The View | Marginal improvements make a business stronger, without the need to shout about it

I recently received a piece of corporate bumf brimming with dreaded words such as “striving for excellence” and “thinking out of the box”. It was making its way into the garbage when, with the sort of reluctant fascination that descends in reading a Donald Trump tweet, I read on.

The author or authors of this verbal diarrhoea were manifesting a pattern of behaviour that is somewhat adorable in small children but is tiresome among grown ups.

Children try to secure attention by claiming to have done something that in their minds is quite extraordinary. When that fails they may resort to shouting or jumping around, but the really clever child knows all about flattery and coyness to gain adult attention.

This piece of corporate bumf contained all these childlike elements. It included claims of exceptionality that were described as being “very unique” – as the actual meaning of unique is one of a kind, this presumably meant what exactly? Anyway, it was a big claim matched only by its nonsensicality.

Then there was the shouty use of capital letters and underlining; presumably designed to bang home certain points but ending up as a typological mess.

And, like the attention-deprived child, the authors of this document were not averse to trying a bit of flattery, suggesting that the reader was smart and shared their lofty ambitions.