I need to make it clear which type of curved balls I'm talking about here. There are two you see.

The first and better known is derived from the American game of baseball, and is their equivalent of what, before the US took temporary possession of the planet, we used to call 'a googly'. Metaphorically it means 'the unpredictable' - what Harold Macmillan called "Events dear boy, events". It's the stuff that ensures Henley Forecasting and Alvin Toffler are always wrong about the future.

With luck, you might see the last few seconds of trajectory as these curved balls swerve towards your skull. If you don't duck, a sore lump is inevitable.

This is becoming increasingly true in relation to the second type too, although there's nothing inevitable about the head-pain involved, and there's no need to duck. All you need is some recognition training - and the will to avoid getting involved.

Lord Birt is the accepted guru when it comes to curved balls, and most people in market research aren't far behind. Indeed, the pervasive factor in marketing, management consultancy, banking, professional soccer, fund management, health administration, social theory - and 'pr-spin' political strategy - is curved balls.

In most forms of 2008 strategy process, just about everyone brings curved balls to the table. And trust me, it's very hard to sit in on the process while half a dozen wonks say little of any consequence that isn't predictably curved balls.

Let me be frank: systemically speaking vis a vis both the heads-up and the various flashing lights on the roadmap, these days you've got to be able to Bend it Like Birt, or be prepared to wind up in a negative future epoch, career-wise.

To learn avoidance, you'll need to be clear not just about the phenomenon, but precisely how the definition is applied. And clearly, there are two elements in play - curved, and balls.

Curved syntax is rather like the wave/particle argument in physics, in that it's two things at once which appear to be contradictory. Thus, when speakers or writers twist linguistic expression, they use words which are either unknown and grammatically incorrect or very ordinary parallels of only distantly tangential relevance. The real comprehension problem stems from the use of both types at the same time.

Here is an excellent example of curved English in a corporate email to several recipients:

'I need to window your critical path schedules'

Overlaying balls onto this construct is what truly creates a profound depth of frustrated bewilderment in the audience. Here, I should make allowance for US readers - who, thanks to AOL, are visiting nby's webspace more and more these days. They would more clearly understand balls if they thought of the colloquial usage of 'shit' as a term in the United States. This is not the American verb as in 'don't shit me here, kid', but the ubiquitous noun. So if a person who talks balls is someone who 'talks a heapa shit, the fluent curved-balls speaker would be deemed 'fulla shit'.

In summary, 'balls' means codswallop, drivel, poppycock, nonsense or rubbish, and usually signifies somebody who has failed entirely to grasp either the issue, or the means of dealing with it. The nearest American argot equivalent is 'the guy's fulla shit and has his head up his ass'. Unpleasantly harsh I think you'll agree, but devastatingly accurate.

So - building our sentence structure further - the foregoing curved English becomes complete curved balls as follows in this email extract:

'I need to window your critical path schedules so we can action HR's active gender balance affirmation policy'

Here the congenital idiot or 'Programme Director' combines a baffling request with a barking idea in order to try and organise a meeting, the point of which is a mystery to the other folks who are going to be there - but great for the director, because the meeting is in reality utterly pointless.

Thus the central purpose of curved balls has in this instance been achieved: to continue surviving in the world of work by seeming to be more intelligent than one's colleagues, and completing tasks which (because they will have no discernible result, and nobody ever knew what the effect was meant to be anyway) cannot be judged on any criterion - but will use up an enormous amount of one's time. In this manner can a worker glide diligently towards retirement, and never once be held accountable, responsible or disposable. In fact, by age thirty five, most highly accomplished pitchers of curved balls are considered by the Board to be indispensible.

Thankfully, as I said at the outset these goobledee-googly bowlers are avoidable. However, most real people trying to stay out of their way fail because the means of doing so is inappropriate, as in this reply:

'Are you kidding? I'd rather lick seagull-shit off an oil-slick. Why don't you just fuck right off and do your legalised bigotry shtick - and let those of us actually doing something useful or profitable get on with it'

The huge error in that response is its decision to leave no room for misinterpretation of the content. Stuff like this gets forwarded to senior management - and a vigorous rebuttal of approved company policy is the best way known to Man of making alternative employment a matter of extreme urgency.

The key action required is an equally incomprehensible reply. While largely impenetrable for plain English speakers (and therefore entirely safe from accusations of cynicism) it will nevertheless communicate to your curved balls tosser 'two can play at this game mush, so watch it'. A good response might, for instance, be:

'Critical path analyses have determined that the only windows offering time-rich interface opportunities have engaged high-security closure status, in order to ring-fence the greenfields priority customer-facing transaction target hierarchy with outwardly-focused corporate colleagues. Also my work-station has ongoing remedial reparation backlog challenges requiring a 100% attention-set on my part. Please do however maintain loop-continuity for me vis-a-vis solution deliverables. Good luck - in the case of positive finality achievement, rest assured there will be a zero support-deficit from this module'

Now while all this tells you how to keep these jerks out of your hair, it doesn't stop them from remaining employed, using up valuable time, getting paid enviably disgraceful amounts of money, and one day becoming Chairman. Or Minister for Women. Or Party Leader, Foreign Secretary, BBC Director-General, Head of the Anglican Church and so forth.

To employ New Labourspeak for a clause or two, what's needed now is a crackdown on curved balls, including naming and shaming. This won't involve an ASBO, but rather an ACBO. Nor will it be an order; instead it will be an insult - Absolute Curved Balls Onanist.

In the near future - when I'm confirmed as Almighty Vizier of a breakaway East Devon - at the first hint of any naughty goings on (or even ongoings) in the area of public speaking and corporate writing, those on the receiving end will heckle "ACBO! ACBO!", rather in the manner of the scrawny hags who wore rosetted hats and screamed 'Enemy of the People!' during the 1790 Terror in France. For any ACBO rash enough to risk attempting freedom of strangulated speech, a tumbril will await. I shall be there by the guillotine, knitting erudite lucidity in my reporter's pad....in between enjoying the spectacle.

Postscipt: There is a third form of curved balls, although it wasn't relevant to the above thesis. It is a common affliction among the young men one sees on subway trains, and presents in the form of them having to sit with their legs taking up the seat on either side, thus affording everyone in the carriage a ringside view of their crotch lump. I think it may well be linked in some way to the practice of listening to amplified rap music through MP3 player headphones, but I'm not sure. I usually find it's best to leave this sort of conjecture to the medical authorities. And the probation service.

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