The root of all business-speak

It might sound like "gifted us," but it's actually an arcane and clever pronunciation of "gave it to us."

gave it to us
geff itta us
gefftta us
giftad us
gifted us

Also I do not allow for poetic license or rhyme scheme cheating in the legal fine print on a brochure

let's table this discussion and take it off-line.

when/why did this stuff start? i mean, i can't imagine businessmen in the 19th century talked like this.

let us acquisitione that spende

actually I think Disraeli has several industrialist characters in his novels that talk like the 19th-century version of this

'It's a booked place though,' said the stranger, 'and no mistake. We have
all of us a very great respect for Manchester, of course; look upon her as
a sort of mother, and all that sort of thing. But she is behind the times,
sir, and that won't do in this age. The long and short of it is,
Manchester is gone by.'

'I thought her only fault might be she was too much in advance of the rest
of the country,' said Coningsby, innocently.

'If you want to see life,' said the stranger, 'go to Staleybridge or
Bolton. There's high pressure.'

'But the population of Manchester is increasing,' said Coningsby.

'Why, yes; not a doubt. You see we have all of us a great respect for the
town. It is a sort of metropolis of this district, and there is a good
deal of capital in the place. And it has some firstrate institutions.
There's the Manchester Bank. That's a noble institution, full of
commercial enterprise; understands the age, sir; high-pressure to the
backbone. I came up to town to see the manager to-day. I am building a new
mill now myself at Staleybridge, and mean to open it by January, and when
I do, I'll give you leave to pay another visit to Mr. Birley's weaving-
room, with my compliments.'

and is it wrong of me to also think of the the efforts that go into the decoding of dealer-speak by the cops in The Wire?

watch me superman dat hoe

^^^ is no noun sacred??

nsfw, obv

like, any trade is full of coded chatter and jargon; is managerial/MBA-jargon really so different from the way colleagues in various other professions talk to one another? Isn't the problem rooted in the fact that managers have to communicate with other workers outside of their typical sphere more often, so us non-managers have to listen to what sounds like insane babble?

that is if you separate management/public affairs/general counsel ass-covering neutralized bullshit speak from the conversation. that type of "business-speak" is a whole beast unto itself and has been covered in depth elsewhere

I was trying to get at this above -- I actually like word-repurposing when it's interesting or convenient or fun, but a lot of managerial stuff gets to the point where it's making up words to fill in for words that already exist (e.g., the bit about "orientate" upthread). Using "spend" as a noun that means "spending" is just weird.

I'm trying to think of verbs and nouns that get repurposed or abused in my area of work in a similar fashion

"Coming down the pike" is bad enough, but when they say "Coming down the pipe" I want to mini-gun the conference room.

toe the line
tow the line
tuff row to hoe

Or when they repeat words like "incent" because they don't want to use the actual word "incite" because it has negative connotations - it would be interesting if they made it up, but they didn't and they just sound like idiots for repeating a word that doesn't exist.

drop the lime

"Deliverables"?

I don't think there's a general rule about the goodness or badness of business speak, I have to say. During a big upheaval at the care facility where I worked until '03, we had a lot of meetings where we talked about the "culture" of the organization. I was pretty put off by this at first, but I came to see it as useful shorthand for "the various habits the whole team develops in going about their work, and the assumptions that like behind them, and the prevailing mood that those assumptions and habits help to build."

I am now defending some of the stuff that used to make my daily life completely insufferable, but what the hell.

when did "in silo" become a thing? can fuck right off again imo.

'in silo' comes from some sort of company structure diagram, right?

that would indeed be the context in which it appeared. repeatedly.

Had not heard before, was investigating, looked at this wiki page (which may help explain - it looks like it comes from that world of ISO-numbered management structures) and read that 'systems thinking promotes a foaminess of collaboration'.

that'll get rolled out in the next sprint

i love the word "monetize"

something so creepy and sinister about it

"in silo" sounds like an awesome horror movie I haven't seen yet

"in silo" was the finnish release name for 'Witness' iirc.

Where's nabisco been lately, anyway?

people like you find it easy,
naked to see
walking on air

don't walk away
in silo
don't walk away

transmission me that asap

Nabisco was so OTM on this thread, even using ("utilizing") the very orientate/conversate analogy I always rely upon myself. Dunno what people have against the word "orient" - maybe it's considered non-PC in some convoluted way.

xpost - First place I ever encountered the word "monetize" was on ILM, courtesy of a poster then calling himself "Monetizing Eyeballs". "Monetize" suggested some portmanteau of "vandalize" and "Monet" - blurring up a completed painting after the fashion of an Impressionist, and "Eyeballs" reinforced the visual aspect, so I got a fully unique (and completely wrong) interpretation of what the name meant. Wasn't until some months afterward that I began to encounter the word "monetize" in its usual context.

I've certainly heard of "silo structure" or "silo mentality" in a workplace - the idea that every deparment is a world unto itself and wont cross-communicate with the rest of the company, to its supposed detriment. These days its all about generalisation instead of specialisation, grumble.

Was listening today to an interview with the two guys who run the agency that created the new Old Spice ads. When asked how they work on ideas, one of them replied, "Well, we concept everything together . . ." That one just drives me insane. We already HAVE a perfectly good word for what you're doing: conceive. Most disgusting savages, etc.

TS: Business-vapo-speak VS Masters-Degree-in-Educationese

just heard the phrase "drink from the hose"

'conceive' is too sexy for orfice use

I would like to issue a prohibition against the use of the word "churn", when not within a butter-related context, and "champion" as a verb, when not related to "danny the, of the world".

This office, yesterday:

me: Do you want bullet points or numbers in this list?

editor: Numbers. It's part of the customer journey.

How do y'all feel about the tribune company CEO and his memo? The overwhelming reaction seems to be that he is "micromanaging", but I certainly appreciate his intent.

http://chicagoist.com/2010/03/10/the_119_words_you_cant_say_on_wgn.php

you know what business word my department uses a lot that i love? "flapping". as in "this problem has been flapping since 07:05 this morning" - it's perfect

flapping is like anti-business speak! pretty great imo.

this is rife in sports commentary nowadays. "the take away from this, going forward, for the canucks has to be getting value-addeds from luongo and allowing the sedins to leverage blah blah blah."

flapping is awesome!

i feel like it has some kind of nautical origin

Getting into a flap = Britishes old-lady speak for feeling slightly exercised about an event or topic. Flap also appears to be Anglo-Saxon for 'contrétemps'.

From an email today asking us not to put food in the recycling bin:-

"The consequence of incorrect usage of bins has been an upsurge in fruit flies."

"The consequence of incorrect usage of bins has been an upsurge in fruit flies."

New Fall lyrics sounding good, MES on strong form.

suzy it's not used in that at my work - there's no implied bad feelings - it's more of a physical thing i.e. this problem should have been TIED DOWN but now it's flapping and causing problems

what is a corporate workstream and how do i align to it

Do what you are told and don't cause problems.

speed

don't drown

h8 'workflow'

i wish work was a flow

'solutioning'!!!!#

'here's how we're going to solution it'

argh

i never saw eye-to-eye with my old manager, a nice South African lady who nevertheless used to ask me (w/r/t sales strategy) if I was 'building a pipeline'. I literally had no clue what she was talking about, having never encountered this expression and especially with an accent that sounded like she was saying 'bi-plane' :-/

wow sterl that is a prize specimen

Building a pipeline = meh. otoh, building a biplane = A+! Then you can fly it instead of attending meetings.

i've got one more thing i want to cover off

i am tired of hearing "triage"

Just saw the verb "to feedback", as in

"I'd like to feedback on the excellent level of service..."

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