Each January for the past eight years I have handed out prizes to the finest, freshest examples of corporate guff spoken or written in the preceding 12 months. Until now my methodology has been autocratic: all decisions have been taken by me. This year, as a nod to the sheer size and maturity of the bullshit market, I’ve toyed with democracy and enlisted FT readers and colleagues to join me as judges. Yet I find I’m not ready to give up absolute power just yet. I have humoured my fellow judges up to a point, but when they have made the wrong choices, I have overridden them, thus ensuring all winners of the 2013 Golden Flannel Awards are truly exceptional, utterly original, jargon giants.

The first category is “Best euphemism for firing people”. Companies did a lot of firing last year and were more imaginative than ever in telling it like it is not. Most famously, HSBC “demised” its managers, Reuters caused staff to be “transitioned out of the company”, while other businesses “disestablished” or even “completed” roles.

By popular demand, I’m giving the prize to HSBC. In “demising”, it has done the impossible and invented a euphemism that is harsher than the real thing. It made it sound as if it were not merely sacking staff – it was exterminating them.