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Abstract

Salesman, representative. Selling has never had the same prestige in the UK as it has in the USA and, in order to attract people of competence and intelligence to it various devices are employed to grade it up as an occupation. A favourite phrase at the present time is ‘sales executive’ but, although this may look and sound good, it can be extremely misleading. The company which announces that it requires ‘additional Sales Executives in 1. Tyne Tees, 2. Kent, Surrey, Sussex’ (The Daily Telegraph, 18 Feb 1982) is using the term very loosely indeed. An ‘executive’, if the word means anything at all, is a person who is engaged in some form of administration (see The Dictionary of Diseased English for a detailed discussion of this) and who, in most cases, is responsible for the work of other people. A sales manager might properly be described as a ‘sales executive’, but the people needed for Tyne Tees, Kent, Surrey and Sussex are salesmen, not sales managers. Those who apply for these jobs are consequently being defrauded.