Word of the day: upcycle

We’ve been blogging about how the people on The Apprentice use formal guff to sound serious and business-like. (An exception being Jenna who just comes out with anything. This week’s choice comment being ‘bins are good ’cos we can funk them up to make funky bins’.)

This week the two teams had to buy, sell and ‘upcycle’ junk. Now you’re probably wondering what jargon cave ‘upcycle’ crawled out from. So was I. Turns out it’s recycling with a twist. The twist being you have to add value to second-hand stuff.

But judging by what they were doing in the episode, upcycling means buying second-hand furniture, stencilling Union Jacks all over it and then selling it for far too much money. Another way of upcycling old tat was to glue wooden legs to suitcases to make mini tables. But only Sterling went down this route.

Phoenix were more cautious with what they bought, making po-faced project manager Tom seem like the fussiest shopper ever. But he had a plan; quality rather than quantity. And to justify the half-empty – or should I say half-full – shop, Tom described it as minimalist rather than empty.

Good use of language to cover a lack of things to sell? You tell us.