is lost. Thought is built on language, so we are embedding this into our thinking. In light of the past week, year, decade… we don’t need to remind you of the violence in society. Let us instead remind you that you can be a respite from it for others. The Cola Wars never made anyone change which brand of soda they prefer. They may as well have been arguing on Facebook.

If violence isn’t effective, what about positivity? We mostly market via Random Acts of Kindness. You may have noticed many brands embracing body positivity in the marketing, almost always taking market share from their competitors who insist their clothes look best on models. It’s easy to make clothes look good on the model, the model did the hard work there.

To be fair, kindness and positivity wouldn’t work if everyone was doing it. All trucks are great, but we’re easy to spell. Buy Ford. To be the light in the darkness, we do need that contrast.  Not to worry, there’s a lot of dark out there right now for you to shine through!

It’s easy to say, “avoid talking about politics.” While true, this is more about really thinking about how you communicate and trying to be a breath of fresh air for others. It’s subtle, but people will notice. When they do, they’ll want to spend more time communicating with you. And given that people wanting to talk to us drives our revenue, it’s worth your consideration.

PS- The philosopher in me loves weird language tidbits. Let me know if you want more! (jason@mooreessentials.com)