Oh, what a Chief Executive!

Fans of Americanisation (no zee, please note) look away now. A couple of years ago, business bosses started adding 'officer' to titles, sometimes accompanied by 'chief' to keep it company. For example, a Chief Executive became a Chief Executive Officer, or merely a 'CEO'. The boring number-cruncher became a 'Chief Financial Officer', as opposed to the more traditional Accountant or Financial Director. And we've not reached a point where even academies have CEO's (some of whom 'earn more than the Prime Minister' - the new all-purpose measure of wealth, rather like 'the size of Wales' is used for geographic area). As with Oreos (which are, after all, merely expensive proof that Americans have finally learned how to dunk biscuits), Disney Land, Coca Cola (and Pepsi), mucky Donalds (I'm seriously not loving it), the Munroe doctrine and pre-emptive self-defence (no 's'), what starts out as an anodyne impulse on the other side of the Atlantic becomes an insidious creeping 'must have' that the rest of the world accepts blindly without thinking of the consequences (unnaturally bright dental work, obesity and devastating military interventions). The US, being the largest Superpower, but a relatively young nation still at heart, likes to see itself as the originator of new descriptions for things the rest of the world has taken for granted for years (a kind of over-bearing master of the bleeding obvious, with a sickly sweet grin and pom-poms). Then, as with the crowd who fell for the Emperor's New Clothes routine, previously sane and rational people rush to ape the new as it spreads like a wind-borne spore from its American heartland. But Americans are not immune to the dangers of this; there is a growing tendency, as evidenced by a growing rejection of 'pushing the envelope', 'thinking outside the box' in CVs to turn against their last best idea (remember 'have a nice day y'all'?). However, this can often come with a sense of incredulity at the strength of the backlash, a time slip in cognitive dissonance, whereby the previous common place is violently overthrown, sometimes accompanied by a public recanting of surprising vehemence, like a teenager throwing out last month's superband poster. Here's hoping they learn to ditch the utterly superfluous 'officer' soon. I can take the public recanting of the otiose or facile - if we must have Chief Execs (though I haven't a clue what they do, aside from pocketing salaries many times removed from the amounts doled out to those who actually do the work) let's keep their titles within the realms of the strictly necessary: British understatement takes back the boardroom and the annual report and accounting statements.