Marian Saltzman, Voyager

Marian Saltzman, Voyager

In the graveyard of inventions that never quite worked, there is a small, strange section devoted to language. For every buzzword that fl ies, according to Marian Salzman, a million sink like a stone. She should know. Salzman, an advertising-executive-turned-PR who popularised the term metrosexual, laughs at the words she thought would take off and which sound completely absurd. In the 1990s, when women reached the boardroom in increasing numbers, she had high hopes for She E O. She valiantly drops the term Chindia to describe the rise of Chinese and Indian interests, as if it’s currency. And, as the conservative grass-roots Tea Party movement in the US gains traction, she hopes the left will come up with something groovy to mobilise young activists in response, something like Java Patrol. Salzman looks sheepish. There is nothing so tragic as a buzzword that no-one’s picked up.

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