Why Business People Speak Like Idiots – A Bullfighter’s Guide. By Brian Fugere, Chelsea Hardaway and John Warshawsky. Free Press. 176 pages. $22.00.

As I rule, I’m a great believer in the old adage that a camel is a horse made by a committee. But this delightful little volume is the work of three authors, and yet it is as useful and instructive as it is wickedly entertaining.

Our three author-matadors maintain that business people resort to bull-slinging for three reasons: First, sheer vanity. They are out to intimidate others by using buzzwords and jargon instead of trying to communicate in any meaningful way.

Second, they have something to hide, or else they want to avoid committing themselves. In either case, the more obscure they sound, the higher their comfort level. As Oscar Wilde observed, “Nowadays to be intelligible is to be found out.”

Third, they are out to make the dull appear romantic. They want to pretend that they are not corporate drones, but the stars of a new hit TV series called “Miami Receivables” or something equally inane. (I once wrote speeches for an otherwise very intelligent CEO who insisted that there ought to be a TV series called, “L.A. Engineers.”)

Whatever the cause, the result is the literary equivalent of stumbling into the Great Dismal Swamp. Consider the language used by Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling in their last letter to Enron’s hapless shareholders: “We have robust networks of strategic assets that we own or have contractual access to, which give us greater flexibility and speed to deliver widespread logistical solutions … We have metamorphosed from an asset-based pipeline and power generating company to a marketing and logistics company whose biggest assets are its well-established business approach and its innovative people.”

After reading a weasel-worded paragraph like that, how could anyone doubt that the federal marshals were already on their way to arrest the perpetrators?

At the other extreme, the authors offer a stark but reassuring contrast. They cite the advice of one Gerald F. Merna. Mr. Merna served in the U.S. Marine Corps as a CNO, or Casualty Notification Officer. It is the duty of the CNO to track down and notify the next of kin when a loved one has died in service.

Naturally, this is an excruciatingly difficult and painful task, and, naturally, the Department of Defense has an elaborate set of scripts and guidelines for CNOs to follow.

Mr. Merna’s advice? “Read the pamphlet … and then forget it, and rely on good common sense and human instinct. Speak from the heart.”

Wise counsel for anyone in the business of communication.