Consider this trend a swing and a miss

Hit it out of the ballpark. Run interference on it. Swing for the fences. That was a Hail Mary pass. We're in the bottom of the ninth.

This isn't just the language of sports enthusiasts in conversation. Increasingly, it's the lingo of business, where people search for the proper metaphor to describe goals and operations. But as these terms become commonplace in the workplace, they've divided it into those who get the point and those who don't.

For those who don't measure their lives by batting averages and driving to the hoop, the explosion of sports metaphors has become an annoyance.

Although Stephanie Yeung has played competitive sports since she was 5, she doesn't take her sports metaphors to the office. The 27-year-old MBA student at the University of Virginia Darden School of Business accepts their use and says the terms can sometimes be helpful; while living in Hawaii, she heard a paddling metaphor to describe leadership within a team, which made sense to her.

But as an athlete, Yeung understands when sports metaphors get used incorrectly. She's heard the term "chip shot" to refer to someone trying to speak more for the sake of speaking, rather than to communicate a specific point. But she finds the term -- which originates from the tiny swing that gets you into the green -- ineffective in that context, because she knows, as a golf player, that "chipping is actually pretty difficult."

Still, sports metaphors have lately become embedded within everyday corporate language -- perhaps because they fit the culture of teamwork, competition and goals. But more people are questioning their use. As workplaces become more global and diverse, and the explosion of social media accelerates trends toward open communication, the sports metaphor might not play to every business crowd.

"What becomes interesting about them is that they're not as broadly available as we like to think they are -- which is often true of the metaphors we use," said Spencer Harrison, assistant professor at the Boston College Carroll School of Management, "and they privilege some people more than others."

But Harrison believes companies are becoming more aware of the potential pitfall. He said it would be rare today for a CEO to announce to the company that "we're going to score this touchdown," to express a business' mission, because it could exclude part of the work force.

Whereas metaphors can be divisive when it's assumed that everyone understands them, organizations can avoid this problem by having an open culture where people are free to question meaning. For example, a visitor to England asking someone in business what the rugby term "scrum" means can lead to a dialogue on the interconnection of people and actually strengthen the metaphor's meaning.

Some individuals are becoming more aware that sports metaphors can exclude people from conversations and are rethinking their usage. Bryce Robbins, a student at the University of Virginia Darden School of Business, acknowledges that he probably unintentionally uses sports terms, such as "hitting it out of the park" or "swinging for the fences," too frequently.

Since attending business school -- where the 30-year-old has met people from diverse backgrounds -- he's become more aware of speaking to his audience and avoiding metaphors that are not universally understood. For example, saying "we're in the bottom of the ninth" might express urgency to a certain American audience, he says, but that "meaning will be lost on people who understand cricket rather than American baseball."

"Sports tends to be a gray, fuzzy area," he added, "and I think I've definitely tried to shy away from those types of metaphors. Or at least, if I say one, follow up with a brief explanation of what I am trying to convey and make sure the actual message comes across."

Elizabeth Powell, an assistant professor of business administration at Darden, said sports metaphors can be a convenient way to speak about competition in business -- but that as businesses become more diversified, there are some voices saying, "These sports metaphors just don't work for me."

Powell added that as more women have entered the workplace, language may have become more "gender inclusive." She is just as likely to hear businesses spoken of as families or communities than as teams, such as the phrase "we treat our employees as family." But regardless of the metaphor, she feels it's important to define what the terms mean, especially in terms of power.