A word nudging its way into the finals for the most pointless cliché of the year is granular.
A word nudging its way into the finals for the most pointless cliché of the year is granular. It appeals to those who adopt the languages of public policy and business management.
An article in the Daily Telegraph about the FSA (the Financial Services Authority, not the Food Standards Agency) said: ‘The regulator would like to see reporting that is sufficiently granular to allow exposures on high-risk instruments.’ As this example suggests, granular often means ‘detailed’. Sometimes it seems not to mean anything. An article in the Guardian about local news said: ‘Ofcom should look at trying it in a region like ours to see if it can work on a more granular basis.’ I suppose here ‘on a more granular basis’ means ‘in particular places’.
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