DOLE QUEUE DICTIONARY

Everyday you can read about the mounting figures of the unemployment. This used to be called "getting the sack", "getting the bullet" or in Scotland getting "your jottters", but we live in more sophisticated times so they sugar coat it with terms like "being surplus to requirements" or some such business-speak. We think that Nokia must take the prize though. "Is your firm experiencing a "synergy-related headcount restructuring"? This, probably the most ghastly euphemism yet encountered for mass sacking, has been invented by Nokia. Indeed, so proud of it are they that they repeat it, or different versions of it, nine times in a comparatively short announcement." (Times, 22 November) RD